Hey guys I’m here again!

i am addicted to SE..
i am addicted to food
i am addicted to cigarettes
i am addicted to the internet

i think i am just addicted to addictions

What do u guys say about me?

Or maybe these addictions are just addicted to me

i am already confused what the addiction is & who the addict

You are You; The addiction is addicted.

What is the connection?

I say youre a Jew In Pain looking for a way out. This is only somethign you can do if you believe in yourself. Thats not confidence its pride. Its not feeling ashamed of what youve done but looking forward into the future to see the potential in yourself. So JIP, look at yourself in the mirror and ask the question: "Can JIP do this?"

-Yiddle

Reb yiddle, the answer is YES JIP can and will do it with the help of hashem and his fellow members here on GYE
So how do we start

:-X"JIP" will NOT be for Jew In Pain :-X. Soon it will be for Jew In Paradise! :D Yemei hashamayim al ha'aretz - Heavenly days while still on Earth!!! :D

jewinpain wrote on 22 Mar 2010 22:33:


You already did start! You want to know how to continue? Keep growing every day hour minute SECOND!!! Grow in your connection with Hashem and your connection with others. Undertsand that when we lust, eat, smoke, surf, we are acting on the impulses of our brain that come because of emotions. We cant act on emtions. Do actions based on your values. Your emotions might tell you that you are sad and need to act out, but your values will tell you that sadness does not mean that. It means something bad happened and you are going top have to learn to deal with it in a healthy manner. Crying is healthy, acting out is not.

Keep moving forward and dont stop or look back!

-Yiddle

This is my favorite pshat in the whole world. I've been saving it up for a while. It has brought me through the hardest of times and allowed me to continue to believe in myself after any time I fall. I hope it serves you well.

Elisha ben Avuya was a Tana who visited the heavenly Pardes (ein sham) and as a result lost his faith in Hashem. Once he went off the derech, was refered to as 'Acher'

The gemarah relates how his talmid, R. Meir, constantly tried to bring his Rebbe back on the derech. Finnally after much attempt, Alisha ben Avuya related his story to his talmid (R. Meir):

"One day when I was walking past the churban, I heard a bas kol (heavenly voice) go out and proclaim, 'Everyone can do teshuva except for Acher' From then on, I understood that returning back to H' was impossible."


So heres the famous question:
[i]How is it possible that Alisha couldn't do teshuva? Everyone can do teshuva!! (kal vachomer one of the greatest tanaaim to ever live....)

So R. Ahron Solevetchik answers: Elisha ben Avuya missed the whole message. OF COURSE HE COULD DO TESHUVA!!!! You know who couldn't do teshuva? Acher!!! Acher, Elisha B. Avuya's false self-perception- ie. the Y"H. He can never do teshuva!!  

What the Y"h had done (and does to all of us) is that it deceives us into believing we are someone we are not. Rather than allowing a person to see his true good nature, the Y"h deceives a person into believing that he is someone else. He tricks us into forgetting who we really are. He turns ME into us a "failure," a "lost cause," an Acher if you will.

What the bas kol was really telling Alisha was that he had to leave behind his 2nd self, his fake self-perception, because that "identity" had no share in ever being close to H'.

So what we should all know is that we are made of two parts...........
Ourselves............ and your very own "sinning soul."

[ The Gra writes that this was a power given to the Y"h, to make a person believe  that he wants what he does not want and desire what he logically knows he does not desire.R. Akiva Tatz beautifully (and simply) proves this idea, that from the sin of Adam Harishon, the Y"H was given the ability to deceive a person into thinking the Y"H is himself and its desires one's own. All one must do is listen to the voice inside his own head and he will know exactly what I mean.
       I ask you who is speaking in this case: "I would like that piece of cake. I would like to have/look at X,Y and Z. I, I, I."  Vs. "You should go learn now. You should go daven now. You should really share the cake... You, You, You." Many of us in this generation are on such a level that our own true voice, our deep desires for our goals, for Truth, for closeness to H' can only be heard as distant voices of a stranger (if we are lucky enough to hear it at all).]

May each and every one of us be zoche to realize that I am ME..... and he/that is someone else!

May we all live with this message on a daily basis and taste the freedom that comes with rediscovering our own true identities!!

Very powerfull
Tnx bro!
I'll start the day with that in mind, and with hashem's help beat him out
???? ??????

ok - so what is the problem.

you have an addictive personality.

can you imagine how far you can go if you become addicted to Torah?

can you imagine hw many people will be able to look up to you as a leader and winner - when you break your addictions.. you will become very relatable to them.

Jews are a stiff-necked people - we jsut need to find the right things to hang on to.

Dear JIP,

I am also addicted to each of the things you mentioned. It's overwhelming to deal with; which is worst? Where to start?

I think the key here is baby steps, and dealing with them one at a time. For me, some of the addictions are easier to control than others, porn probably being the hardest for me to control. But once you beat some of the addictions, and you feel you have the upper hand, you will soar in confidence which will get you further than you ever thought you could get.

You have suffered greatly, JIP. So have I. That's probably why we are both addicted to all that junk. But these were things we adopted because we thought they could help us at a certain time. They didn't help, and even if they did, the conditions now are totally different than when they started. They are just a knee-jerk reaction to certain circumstances that we have.

BTW, for smoking, I highly highly recommend the book "The Easy-Way to stop smoking" by Allen Carr. It may sound junky, but it is very effective and helped me a lot with cigarettes and addictions in general.

dear ahron,
thank you for that gevaldig vort from rav lichtenstein. it is blazing in its simplicity and power.
that one is going in the long-term memory bank be"h.
thank you
zmiros

just to give credit where credit is due:

Rav Ahron Solevetchik,

not

Rav Ahron Lichtenstein ;D

glad to hear you enjoyed!

oops, my mistake, thanks for correcting that.
btw, is he the rosh yeshiva in Chicago?

ZemirosShabbos wrote on 24 Mar 2010 19:51:


Yes he was, he was nifter about eight year ago.

thanks holy yid