Hi. This is Dov...how did what I just posted get put under "an honest mouse"s name?

thanks for the info even though you're tired, i appreciate it. I guess you must've modified my message by mistake insead of quoting it...

i guess im kind of at a loss who to pick to call, i feel it needs to be someone who knows fully about my addiciton, i have to be able to explain exactly what's bothering me at that time and what my issues are and then the guy has to be someone who can talk me around it all and make me see sense and bring me back to reality. Someone who i will trust and believe and listen to... anyone want the part ??? how do i chose that guy? does my being in the uk restrict me to someone on uk time?.... outside of my wife the only other people who know are my therapist and my rav but i dont think they are what i need, i think it should be a normal guy ie, not someone in a position of authority.

Here's where im holding, my clean times are getting better in quality and longer throughout the day, however, when i start to slip, i fall much easier. In other words im slipping less but slips are leading to falls quicker. I dont really know what that means, but i figure if i could call someone right when im starting to slip, ill snap back to reality.

thanks yosef hatzadik - yaakov shwartz fixed it, apparently i was the 1st guy to fall on the 31st of the month and they never noticed till now.

anyhow, still in a rut... 10 days/6 falls - not sure why, not liking it. Maybe i thought being part of GYE would solve all my problems.... maybe ive still been looking (subconciously) for a quick fix... its not - its a lifetimes work... maybe the enthusiam of joining up is wearing off... maybe im just depressed tonight and ill feel better tomorrow... :'(

im gonna read the quick fix paragraph in the attitude handbook now - have a good night all

i love you guys and miss u...

an honest mouse wrote on 02 Jun 2010 21:03:


OK, so why should it be a normal guy rather than an authority? To me, the reason for the blued words is found in the red ones. As far as me and most of my recovery buddies are concerned, making the call is not about getting really good advice. It is mainly about shedding light on my secret and removing the 'protective net' I cast on all my lusting. The main 'protective net' is secrecy. It is the main way I manipulate the circumstances to ensure that things will go my way - that is, the way of my lust. Letting that secrecy go is the most real step we can take toward actually letting go of our lust and our acting out.

Just ask the guys who have a horrifying time making that call before they act out - they'll admit it feels just impossible to make that stinking call....I wonder why the stakes are so high.

Of course, there are those fellows who regularly make that call, and act out each time anyway. But that's the topic of another discussion. Most adddicts who I know are not like that.

That's why the 1st step reads "We came to admit..." the 'devil' is in the admitting. So the more honestly, openly, and frequently we do it, the freer we generally get. That's the magic of real, live, meetings. It kicks the faker's butt. And we are all fakers, showing the entire world a pretty face while hiding our ugly one. That is ego-driven manipulation and eventually needs to be jettisoned in order that any progress be made.

So we do not really need to be talked down and convinced no to act out...we need to admit the truth about ourselves to another understanding person (of course in order to understand that person must also be a recovering pervert). If that person truly understands and believes that we have an illness, he will listen and empathise. Share a similar situation he had. Put a hand on our shoulder and remind us that Hashem will make it OK and take the pain of not having that pleasure go away. Faith is what we need, and sometimes we can only get it from other addicts, not from rov's, shrinks, or anyone else. The other questions you raise you can figure out on your own better than I can.

Hatzlocha!

....and if I may humbly add from my experiences to Dov's wise words.
The reason it is soooo difficult to make that call (I know the feeling, I have made such calls already.) even for someone who has already worked on the first step. He has already admitted, he came to GYE, but he admitted it in the past tense. I find it to be not so difficult to say what I did. Yes, ein adam choteh ela im kein nichnas bo ruach shtus etc., but to say that I want to do it now, that is much harder!

Additionally, admitting the past is not a direct confrontation to the Yetzer Horah. To call for help in a present battle, you are struggling with him in thick of war! You're requesting reinforcements. The Yetzer knows that he may be able to vanquish you when you are on your own. He wants you to stay alone. DON"T GIVE IN. MAKE THAT CALL!!!!





If you want a different perspective: The Yetzer comes to you when you are due for a nisayon in your avodas Hashem. The person whom your are calling is not undergoing a nisayon now. He has no Yetzer Horah for your nisyonos.

If you call someone who understands how such a nisayon feels, he won't laugh at you or look down at you. On the contrary, someone who makes such a call is to be admired much more than the guy who admits an actual aveira after the fact. He is even much greater than the person who was not gripped with these nisyonos to struggle with!

thanks guys that is REALLY helpful. Dov its nice to know that im not way off and yh its insightful to hear that from another 'relative newbie'.

To continue with the news, i read the 'overhauling character traits' paragraph in the attitude handbook (coz dov and bards mentioned it recently), i always felt that i was a pretty decent guy without any particularly bad character traits - but hey - i must have some otherwise i wouldn't have ended up this way... I found the following really helpful:



'We never learned how to deal properly with pain, anxiety, resentment, stress or anger. We have always used the addiction to hide inside ourselves, and we refrained from mature emotional interaction with others. While our peers were growing up and learning about life from the world around them, we were zoning out into our fantasy worlds of self-pleasure and escape. And so we often remained as emotionally immature as a little child'.

and From Rabbi Twerski, "How does one become a different person? By working diligently on improving one’s character traits. Learning how to manage anger, to rid oneself of resentments, to overcome hate, to be humble, to be considerate of others, to be absolutely honest in all one’s affairs, to admit being wrong, to overcome envy, to be diligent and overcome procrastination. In short, one should take the Orchos Tzadikim (I’m sure it’s available in English), and go down the list of character traits, strengthening the good ones and trying to eliminate the bad ones. This does not happen quickly.
When one has transformed one’s character and has become a different person, one will find that this “new person” can accomplish things that the old person could not".



it really picked me up last night and im gonna pick up an orchos tzadikim asap and go through it thoroughly asking my wife to constructively criticise that particular character trait and asking my rebbe how to apply it practically, i pray that this will be set me in the right direction...

an honest mouse wrote on 03 Jun 2010 21:36:

I love you some much, I also feel that we must be somehow related!  ;D :

you never know yh, we may be related, ive got plenty of cousins in nyc - or - who knows? we could've been in yeshiva together...

an honest mouse wrote on 03 Jun 2010 21:36:



However i recently remembered a post by briut:

Briut wrote on 11 May 2010 14:55:



Is my plan a bit counterproductive? but who else knows me better and spends so much time living with me, who could be better at pointing at my character flaws, who else could do that for me?? what do you guys (especially briut, the 'ba'al hamachshovo') think???


btw, ive finally managed 3 clean days again for the 1st time since my rut started....

Glad to hear that you're living life...stay focused on each day!

I fell again yesterday. I was in an exam and there were a few triggering girls there, the lust was building up subcontiously but i didnt have time to deal with it coz i was in exam. Then i sat next to a friend on the train on the way home, came home dealt with my 2 year old who was in a very demanding mood, gave her a bath, put her to bed, ran to mincha, came back tidied up her toys and had to leave for night seder, but all the lust had built up all day and i just didnt have the time to deal with it and at that point i wanted to act out to relieve the stress of the day and actually do something pleasureable...

If I had someone to call, im sure i couldve talked it out so that will hopefully be solved soon... but i dont know how to deal with lust building up on a very busy day, when i just dont have 5 minutes to myself to let Hashem in, ask Him to take away my lust and rework the lessons ive learnt this past few weeks.

I have also realised that the yetser horah/addiction/animal inside of me is trying to get me after a fall, not with depression, i think ive sorted that out now (maybe a bit too well, maybe ive convinced myself that its not so bad to fall...) but by telling me that what ive been working on till now has not been working and i should give it up and try something else. What gives him the right to tell me to quit stuff after 1 fall?!ive still not got a partner guy to talk to and i haven't started going through orchos tzadikim yet, so i haven't actually tried that stuff yet. Anyways - i have 119 clean days since i started less than 5 months ago and i think that is  something to be proud of.

Thanks for listening!

an honest mouse wrote on 06 Jun 2010 20:45:


I learned a very very hard lesson a coupla years ago. Might no apply to you, but I'll share it FWIW (for what it's worth).

I was having a VERY difficult time at work. Both the work itself and the people I worked with. (Employees, Fellow Managers, Bosses, everyone.) Couldn't figure it out. I kept asking my ezer k'negdo to examine things with me, point out my middos issues and confused thinking and anything else. And her comments were very minor, very gentle, and overall very supportive.

I emphasized that I couldn't expect answers to these from my therapist, my employees, my oldest friends... NO ONE but her. And that my career might depend on it. Even so, she simply didn't have any "football coach" kinds of suggestions for improving the situation. She merely validated (as did all my "so-called friends") that I was fine and the scene was scr*d-up.

Turns out, there WERE some things to work on. And I probably blew it. And my career has since taken another direction entirely. (Probably a bracha, so my aishes chayil helped me reach a good place, anyhow.) But I was bitterly angry at her for not calling a spade, a spade.

Well, it turns out, women aren't like that. Period. They reflect to us the kind of loving expressions they want from us, back to them. Only sweetness. Only positive. If therre's no way to sugar-coat the truth... lie. Just never, ever spread negativity.

So, a "best friend" might have offered observations and suggestions. But I'm not her best friend; I'm her rock of stability and perfection and dragon-slaying. So she'll never say what I was asking for. And that's that.

DOES THAT AT ALL ADDRESS WHAT YOUR QUESTION MIGHT HAVE BEEN?  RSVP.

thanks briut, that 100% addresses my question. Trouble is, we're kinda backwards to the stereotype, shes the logical one and im the emotional one - i dunno if that makes a difference...thanks very much for your imput though.

Mum/7up - i dunno if you read my thread, we've never been introduced as such but i wonder what u would have to say about my question. Is my wife the best person to go through my character and have her constructively criticise it with, or is that dangerous coz it gets her thinking about all my faults, or futile as briut says in the previous post, coz she will just pamper me (i dont think my wife is the type to do that...) if your reading - thanks in advance!


In other news, i fell again last night on my way to night seder, usual routine, i was very depressed last night i thought perhaps the initial entuiasm of joining GYE was over and i was back where i started, people are communicating with me less and im feeling isolated again, but i had a long chat with my wife (no explicit information and about other things that were bugging me) and i felt much better, i need to start orchos tzadikim, get a partner, breath new life into this avodah, letting Hashem back in and start to really deeply want to be clean.

I have more to say but I will have to wait... gotta go to night seder (for real though)

yesterday i twice start lusting for a couple of minutes but managed to pull myself back. I then listened to some old nostalgic (jewish) tapes from my youth and it really took me back to my 'source' as it were, it reminded me who i really am and it resparked my neshomo which has been a bit dull for the lust 2 weeks or so (due to my falls) i feel alive again b'H! I dunno why Hashem has suddenly inspired me again out of nothing but i dont care to be honest, im trully grateful!

Ive realised something - now is the time to work hardest on all the tools and tactics, dafka when i feel great - dafka when things seem to be going well, so that there will be some sort of routine to hold onto in the dark times.

a side q. - is all the action now going on in the w.o.h section and if i want interaction, should i move there or will it make no difference?

an honest mouse wrote on 11 Jun 2010 10:15:

My view: makes no difference. You can run, but you can't hide.

Love is like a butterfly. If you love them, let them go. If they come back, fine. If they don't come back... hunt them down and shoot them.

But I could be mistaken. I think it happened once.

silentbattle wrote on 10 Jun 2010 03:40:


This quote from sb has helped me quite a bit in the last few days. Whenever I felt lust starting to build coz an opportunity has risen ("come on you can do __ now, you  have a few minutes to yourself and here is the trigger all ready for you to lust with..."), one that I would've almost always acted upon in the past (not necessarily acted out with, but for sure started lusting with), I just took a deep breath and thought to myself, yeh - you're right, i could do __ now coz the opportunity is here and i would do it if i wanted to, but I dont want or need to do it right now thanks, maybe later...

Thanks sb!

btw - 3 days  and finally got hold of an orchos tzadikim - so off to work on that one!