Exactly Momo! But knowing your story, I would say you probably will need to advance through a lot of the tools, maybe even through 15... But I hope I'm wrong. Feel free to focus on the first few for now - and we can wait and see if that will do the trick. I'm all for that approach.

Just remember, Tools #1 and #2 are on-going. We need to make sure that we are doing the best we can about these two tools at all times. (The rest of the tools are not this way).

Reb Guard, any thoughts about my first post today?

Regarding my question in my first post today, I just read this in teaching #10 of the GYE handbook. The answer to my question MAY be here:

"Also, maintaining our addiction requires constant hiding, lies, and living a double life. This cuts us off from the world around us and doesn’t let us feel the tremendous kindness of Hashem that fills our lives. It blinds us to the goodness in the world around us, to our souls, and to Hashem. We begin to lose appreciation for our own wives and children. We are unable to find inner peace, we can’t stop lusting every where we go, and we remain closed up within a shell that no one can penetrate."

It goes to say that the opposite is true. If we break our addiction, we will reconnect to the world around us, feel the tremendous kindness of Hashem that fills our lives, see the goodness in the world around us, to our souls, and to Hashem. We'll regain appreciation for our own wives and children, find inner peace.

Is this the answer or are there different answers? The key is to push aside the physical fleeting feeling of escape and "love" in order to gain the spiritual feelings of reconnection to Hashem and to the world, and appreciation for our family.

Hi Momo, please forgive me, I didn't see your first post. Thanks for pointing it out - it's beautiful, as usual!




That is an excellent question! You write "I read today's chizuk email". Well, please go back and read it AGAIN (#500), this time slowly, and think about what Rabbi Twerski is saying. I think it answers your question pretty well! (And download the linked Shiur from Rav Noach Weinberg as well)...

Also, see Rabbi Twerski's answer to Jack on this question over here.
And read Jack's discussion with me and Rabbi Tweski on this page, from top to bottom.
And read Principles #17 and #18 in the Attitude Handbook.

Phew, that's a lot of reading! But it's not a lot if you realize that this is a VERY FUNDAMENTAL question.
And hey, no one said you should finish this all TODAY  ;D

P.S. I just saw your new post about #10 in the Attitude Handbook. You hit the nail on the HEAD! And all the links that I gave you to read (above) will center around that idea and help you develop and internalize it!

Reb Guard, thanks for your response.

I reread chizuk #500 and I read the 2 links you suggested.

If I understand correctly,
-We have to understand the difference between pleasure (which is physical and fleeting) and happiness (which is spiritual and everlasting).
-We also have to ask ourselves what is my purpose in life, since I will find happiness if I fulfill my purpose.

The thing is, when the Y"H strikes, it's an emotional response, while the 2 points to ponder are intellectual. We know the Y"H enters with a "ruach shtus", which is emotional and pushes out rational thought. Now the question is how can we push away the emotional knee-jerk waves that overcome us during a moment of passion and fill them with rational thoughts? I'm thinking maybe we can stop the emotional thinking recognizing it as soon as it starts, and then reading (or thinking) the rational stuff. I'd like to hear what you think about this.

(Am I on the right train of logic here or have I gone way off? Am I making any sense?)

You are making perfect sense, and your questions are hitting onto the secrets of the very core of recovery more and more!

I hope today's Chizuk e-mail (#501) can help answer that question ;D ... Coming soon!

P.S. You couldn't have read EVERYTHING I gave you to read so fast, could you?  If you missed something, go back and read it - when you have time, or when the YH strikes 

MOMO-
I am not that experienced but in response to your concern about what will fill the void, I have had the same concern. The way I approach it is with the following two points:

1) If I first get control of my lust, I can then make the intellectual decision if I want to go back to it. As long as I am in the clutches of my addiction, I can never make an honest decision regarding whether the lust in a good idea.

2) More importantly, the feeling of the need for love is only satisfied for a very breif moment, followed immediately by a longer, more intense void. In the end, I never feel that I have helped myself by lusting.

Hope this helps.

Momo, fistly, this is an INCREDIBLE thread PLEASE keep going.  You're asking EXACTLY the right questions, hitting all the fundamental issues one after another, bang, bang bang!  If we all internalize even a fraction of these ideas, we'll share our own special room in Gan Eden that is currently being decorated.  Today you did it again.  You said:



You're DEAD ON once again.  From my experience, the answer to this question is the reason why the recovery process can take a while (years, depending on your situation).  Ultimately, we need to FEEL these ideas on an emotional level in order to truly replace lust which as you note, is primarily driven my emotions.  Dov is a master of this but it's taken him over a decade to internalize it.  Initially, recognizing your purpose in life, the gratitude we owe Hashem, what our relationship is with Him and what He has done and continues to do for us constantly is intellectual.  However the more we think about it and the more often we attempt to identify Him in our every-day lives, the more it will penetrate on an emotional level.  Eventually, you live with Him constantly, He is your "eternal friend" and you're filled with true contentment and happiness emotionally.

Dovid Hamelech tells us in Tehilim. "טעמו וראו כי טוב ה" It can't really be explained. As soon as you taste what it means to have an intimate relationship with Hashem, the question dissapears. This is one of the aspects of  זדונות נעשין לו כזכויות  because that very dependence and connection that has developed between the addict and the lust as a result of all the falls, is redirected to Hashem through  תשובה מאהבה. And that's one of the reasons why במקום שבעלי תשובה עומדין אין צדיקים גמורים יכולים לעמוד




I'll tell you something interesting. When I was in Yeshiva we were always told that only the first 11 perakim of the Mesilas Yesharim are relevant to us. I learnt through many of those perakim numerous times. But then one time when I was about 27 I learnt through the whole sefer. Even though I was reading about stuff that was way above my level, still reading through the whole thing had a very profound affect on me.

I don't mean to compare; I just think that in this case also there is great benefit reading the whole thing.

Momo,

You have given me so much Chizuk that I started reading the attitude book today only because of you. I am taking it slow so today I did #1 with Chazara. Dont forget to do Chazara. maybe read today's and yesterday's portion that you read.

-INH

INH, you can be the first one to start a journal in this section! (Momo's was moved to here)

i can give it a try but im not sure id be so good at it. which thread should i do it under?

Start a new topic on this board. Call it "IneedHelp's Handbook Journal" or something like that.

First I want to say a big thank you everyone who's replied (hoping, aaron4, Ineedhelp, battleworn, of course GYE). Reading your responses, even a one liner "your posts give me chizuk" gives ME a tremendous amount of chizuk, and fuels me to carry on with the battle.

I mentioned in the past that Sunday is my hardest day. I almost always fall on Sunday. I guess it's the motsei Shabbat thing, and the fact I am at the beginning of a new work week (in Israel we work Sunday through Thursday) at a job I am very bored with. I know Motsei Shabbat is a big time to fall for a lot of us. As a result, I practically stopped turning on my home computer on Motsei Shabbat. It's not worth the test.

Today's report (it's a bit long, but I felt the need to review some of the major concepts that we hashed out last week):
Tool #1: Attitude
I read today's chizuk email and responses to my posts on Thursday.

I remind myself the first step of the 12 steps ("We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable"): I am addicted to lust and it overtakes my life if I don't try to control it, and that I can't control it all by myself.

Set 2 of the 12 steps ("Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity"): I believe in G-d who will help me with my battle. I also have a circle of friends here on this forum who are helping me.

Step 3 of the 12 steps ("Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God"): I will not do the battle myself, rather, I give the lust up to G-d instead. I never (and still) don't understand how this works. I think while this approach helps a lot of people, for now, I have to take a different approach that might help me, one that I mentioned on Thursday. That is, I have to stop lustful emotions as soon as they start, and ask myself, is what I want to do going to give me pleasure or happiness. Pleasure is fleeting while happiness is eternal. I have to remind myself that I must WANT to let myself go of the lust, even though it gives me a temporary feeling of escape from my mundane life and from my loneliness, because of the following:

Pleasure is fleeting and cuts me off from the world and doesn’t let me feel the tremendous kindness of Hashem, doesn't bind me to the goodness in the world, makes me lose appreciation for my wife and children and be unable to find inner peace.  I remain closed up within a shell.

Happiness is ever-lasting reconnects me to the world, makes me feel the tremendous kindness of Hashem, see the goodness in the world, helps me gain appreciation my wife and children, and find inner peace.

I read from the GYE Attitude handbook numbers #11 and #12, and they go together beautifully and stresses the point I just made in the previous paragraph. It says in #11 "Just once is always too much. A thousand times is never enough". In #12, entitled "True fulfillment vs. false fulfillment", when talking about lust "...when the pleasure is over we don't have any fulfillment ... and that's also why we want it again not long afterwards, even though we just had it."

Tool #2: Guard my eyes
Guarding my eyes in the office, on the street. Using the "heker" of my fiters to guard my eyes on the internet. When I feel weak, I'll try to read from the GYE handbook instead of trying to bypass my filters.

Tool#3: Fences
I think it's time to investigate the next tool (#3). A couple of weeks ago I made a blee neder that after I fall I'll donate 200 shekel to tsdaka. I did this twice, then stopped. I found that this didn't help me, since when I was in the throws of passion, I didn't think about the money, just the fleeting pleasure I'm about to get.

A much better tool for me is to make a fence BEFORE I fall. I was thinking, and here's something that's worked for me. I tend to fall (act out) in the bathroom. I justify it by saying that I have to go anyway to relieve myself, so I can't help but go, yet, I know I'll do more there than just relieve myself. So, what I've done a couple of times, and I'll try to do more (blee neder), if I get that feeling to act out, I'll simply hold it in and NOT go to the bathroom. I'll wait 10 minutes, and by then, the lust will have passes, so when I go to the bathroom, I'm simply going to do what needs to be done there (relieve the waste).

Another fence, which actually is a halacha, is to say to myself that when I'm in bed or the bathroom, I won't touch myself there. This is hard to do, but a very good fence, for obvious reasons.

Tool #4: Daily Chizuk
I read today's daily chizuk email.

Ineedhelp!! wrote on 11 Jun 2009 18:23:


Dear holy "Ineedhelp",

I'm so happy to hear that! In fact, the attitude book is so great, and I'm sure each person who reads it gets something else out of it, it's so important for everyone to read it. If you post your chidushim from each tool, blee neder I'll read your posts, and we'll learn through it and from each other's experiences together!

In fact, after I go through it once, I hope to go through it again and again since I'm sure every time I go through it I'll learn something new. How many books do you know of out there that you can say that?