Take it however u want. This had a profound impact on me :

"The Ba'al Shem tov observed one of the simple yidden in the market running hurriedly back and forth through the city day after day.

This yid  was shvitzing and huffing and puffing.
              Gently Confronting the yid with a smile and warm heart, the Rebbe asked "where are you running to so fast?"

"My life! The things I have to get. You know, my merchandise etc.," replied the yid.
                                                                      "Is it working? Are you acquiring and achieving all that you are reaching for?"

"No!!" responded the yid. “That’s why I'm running!"


"How do you know that all that you're chasing after is in front of you" replied the Ba'al Shem Tov. "Maybe if you slow down and relax a little -  at least sometimes -  you'll see how your life and all its Blessings will actually catch up to you."

I actually practice this, and it's working... I'm no diffenrent (better or worse) than anyone here, so if it works for me...

??? (Ps I would highly suggest as a yid a friend to not miss tefilin.. Even if for only Shema for 2 minutes.. 

For hundreds of reasons...

ontheedgeman wrote on 05 Jun 2011 03:17:


I have immense and genuine respect for you - you have achieved what few can (including me - my arrogance sticks to me and is so difficult to shake).

wannabehappy wrote on 03 Jun 2011 18:52:


(Glad to see you stood up for yourself there.)

Yes, keeping busy is very important.  It just struck me that you could use some healthy outlets, some joy and satisfaction in your life.  Sure, you can rise above this addiction without it, but it would make it easier for you, and give your Y"H less excuses.  And because a Jew is happiest when he's growing in learning (even if it's 10 minutes a day).  So I suggested you talk it over with your wife.  Not because she's the problem.  Just because she's your life partner and you should be able to discuss stuff like that with her.  Make sense now?

With brotherly love,
Alex

We are all with you, we all have special strength to get close to hashem, that's why we have  this problem,  the each time we overcome temptation in shamyim they throw a party!!  and never feel guilty bec thats the real test!

Dear wannabehappy,

Sorry for posting things to you in a poor way. Maybe I am in a negative zone, I don't know - I certainly have 'bad days', too - and will take your words as they were meant - sincerely. And now for a few confessions that may explain a bit:

I am not in charge here, in any respect. I will get booted off by Guard (the admin) whenever he wishes and will have no complaints, for I have no 'right' to be here. In fact, I have never gotten the "Chizzuk Emails" and have never written a "Daily Dose" thing. Guard does all that on his own, and always has. So I am just here 'by accident' like all of you are. I am a sick man, an addict, who is b"H in recovery, like lots of others here. I am a frum yid who found Hashem's help for a raging sex and lust addiction through SA, after failing with rabbonim, shrinks, marriage, attempts at 'acting it out of my system', medication, and a whole bunch of willpower and tikkun klali's over about a 20 year period.

When I suggested to ontheedgeman that he not give advice, I meant in SA meetings, should he decide to go to them...but not here on the forum! SA is certainly not the right answer for everybody, and neither is this forum...but for many yidden it is a start. Here we all need to share and spew, and even whine. GYE is the very first chance for so many of us to finally get a bit of our shameful truth out, for a change. (SA is the same, but once our experimentation is over and we commit to go somewhere in order to learn and change and get free, then it's time to listen rather than give anyone else advice - chayecha kodmin.)

So wannabehappy, if I stomped on you, sorry I came off that way. You listed the litany of my errors well and it is clear that I communicated poorly. I truly was talking to the ontheedgeman about his post to you, yet that was a rude way to do it. What I did was wrong, sorry.

I sincerely believe my comments might help - or I would not write them. Maybe people can sift the truth from my rudeness, maybe they can't. But if you met me (and I'd be glad to meet you or anyone on GYE in person, anytime), your understanding of everything I wrote you would be completely different, I am sure. And it goes the other way, too - I cannot know you based purely on what you write.

And that's what I meant about 'half of the story'. People - particularly in relationships - can only tell their half of the story (me included, of course). So, giving advice about most things is just crazy, I figure. That's why I try to only share precisely what actually worked/works for me and I try to qualify it as such. I do not darshen based on what i think is just or good.

Another confession: Even though I know that without usernames there would be very few if any people posting here, I maintain that it comes at a heavy price. In fact, the entire virtual-ness of a forum is necessary - but comes at a price.

That price is honesty that has. Our problem seems to thrive on secrecy. And how can we find the true medicine while hiding behind a computer? OK, maybe we will....but then also hiding behind a fake name, too? You see what's bothering me - (not for my sake- cuz I am using my real name - but for yours. I love all yidden, especially the sick ones like me). Of course the fake names allow people to express themselves MORE honestly, yes....but I believe that such honesty has gums in the place of teeth. I feel it is just too 'free of charge', and cheap. Easy come, easy go, they say. (and 'they' are sometimes right!) 

So please consider forgiving me for getting silly about your username. I take you seriously, yet cannot do the same for the usernames. I confess.

Dov I would meet you in person anytime as well. You definitely don't seem to know me or anybody I know.

Seriously though, I've said im an addict, I've tried so many different things. In a yeshiva that I used to be in they even had a chart that was public. I didn't join but I've been exposed to the mentality of this site for close to ten years. I wasn't just white knuckling. I took things a day at a time. But I know im hardwired to the point that I feel I am addicted.

What's the next step.

I've had webchaver. The problem isn't just internet. Its my mind. I definitely glorify women and they become so irresistible im just lost. My darkest moment was probably when I took a trip to a foreign country with some newly met girlferiends with every intention of doing the wrong things just to banish the curiosity craziness. Thank god he didn't want anything to happen and at the last moment the girl 'who was pretty high got nauseas and asked for a raincheck.
I decided to get married right away and contrary to the popular opinion here it did help me.

I've tried to psychoanalyze myself. I can't figure it out for sure.

The reasons why are still not clear to me.

I've been obsessed with women since kindergarten

Later on it became the answer to boredom,through 'curiosity'

Then it became stress.

Its still all three.

Now I get a 'system overide' even when im focused, even when im doing good stress wise,even after a good two weeks and then another good two weeks. It wont stop.

And so rev dov,and all the mebinim out there,

What do I need to do?

That's great that getting married was some help to you. I propose (better than proffering! ) that you were helped by marriage because it created a relationship in your reality, in your life - or in your psyche, if you prefer (I don't know you, remember?).

And here is a moshol to explain that, free of charge! I have not shared this one with anyone in about a year....

Star Trek (the old one) had an episode in which Captain Kirk (a Jew) did a time machine trick to go back a few years to fix some mistake or something (cuz they didn't know about 'gam zu letovah'). Anyhow, his buddy, Mr Spock (noch a yid) told him that everything would be fine - as long as the Kirk from this time reality never actually met the Kirk from the other time reality.

If that happened, chas vesholom, there would be untold damage to 'the time continuum' and the fabric of the universe just might rip asunder (and since they had three more seasons left to film, that could not be allowed to happen).

I can't remember what happened in the rest of the episode, but there were a few more seasons, so it's kind of obvious that they worked it out somehow...

OK, so the nimshol is obvious!

See, I sneaked around for years, using my porn, my acting out, and had my fantasies all hidden away in my mind. Eventually, there were two Dov's - a very nice yeshivah guy; and a self-loathing, selfish, and sex-hungry pornaholic. They both went to mincha, to yeshivah, home to the dinner table, to the porn shows, dirty bookstores, the bathroom floor, etc....but the folks who knew me as one, could never be allowed to see me and know me as the other!

I carefully guarded each persona. When I was in the schmutz, I took off my yarmulka and tried to hide the frumness (not to make a chillul Hashem, of course!)...and when a friend would say that some poor schlep was caught with a hooker and arrested, I'd have to declare "yuck, how decadent of him".

But I got caught by my wife in '95. The two Dov's were - for a moment - brought together by having the same person in my life know me as both. That was a pain I felt like dying to avoid. Dig me a hole, give me an alibi, do something! This can't happen! But it did. A very bitter medicine to swallow.

So I tried to get better for about a year with shrinks, medicine, the whole shebang - but just got worse and worse. Until one day I got so bad that I just had to stop. I was broken and gave up losing. And without getting caught, I went for help on my own - not to save my marriage, and not to get my wife off my back (so I could act out in peace) - but to save myself and not lose my life.

And I knew that the help I needed was to introduce the Kirk of one reality to the Kirk from the other reality. But that cannot happen as long as we are alone, for we do not really allow it to occur. We invariably varnish the sickness or confusion of one or the falseness or the goodness of the other. We do not ever see the truth about ourselves on our own, no matter how much we hurt.

We need a third party to make the shidduch between one Kirk and the other. That is the wife when she catches us, the police and newspaper when we are arrested - and the guys in my SA meeting every time I come and share openly with them my real life.

Sweet chassidishe guys who come to meetings and introduce themselves as 'Bruce' instead of Burich, 'Solomon' instead of Zalman or Shloimy, and 'Moses' instead of Moisheh, do not often do very well. They are not allowing their (good) reality into the meeting - their truest deepest self as Jew is left at home or in the Beis Midrash. They are not allowing the people in the meeting to force the two Zalman's to dance together! Lo zu haderech.

So...(whew!) are you still doing all your excellent work basically alone? Or do you get together with other real live recovering people from GYE, SA, or wherever, to share vats tootsach mit dir on a regular basis?

If you don;t, then maybe that's the missing ingredient for you.

It was for me.

Hatzlocha!!

yesod sheb'Malchus!! Yow!

So.

That mashal is incredible, on so many levels.

Here's an interesting extension:

Can the present (heimishe) Kirk kill the past (schmutz) Kirk? He cannot, for if he did, he would be killing himself, or at least an integral part of himself.

That's why, for the addicts, you need a third party to bring the two together and face the "continuum rending" head-on. You can't just refuse the reality of the other self, and its existence as a part of you. Thus, denial tactics don't work.

That marshal is really clear and to the point its perfect

thank you Dov for that beautiful explanation!

Wow...you are all welcome, but I got it for free from the Boss, it seems.

Dov I thought that was a terrible Moshol, or maybe I just missed the point.

You were saying that until you were able to make the good Dov and the bad Dov meet by being caught by your wife you would have kept on going.

Yet you admit right afterwards that being caught by your wife didn't help. THe only thing that helps is realizing that you can''t live with yourself, not your wife or anybody else in your community.

Why does this self relization this self honesty require a third party? If you are willing to be honest with yourself and you realize that life as it is is unliveable, why does it matter who else you involve in the process?

maybe if someone could somehow get caught by their wife every day they could forgo the SA meetings...
getting caught is a one time experience and with time the effect wears off. going to meetings regularly keeps it real.

Wow ! what Dov said is so true and powerful that it makes me think if not only to the world do i have have 2 sides but to myself as well. Very often i find that i can sit on gye or phone conference writing/saying yes i am an addict etc.. and soon after when i am back to my regular life i am thinking I am just fine that's all  non sense. (thats probably because we want to be normal and not feel like i need to change ) And that would happen 10 times a day flip flop - yes i am - no i am not.

So even though i dont go to SA I can see Dov's point so true. When we actually say it in person and come out of our fake double life. It becomes more real and factual verses nice idea and keep on keeping our secrets and never really working what we need to get us in to real recovery.

Because if you still want to hide it that shows that you really do not yet accept it, yourself. Why else would it need to remain hidden and 'private'?

Yes, there are excuses and rationalizations galore for that...shidduchim, my job, my reputation, chillul Hashem, "it'll give me a negative self-esteem", oy vei...but in the end, it appears to me that only by having the secret out - to real people who see me with my tzitzis hanging out (rather than the other thing) (sorry) - does the tremendous split within me lose it's power.

I mean, how do we tolerate such a huge stirah in ourselves?! We compartmentalize in fantasy-land...that needs to stop. Eventually, no more BS of any kind is tolerated.

I am not talking philosophy here, but reporting from the field, as usual. Those who hide their true identity continue to be very ill, no matter how smart they get in recovery shprach and theory. The beast stays in its cage till it's let out...

Still unclear?