bh I started the 90 days process and I'm by my 10 day. And I stated to participate on the conference calls. One this I learn so far is that one of the way to get out of the addiction is by helping someone, not to focus on your self but the other, to try to see the good on everyone etc. My question is if this is true why is it that there is chabad chasidim,shluchim that they have an addiction if they are the whole day focusing on how to help someone and being DEVOTED to the 'Kavana Eliona' most of their life?
I would like to hear an opinion on the matter.
May hashem help us go thru this with strength! 

daniel22 wrote on 31 Aug 2011 15:34:


Imagine a person is rachman l'itzlan sick and he goes to the doctor and the doctor prescribes him a strong antibiotic.  The doctor tells him that taking the antibiotic will cure him from this illness.  He takes the antibiotic but he takes nothing else.  Instead of eating three meals all he takes is the antibiotic.  He comes to the doctor after a week and he can barely move and he is showing no signs of improvement and has zero strenghth.  The doctor asks him what he did the past week.  The patient says I took the medicine like you told me, truth is I probably took more than required.  The doctor says well that may not be such a problem what else have you been eating?  "Eating" the patient responds.  You didn't tell me I have to eat!.  I haven't eaten all week.  You told me to take the medicine which I took religiously.  The doctor responds.  Fool.  The medicine is one part of the treatment, you can't expect to get better by just taking the medicine but neglecting everything else.

The nimshul should be obvious.  Doing good is very important.  And helping others with their struggles is extermely useful.  But it is one part in an overall plan of recovery.  You still have to eat.  Hatzlacha

Hi, and WELCOME!

Good points UAJ!  daniel, you are also assuming that the person is doing this chessed TOTALLY for selfLESS reasons.  Deep down (maybe not so deep ) there might be some kavod involved etc...

It's good to have you with us!

Here's the welcome package.

Welcome to our community, you have finally come home!

We're all in the same boat here. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama   Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up with them!

GYE Program in a Nutshell: (Right Click the link and press "Save Link/Target As" to save the PDF file to your computer).

'Guard Your Eyes' offers a unique approach to helping people by recognizing that there are many different levels in the struggle for "Shmiras Ainayim" and "Shmiras Habris". After studying the experience of hundreds of religious strugglers over the past few years, we put together the suggestions and recommendations that we feel are best for the various levels. We divided the tools, features and services that GYE offers into 8 different levels. This "GYE Program in a Nutshell can help people quickly identify at what level of the struggle they are at, and which tools and features would help them most at their particular level.

Here are some quick things you can do to help you jump straight into recovery:

1) Make sure to install a strong filter. It will be almost impossible to break free of this while having all the garbage within a mouse click away. See this page for one good filter option, along with instructions on how to install it best – and give away the password to our "filter Gabai"… See this page for another 20 (or so) filter ideas and information… We also highly advise installing "Reporting Software" such as webchaver.org to give you some accountability, because filters alone are usually not sufficient and they can often be bypassed.

2) Join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day.

3) Scientific studies have shown that it takes 90 days to change a neural thought pattern that was ingrained in the brain through addictive behaviors. Did you join the 90 day chart on-line? Sign up over here.

4) Post away on this forum! You will get tons of daily Chizuk and support. This disease can't be beat alone. It works best when you get out of isolation!

5) GuardYourEyes also offers many free anonymous phone conferences where you can join a group of other frum Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See www.guardyoureyes.org > Tools > Phone Conferences for many different options. Our conferences are taking place every day, morning, noon and night… Joining a phone group would be a tremendous step in the right direction for you and help you learn freedom from this addiction. Not only will you learn the secret of the 12-Steps – which is known to be the world's most powerful program for beating addiction having helped millions world wide, but the daily call will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

6) If you need more general guidance, write to our e-mail helpline at gye.help@gmail.com or call our hotline at 646-600-8100.

7) Download and read the "Guard Your Eyes Handbook". This handbook outlines the GYE approach in detail, and makes our network much more effective and helpful for people. The handbook has two parts:

A) The first part, "Attitude & Perspective", details 30 basic principles to help us maintain the proper attitude and perspective on this struggle. Here are some examples: Understanding what we are up against, what it is that Hashem wants from us, how we can use this struggle for tremendous growth, how we can deal with bad thoughts, discovering how to redirect the power of our souls, understanding that every little bit counts, learning how to bounce back up after a fall, and so on and so forth…

The second part, "The 18 Tools", detail suggested tools and techniques, in progressive order, beginning with the most basic and fundamental approaches to dealing with this addiction, and continuing down through increasingly earnest and powerful methods. No matter what level our addiction may have advanced to, we will be able to find the right tools to break free in this handbook!

May Hashem be with you!

Welcome Daniel !

Agree with UAJ.  Helping others is one of the steps to recovery.  It's not a protection.  And if we already have the illness, it's not enough to cure it.  We must first at least begin working on ourselves.

L'Chaim!
Alex

UAJ, precious! :D

every religious jew "should be" devoted to kavana elyona all of his life but......  :-[

Our problem (of people on this forum) is not that we are not nice guys, that we don't want to help others or that we don't want Moshiach to come, c"v.
Our problem is that we are sick in the head (whatever the reason for that is, as exculpatory as the reason is).
So it doesn't matter if you are a car mechanic, a melamed, or a shliach of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Your sickness doesn't care what you do for a living or how many blatt gemoro or shurois Tanya you know b'al peh. The problem of looking at stuff you shouldn't didn't start when you went on shlichus, and it will not end by increasing in acts of goodness and kindness.
Ur-a jew's answer is very cute, and Guard likes it, so what can I add without offending the chabadnicks amongst us?
Some people would be ashamed to face the Rebbe. Either because they failed the shlichus, or because they failed themselves. Either way, it's not pretty. Boredom accounts for some of it, lack of emese Yiras Shomaim for some; but for the most part, we are sick sick sick, and until we realize that and ask for help, we can not be helped no matter how many peulois, and mivtzoim, and hafotzas hamayonois we involve ourselves in.
The problem that we face is not denominational, nor is it a religious problem at all. You can go to mikva every day, and wear a gartel zum davnen, and have the hoichste kavonois during shmone esrei. If you spend the rest of the day thinking about girls, looking at them, fantasazing about them, ma*******ng...THEN you are sick in the head
AND I WELCOME YOU TO THE CLUB!
It doesn't hurt for someone who is on the Rebbe's shlichus, to come clean to the meshaleach and beg him to shlepp you out of the blotteh. He will do it with pleasure, just like he did for me (although I'm not a shliach).
After years of banging my head against the wall and ma******ng my life away, I finally wrote a pa"n, and begged the Rebbe to intercede on my behalf, and I told him I give up and can't stand myself anymore. And within one week I was directed to this website by Hashgocho Elyono. 
In my unverified and unsupported opinion, if anyone thinks they can get over this issue (of p**n etc) by getting frumer, by learning more Tanya/Mussar, by affixing more mezuzois, or by any other means other than acknowledging your helplessness and begging to be helped....they will be hurt more before they can be helped.
Stop now, and give up, and write in to the Rebbe, and pray to HKB"H, and realize it doesn't matter what style hat you wear: you are sick, you need help, you can't do it yourself, you finally found the place where hope is revived, take full advantage of it. Don't worry, if nothing else, the Rebbe would approve.
Oh, and don't you slow down with the shlichus: just because you are sick, doesn't mean that the people around you need to be disadvantaged.

I'm not a chabdsker, but I'm thinking if.a subforum- or specific area designated for chabd would be beneficial for chabad ppl.

I think that Gibbor120 hits the nail on the head. We can be involved in something that looks like pure giving, but it doesn't mean that we're actually focused on the "other," on being selfless. We can have ALL kinds of "me" focused reasons for being involved in giving of all kinds. And for many of us, we usually do have more than a bit of ulterior motive, whether it's kavod, or hoping we'll get sex, or hoping that then people will like us, or treat us nicely, or stroke our egos, or even because it makes us feel really great about ourselves.

Let's say someone is involved with tomchei shabbos - a beautiful organization! But they can be involved because it makes them feel really good, or because they feel other people will give them the kavod they want, or other people will like them more, or there's a really pretty girl working for the organization and he wants to spend time with her, or there's a pizza shop on his delivery route...need I go on?

A chabad friend of mine told me that believe it or not the Rebbe actually says crystal clear words to do what GYE and SA say to do.
In parshas BO he says "some people think that by doing more good, and more good, and more good, that they will help themselves. Torah Kedosha says "NO! ...BO EL PAROH" . Come and face your inner evil, your inner paroh. Face your inner destructive self, everyone has it, and from THIS you will reach your personal Geulah" (after BO the yidden left mitzrayim)
This is what this fellowship of friends is all about. (I believe in the gutnick chumash this is printed in 'the name of the parsha, parshas bo)

(If a shliach, or anyone, comes from a home where there was excessive anger in the parents, especially hitting, then all the good in the world won't heal the tense foundation he/she has from childhood. Also, if the parents were 'detached' and the child was 'raised by the outside world' is the same thing. Then the person does 'good deeds' for slefish 'please fix me' reasons, like the other guys mentioned)

R. Heller sh', The Rosh Kollel in Crown Heights [who is a ben acher ben from Tosfos Yom tov, from Brisk, and came to Chabad because of the limud Ha'Torah and simple getlichkeit of the Rebbe] said "shlichus is not jumping in a mikva w/another yid and playing patty-cake... It's not a party. It's an enormously holy work which requires real sincere avoda. We have to connect w/as many yidden as possible, for Hashem, but we also have to know who we are"..

Back on Track wrote on 01 Sep 2011 12:56:

Is it because I mentioned the Rebbe and Moshiach in the same post (albeit a hundred words apart)?
I thought this was an all-inclusive forum, for people with a specific shared problem, denomination notwithstanding?
We all stand to benefit from our diversity, don't we? Chabad is accused of being isolationists as it is, why would you suggest putting them in an exclusive ghetto on this holy forum?
Sorry, BOT, I didn't get the implications of your proposal; but I think it would be a disservice to this community if we start bickering and separating into subgroups based on whether you prefer Rav Dressler to Satmar Ruv or to Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Mottel, I'm a semi lubo and I think that it would be beneficial if we had an area where we could post specific ideas/questions/chizuk that are chabad related. I don't think it should be an official "sub forum". Chas Vshalom. If there is no Achdus on this forum, where will there be? But this thread would be great (with permission granted by the author).

I think BOT might have been suggesting a separate area for our benefit, not for the purpose of separation.

BTW, I get the feeling that there are quite a lot of chabadniks on here... Anyone else want to say hello?

I didn't take BOT's suggestion as an assault on chabad, nor am I in any position to defend chabad (if it needs defending) on any grand scale.
But on the face of such suggestion, I think it would be a detriment to everyone here if chabadniks huddle in a corner and whisper their secret hashkofois to one another to the exclusion of everyone else.
"Other" people will not go to a specific chabad thread, and chabadskers may prefer to only go there, and a lot of good posts and recovery ideas would be lost if they are not shared across the board. 
So I think it's a bad idea. 'Nuff said.
Also, some people may not want to placate such an identifying detail as being chabad.

obormottel wrote on 02 Sep 2011 15:58:


Chalila vchas- I meant my comment to be taken as chabad has certain practices which I read in the post right befirehand that I was nufamiliar with, I also dont identitfy personally with what shlichus means to a chabadsker etc.... I just meant that perhaps Chabad yiddin could undersand each otehr and help each other on a dedicated thread and of course we all help each other on the forum.

In many places i have stated, my personal outlook towards recovery is totally unrelated to yiddishkiet, hashkafa, mussar.... and anything that gets more specific than basic faith in G-d (as out monotheistic outlook of G-d of the Torah is). Chassidish, litvish, sephardi.. makes no dif to me in gerneral and especially not woth regard to recvovery.

I dont see what Yetzer Hara has to do with recovery either but that is a separate discussion i guess. My apologies if I was not clear. I happen to love the fact taht Chabad is everywhere and helps Jews everywhere this is one of the thigns that they have accomplished that no one else has been able to.

Back on Track wrote on 02 Sep 2011 17:56:

That is exactly how I see it: if all that we needed to do was become more religious (thru chassidus, mussar, etc), we wouldn't be here. That's why I objected to a denomenational divide.
We share a basic faith, and the rest is about recovery.
We are on the same page :D
I re-read my original post and realized that I did use a lot of chabad-specific lingo, so perhaps I should have limited such response to a private message. ???