Woooo!! We are all addicts, here? Excuse me? There is no room here for a yid who is not dependent on self-destructive behaviors, but simply is struggling with an embarrassing obsession with a pretty coworker or with the annoying presence of hardly-dressed women on the street??

So maybe the guy is fooling himself that "this is really a totally new problem!" - but maybe he is not! Maybe he really just misses porn and masturbation because he remembers how nice it felt (even though it made him feel terrible, too), and he needs a little chizzuk not to resort to the cheap thrill.

So, personally, I could not possibly help such a person by sharing my own experience - cuz I never succeeded at stopping out of wisdom nor conviction. I am no one to tell him "you ought not!". But somebody out there might be in that boat! And maybe some of you here can share valuable experience with fighting the YH. Maybe. Not me, but why not somebody else who is not what I'd call "an addict"?

Isn't there room for those guys here, too?

In fairness to the 'hardliners' here, I must say that when the type of sweet yidden to whom I am referring do appear here, they often are on the attack! They feel threatened and labeled by the entire addiction thing, do not understand it, and try to destroy the entire binyan.

One of them cam here a few years ago and basically suggested that we are all on the wrong track here - instead, we should get his "Daled Amos Laser", attach it to our hats and be saved from pretty woman troubles forevermore.

Others have attacked the 12 steps users with the "goyishe source" business, as though sanity is goyish, and Jews should only be concerned with yir'as Shomayim. (Is sanity really only for goyim? That would explain some things I see in my shul board meetings....just kidding.)

Some have tried to say that porn of goyishe women is actually, technically mutar. And apparently someone here has suggested that masturbation is not really as big a deal as the chevra here say it is. Huh?

It's all nuttier than a Chanukah fruitcake. And we don't even do fruitcake!

But live and let live has to go both ways. Why should I believe that someone else is an addict, let alone try to 'convince him' of it?

What's the answer to all this? I do not know.

Dov, finally! You're late to a party, and apparently you've been drinking coolaid.
None of the hard-liners have suggested that the guy buys himslef an "I am an addict" badge and displays it on his hat right next to the Moshiach flag. He is not an addict, by his own admission, and that's the only admission that really counts, isn't it right?
Nobody, not even the Guard, is chasing him out of the forum.
But I do see that whoever edited the guy's post did a disservice to the entire community (sorry to whoever it is I'm offending right now), because even the great Dov doesn't see anything wrong with the attitude that unleashed these hard-liners on a poor soul who found a way to make a living by not ejaculating on his lap.
This entire thread and especially the last post by the author (before it was edited) is meant to belittle the struggles that a lot of guys here are fighting. Not the process by which we fight it, but the fight itself.
By G-d, I wish I met milehashem earlier in my life.
Mastrubating is not ossur! I am breaking my head trying to quit it, turns out it's a waste of time. I can be enjoying myself with my p***s in my hand, unless I want money or dveikus or both.
I don't want either, so I think I'll be off to pleasuring myslef any minute now.
Unless I want to live.

patur is still "patur aval assur" - not saying it's a great mitzvah to do it, just that it's not what the Zohar HaKadosh is talking about.  The Zohar is talking about specifically what Onan did in the Chumash - intentionally preventing the conception of a child. 

Anyway, I've seen advice in this forum that if one falls, he shouldn't get depressed or worried about it, but just be happy and resolve to do better next time.  Wouldn't that be a lot easier if the guy didn't think he just committed a sin equivalent to murder???

I fully agree, if someone is looking at indecent material, that is an addiction in and of itself, even if (by some miracle) the watcher never did anything else.

Anyway, I obviously don't belong here, so shava tova to all, hatzlacha with your treatment, and kol ha kavod to the webmaster.

There are 3 approaches a person can take.

1- It's mutar, what's the problem?

2- It's like murder, I am a murderer, and have no hope.

3- It's a serious issur, and I need to take steps to overcome it.

Both 1 and 2 are treif.  Don't make it mutar, and don't get depressed. Do something to help yourself.

Very well put Gibbor!

I would add a 4th approach (which is only for addicts though).

4 - To quote Dov: "I do not particularly care exactly which "lav" suicide is. I'm not interested in it for other reasons!"

Milehashem,
Thanks for the Shana Tova wishes.  V'chein l'mar.
On Yom Kippur eve, take a look at Tfilas Zakka (in your machzor before maariv.)
This will be, b'ezras Hashem, the second Yom Kippur in my life that I will say regarding MZ"L "sometimes intentionally" knowing that I didn't.
That's why I'm here.
Love,
Alex

Interesting that you mention tefillah zakah. I have never been able to bring myself to tears on yom kippur.  The last 2, I was in tears reading tefillah zakah. I'm glad I had a tallis over my head.

With a clean mind it is much easier to feel.  Feeling is being alive.
L'Chaim!

Whenever I 'brought myself' to tears it always felt a bit empty. Like a bit of a 'show'. And I felt good about it, like I had accomplished something and was now putir gevoirin. "I made it! (drip, drip...)" It was nice, yeah, but still left me feeling like an actor.

Maybe it's just me, but I think that the best kind of tears are the ones we do not have to 'bring ourselves to'. If we are doing things right, then eventually our tears will flow, and we will know that we are being moved by His 'hand' and that something is finally 'right with us'. It will happen. And when it does, we will not be able to take a drop of credit for it. And to me, that is what makes all the difference!

The entire thing - first the teshuvah, the recovery, the character defects and the improved living, the hurt and repairing relationships, the horrible things we did, and eventually our childhood and being born at all - it all gets re-framed through His Chessed.  It's as though He miraculously unravels our present, and eventually our past, into a tapestry that is really very nice to see. Every ugly blemish serves some sort of purpose, every bit of our horrid experience becomes more valuable than gold to the newbies who come after us, and eventually even to ourselves.

It's sort of like the Sfas Emess on Avraham Avinu seeing a "birah dolekess". The Sfas Emess teiches dolekess from the lashon of "dolakto acharai" by Yaakov avinu, meaning "chasing" or "striving".

Avraham Avinu somehow saw in this world that everything was chasing Kedusha - each thing at each level of the briyah was trying to identify with the level above it. Asiyah to yetzirah, etc. He saw that and realized, "There must be One Thing at the top!," and asked his famous question, "mi ba'al habirah?" 

Hashem, through our recovery, re-frames our addiction into something that does His Will, even though it was aveiros! He gives us a Teshuvah meAhavah, where it all become zachuyos. It's a gift.

Enough darshening, sorry if I went gaa-gaa, there. It's all about living spontaneously, not acting a role. Just letting Him in, and living. "Getting Lost in living and finding yourself in G-d," is the way Chuck C., the old alkie would put it. So beautiful.

Have a nice day.

Dov,

I agree.  I don't force tears.

Rav Lazer Brody (I think paraphrasing Rebbe Nachman said)

"When you pray with tears, the gates of Heaven open.  When you pray with joy, there are no gates!"

milehashem wrote on 15 Sep 2011 05:29:



Could you expound on that, because i dont understand why genuine prayer from tears is worse then genuine joy

I once heard ("outside", sorry) that who does a mitzvah b'tzar gets 100x the reward of a mitzvah done easily, but that one who does a mitzvah b'simchah gets 1000x the reward of an easy mitzvah.

Despair is an illusion.  It's borderline avodah zarah.  Crying from a place of despair is like saying that there is no Being who can fix things.

Rebbe Nachman says, the yetzer hara wants you to be depressed over your sin, more than it wants you to sin!

When you remind yourself that Hashem Hu Elokim, the most natural reaction is happiness and joy.

Serve G-d with joy!

gibbor120 wrote on 13 Sep 2011 16:09:

dov wrote on 14 Sep 2011 22:36:


That was kinda my point.  I simply can't "bring myself" to tears.  Somehow, the last couple of years, tefila zakah just struck a cord, and  :'( :'( :'(.

Maybe this is stating the obvious, but this addiction has a numbing effect on our neshamos.  If tears are the sweat of the soul, it's no surprise no-one's sweating in the fridge.  Besides, many of us had our various childhood experiences that gave us our tough shells.

This past Sunday (9/11) I was driving to work and flipped on the radio to hear a tape of people reacting as the second plane hit.  A woman cried "OMG" and I started to cry right there in the car.  I didn't cry once during the event 10 years ago.  So maybe after a couple years of sobriety, my neshama is peeking out, warming up to real life.  Which includes feeling.  It's new.