Disclaimer - this is a bit rough, but not nasty nor disrespectful...seat belts and airbags recommended (unless the user is <60lbs.)

Sorry, but all this stuff about 'convincing people to take a certain aveiro seriously' is well-meaning, but just silly. We here all read the kitzur, we all read sforim about how terrible avon haBris is, we all cried in the shower after masturbating, and we all have woken up with the terrible depression and self-hate from vivid wet dreams because of the naked people we saw in pictures or real life. The married ones here already found out that getting married does not help, but only makes our problem even worse. And we already know that getting our wives to watch over us only makes them insane and doesn't work in the end, either. Many of us have found out that contrary to the party line, our problem is not mainly "bris Kodesh" - but honesty. We isolate and lie, and most people like us have no idea what do to. The shame is too great, the chillul Hashem is too great, and we all think we are the worst. All lies.

Is the answer then, reading another sefer about how our children will die R"l if we don't keep a sh'vuah, or if we masturbate again?

I think not.

Maybe for some. But some of us will just masturbate again - to our sincere utter surprise! "I can't believe I fell again..."

Some of us cannot stop, some of us can but do not really take on any serious help...some of us talk to a rov or shrink - but do not really tell them everything...then we are shocked when it doesn't work...why?

So here someone who means well and is truly a beautiful yid tries to explain tha chamurdikeh nature of this aveiro or that aveiro? As if that has stopped us in the past?This is what people came all the way to GYE for? Yet more of what does not work?

OK, so I am here just to ask questions this time.

Hatzlocha and I hope I did not scare anyone away or hurt anyone's feelings. These questions must be asked by someone. It might as well be by a recovering (boruch Hashem) pervert like me.

Dear Dov,

The two paragraphs below are from the GYE handbook. They seem to suggest an approach that you seem to have problems with. I do not for a moment believe that you are among the "people with no Yiras Shamayim" for whom this will not work. But could it be that you are among the "high-level addicts" for whom it will also not work? At any rate, why look at things totally from your personal perspective and ignore the fact that others may benefit from ideas that you are knocking? Wouldn't that make you guilty of 'egoism', which is a no-no in this recovery process?

סליחה אלף אלפי פעמים אבל תורה היא וללמוד אני צריך

ידידך מ"ט

The TaPHSiC Method: Study and apply the TaPHSiC Method (see tool 10). This is one
of the most powerful methods for frum people suffering from low-level addictions. It
teaches us how to balance our Yiras Shamayim - which doesn’t generally work very well
in addictions, with tangible self imposed penalties. By wisely combining the two, as
described in the TaPHSiC method, we can produce a strong fence to protect ourselves
from the addictive behaviors.

The farther we have fallen into this addiction, the more extreme measures we will need to take to break free of its clutches. TaPHSiC stands for “The Physical & Spiritual Combo” Method. (“Tafsik” also means “Stop!” in Hebrew). This tool has worked well with many Frum addicts in helping them stop these destructive behaviors completely. It may not work for high-level addicts or for people with no Yiras Shamayim, but for most frum addicts this method has worked wonders, and it has freed many people from the obsession.

Welcome to the forum,

If you really want help, keep on posting! That's where it starts.

--Elyah

Reb Dov;
The high octane response may have been partially my fault. Luckily מ"ט was mechavein to my intention.
I understand and relate to your issue with this- intellectual knowledge hasn't helped me in the past either. But Reb HappyJew asked for info, so I gave it.
I still agree with you more than him...
Brocha V'Hatzlocha!
ET

OK, so I love you, MT, and Guard loves me, too - even though he knows that I do not see eye to eye with every GYE idea. In fact, my 'hechsher' is not worth much, b"H! And my way is surely not the only way, and GYE is not monolithic. So here I go sharing aroiss with anyone who wants to listen:


I do not believe in "levels of addiction", at all. Let me clarify with a moshol:

A woman gets pregnant and takes an EPT test...it's positive. Another woman is three months pregnant and showing...she needs to buy a new wardrobe. She needs to tell people. Another woman is eight months pregnant. She needs to work less, sleeps little, and is exhausted.

Each woman has a different experience than the other is having - yet all are equally pregnant. Equally. The eight-monther is not more pregnant than the first day-er. Her experience of pregnancy is more involved...yes. But does she have any more power over her pregnancy than the other - no. None. Aside from abortion, each is powerless - in the very same boat that has the very same destination. Like getting onto a roller coaster ride. Sure the early pregnancy can be 'ignored' - that is called denial. For the one who wishes she were not pregnant at all, denial feels pretty good...but with the passage of time, it becomes a more difficult thing to avoid. She will need to make progressively more bizarre - "I gained weight," "I can't come into work today, I got a stomach virus, throwing up," etc.

I believe that few of the guys who make contact with GYE are addicts. I also believe that few of the men supporting the porn industry are addicts. I think most of them just like it, so they use it. An addict - whether he be a frum yid or l'havdil a goy - is the one who buys the magazine and then tears it up or burns it...then buys a new one a week later even though he knows he will tear it up as soon as he has that orgasm - and the bitterness that comes with it. I know plenty goyimn who do that - for the real motivation to hate our acting out of our lust so much is not the aveiro - that is a smokescreen. The real reason many of us hate it so deeply is because we are disgusted with ourselves knowing that we are out of control. Like little children or animals. This is why they call them "adult bookstores" - to hide the truth that peeking at naked ladies and playing with himself is actually one of the most immature thing a man can do.

An addict is stuck. He can't stop, and he cannot tolerate acting his lust out any more. He is 'over the barrel'. The pain of living the lie is just too much for him...finally. Now that he (or she) sees failure, there is hope that he (or she) will finally need G-d. Elokai - my G-d, my own G-d. Not the G-d in a sefer, but the G-d who is with me. With me in shul, with me while I am on my knees in the bathroom masturbating to my I-Phone images, with me when I am with my wife or children, when I am alone, and even after I am long dead. he is my Best Friend, and He is eternal. Hmm.

In the first paragraph of the handbook quote above,
I would personally replace the word "addictions" with "habits". Simple. But b"H I am not the one writing it. Hashem has sent someone else to do that. And my job is here, on the phone with the sweet, very lonely yidle who can't stop looking at the porn in the office, the sobbing chusid or kolel guy who just slept with his fifth prostitute and his wife is pregnant or going to the mikvah tonight...

As the sforim all admit, schmutz feels so good and is so exciting, and having sex with ourselves (people call that 'masturbation') is so tailor-made and enjoyable, that the fact that it is an aveiro is nearly irrelevant to the heart. The typical guy - even with yor'as Shomayim - has a very difficult time really, really wanting to stop enough to give it up. That's whay we have sifrei mussar, learning with hispaylus, and fire and brimstone. It's all emess - and it is a tremendous struggle - but it helps normal people quite a bit, at least to improve. Torah tavlin!

And all that is not relevant addiction, at all. Addiction as AA's typically describe it, is not hard to stop - it is impossible to stop. It is not the normal desire we all have for sex or sexual pleasure. It is an allergy. The guy that doesn't forget the dirty scene, that thinks all about the pretty girl even after she goes away, who lives with an undercurrent of concern about about how good or bad sex with his wife will be...twisted.

For an addict, the practice of focusing on "the holiness of the struggle" just glorifies obsessing about porn. It makes his problem much worse. That is why none of the 12 steps are about overcoming our desire to drink or lust or take heroin. None. They are all and only about living soundly (sanely)and comfortably with ourselves with G-d and with people. The lust addict has a little problem with his sex - but has a huge problem with life without his sex. Sobriety is the problem for him, not drinking. So he eventually will revert to his habit, for life on life's (G-d's) terms is unbearable to him (or her). Running does not help for long.

But running will help for most people. For when they are clean, they discover: comfortable living! The ones who repeatedly slip back into acting out their lust or drinking (and that it gets worse and worse) oght to consider that they might be addicts. That they might be powerless because they are truly ill - unlike almost everyone that Chaza"l refer to in 90% of the Chaza"l's about arayos and hagdorah from the tum'ah of schmutz, who are definitely not sick.

So, it depends. And time will tell. That is my experience, and it is not based on the Torah, but my experience...just like most of the things that you and everyone else bases their behavior on. Derech Eretz Kodmah laTorah is just a fact of life.

Sorry for the arichus, again. Did it make things more confusing or more clear?

Yedidcho, too

- Dov

dov I disagree. i'm married and usually I have normal desires, after relations everything is back to normal. at times -sometimes its after a month sometimes after three months- i get such a crazy taivah for porn...phone, internet, fm u name it. relations w/wife won't stop these things. last week i only got out of it by visiting gye for the first time. I'll call that an addiction.

Dear Dov,

Some nekudos on your words:

1. You use a moshol with pregnancy. In my mind it is more like a cancer r"l. The earlier you catch it, the easier it is to cure.

2. You say, "An addict is the one who buys the magazine and then tears it up or burns it...then buys a new one a week later even though he knows he will tear it up as soon as he has that orgasm - and the bitterness that comes with it." So I guess I was an addict for decades, and B"H for the last couple of years it changed to be only a habit (by your definition), thanks to the Mussar/Chassidus, Taphsic and Torah Tavlin methods.

3. You ask, "Did it make things more confusing or more clear?" None of the above. You have already explained your way of thinking many many times and i still see things very differently (so does GYE, as you allude). So I guess Dov will always be Dov and MT will always be MT (or whatever his name is).

Yedidcha once again,

MT

Machshovo wrote on 16 May 2012 14:10:


Theory doesn't matter so much here, just look at the results. If your plan is working and you're staying sober, great. But if not, it might be worth listening a little more and arguing a little less.

Just my shneckel worth,

--Elyah

Whoa, there, Reb Eye. MT is doing what works for him, I believe, and he is in fact doing well, be"H. In that vein, here I go, just for fun...

Dear MT, in response to your nekudos:

1- Though I believe that addicts may in fact get cured in theory, I simply have seen no evidence that addicts ever become immune and can use their drug again as others can. Again, you may be one of those - that'd be great! This recovery and 12 steps thing is not a religion, even for me. It's just that I have not personally met guys who are clearly addicts the way I can relate to addiction and were themselves sure they were addicts at one point, ever become non-addicts. I see it more as a type of personality rather than as a disease. The AA's seemed to discover that, and call themselves alcoholics (or sometimes 'recovering alcoholics') all their lives. At my core, I believe that the human necessity for having a G-d is personal, not religious. And for people like me, G-d is needed because we are sick. And would I ever be cured, I will probably not really need Him any longer. It seems to me that He wants me to need Him. Hashem mis'aveh letfilosom shel - all His people. For me, it was through porn and lust. Nu.

2- Great!!

3- Ditto.

Kol Tuv

dov wrote on 17 May 2012 03:54:


I guess I get a little fanatic sometimes.

--Elyah

A friend of mine in therapy was getting frustrated with his therapist when asking for a clean bill of health. So he asked him, if he was ever given a clean bill, would he object to a marriage with a relative. The (frum) therapist, after much thought, and to his credit, advised him not to get engaged to any relative of his.
I have no experience like R' Dov, but this guy obviously has, and that implies R' Dov is right. It never goes away- the same precautions needed at first are needed 30 years later... And a relationship with Hashem.

dov wrote on 17 May 2012 03:54:


Dear Dov, never mind the nekudos, the main thing is that you stick up for a friend in time of need. I sincerely appreciate that chizzuk (and yes I'm doing great B"H).

And like E-Tek says, "...R' Dov is right. It never goes away- the same precautions needed at first are needed 30 years later... And a relationship with Hashem."

לית מאן דפליג

MT

Machshovo wrote on 17 May 2012 13:56:


So GREAT!

--Elyah

There has got to be a connection even 10000 days later cuz without it we fail