dov wrote on 12 Oct 2012 18:49:


I hear you! I totally agree with that!

What I don't like is to be worried or stressed all the time not to stare, not to take a second look, not to think, not to fantasize... I would like that someday it can be like if I saw a cheeseburger, like maybe is tasty but I prefer not to try it... I mean thats how is supposed to be, to change the nissayon, that your bechira changes when you change... when you oleh beruchnius, if you are in another madreiga this last nissayon wont bother you anymore...
If I will be trapped with the tought that I am an addict, all the time, I feel that I wont see improvement.

I hate to be simplistic, but it sounds like you're tying yourself in knots, and maybe just deal with today?

If I will be trapped with the tought that I am an addict, all the time, I feel that I wont see improvement.

Maybe dov is right, maybe you aren't an addict really. But maybe if you are, then your feeling of being trapped is actually good, accepting that you are an addict is the first step to sobreity.
There was a good read for me on the 12 steps by dov. http://www.guardyoureyes.org/forum/index.php?topic=5114.msg145625#msg145625

All the best to you Yoshek!

I am sorry to be stubborn with this ideas, but I am a little afraid to start thinking something that will affect me for the rest of my life... the uncertainty of that...

But if that will bring me more happiness and love with my wife when I get married Bh, and everyone sorrounding me, like Dov said, then I will take it. (And especially when I get married because I know that comparing is a big cause of Shalom bayit problems, and we all know that the people in movies are not "real") I WANT to be free before I get married...

I have no problem accepting that I am an addict, but I would like to hear it from someone who knows... How can I know if I am?

I feel that I can't stop without help or the tools GYE suggests, thats for sure, also the fact that I lowered the falls now is not a proof that I am not, because I have a filter, its like if you put a drug addict in a desert island, that doesnt mean he is cured or he got better, maybe is worse, when he gets back he can get an overdose... And thats what happened to me when I fall, I fall deep, maybe I masturbate 3 times on that day...

Also to accept that I can't beat the y'h myself is easy, I can feel that... even for a non-addict I think it works that way, like the Gemara in Kidushin says that the yetzer hara within the person renews itself each day and wishes to destroy him, and if not for Hashem’s help he would never be able to overcome him...

Thank you

yosefhatzadik wrote on 14 Oct 2012 04:47:


What? Who told you that being a recovering addict means living the rest of your life with the constant awareness that you are in fact a sex pervert and cannot control yourself around attractive people, etc...?

That is so not like it really is.

Sobriety leads to recovery. And recovery means living with the awareness that Hashem is taking an infinitely better job taking care of you than you ever did. In my life before recovery started, when I tried to take care of me, my best efforts ended up with me running to sex with myself or my wife (or others) to save me. That is just what happens. It's pretty easy to admit, once I look back at my life and write out the history on paper. It's not shaming, nor am I beating myself up. It's just the facts, no explanations, no psychological or spiritual insights are needed - just the facts. I am a little broken. Many people are, too, in other ways. Now it's time to do something about it with Hashem's help instead of going it alone, trying to finally manipulate my own mind right all on my own, or trying (again) to 'do teshuvah'.

Living with that awareness is not to say that I am going to live in a perverted way.

Quite to the contrary, the admission cleans me because it enables me to need G-d. To really need Him - not to say that I need him "because the Gemorah in Kiddushin says I do" - that's not nearly enough. No. As yeshivah guys and frum yidden we are supposed to know and say all the party lines. But if we are already masturbating our brains out and getting sucked trance-like into sweet porn (and it is sweet)...then what good is reciting religious party lines? Suddenly wearing a black hat or a shtraimel vs a 'sroogie' is a lot less significant, isn't it...we both get on our computers desperately looking for a shot of the best porn we can find, hands shaking and mouth dry, no? We both end up masturbating ourselves in the bathroom, no? And these behaviors are not really just abberations - they are a major focus of our inner life and self-awareness. They are a major definer of our relationship with Hashem, aren't they? Not should they be - but are they? Yup.

Nu. We need help. Derech Eretz kodmah laTorah.

But I want to suggest to you a possibilty that would be great news:

The fear you describe of 'having to always suffer from the pain of needing porn, fantasy, and masturbation - whether I actually act out or not' is probably really just this: you do yet not know the power of Hashem. So you find it very hard to believe that He can really give you the daily reprieve that you want from lust and take better care of you than you can.

That is what the 3rd step is about.

Hatzlocha, and sorry this was so wordy.

If this stuff makes sense to you, can you put some of these things into action?

- Dov

dov wrote on 18 Oct 2012 21:20:

Even if I was in yeshiva I always tried to think that is not good to be obsessed with it like in yeshivas are, and thats why like 6-7 years ago I tried to see porn and masturbating as normal, like it has to be that way, how a man has to know himself and all the things they say out there... I even thought that because of the obsession they have in yeshivas thats why there are so many frum yidden with this problem, what do you think... anyway maybe here is not the place to discuss that

dov wrote on 18 Oct 2012 21:20:


No no I really feel Hashem helps me, I see the siata dishmaya (this time i felt it, and I got to 14 days... I was about to fall on day 8 like always), but I feel that I have to worry myself also because (sorry about another religious party line, but in this case I think is necessary) since it is about spirituality, from what I know Hashem cant intervene in free will, (maybe you will tell me this is not free will for us... that maybe we have to be taken out from that level and then we can say we are in a level where Hashem cannot intervene, but like it or not it is free will, and it says Ubacharta Bachayim)

laagvokeles wrote on 05 Apr 2011 18:39:


It is our free choice to turn our lust over to Hashem. This is no small task. It works, which means Hashem must be maskim.

alexeliezer wrote on 19 Oct 2012 02:44:


It's not necessarily a valid inference. You can even prove it from Rav Amram Chasida. Why scream to the whole town to run over if he could just ask G-d to perform a miracle? Could it be because he held that He doesn't do that?

I believe the correct explanation is that when we surrender we finally accept that we do love porn. Then we start winding up until next time (no, I don't like it, no, I don't like it, ... fine fine I like it!!!)

There is no question in my mind that Rav Amram was not an addict. I also believe that he was probably far from what we would consider 'normal', and that we would find it very hard to understand what was really going on with him on the inside of his mind. But nevertheless...

I believe it was a miracle that he actually succeeded in surrendering whatever shred of his pride he had left, and scream "fire!". He provided the ratzon, and Hashem performed the miracle of success for him. As it says in tehillim, ki atoh t'shalem l'ish k'ma'aseyhu" - "You reward people for the miztvos they do, as though they really did them (even though You provided all the power, inspiration, and ability for them to succeed)." And Rav Avigdor Miller zt"l said a sweet thing about this, and it is actually an explanation of the mishna, "sc'har mitzvah - mitzvah and s'char aveiro - aveiro.":

When G-d permits a good intention to come to fruition, He does so as a reward for the good intent. When He thwarts the intent, it is because the intender is being thereby chastised.
When a man's evil intent is permitted to become an act, it is a punishment for his intent. When his evil intent is prevented, it is because G-d spared him. All acts are G-d's; men have only the intentions. (Rejoice, O Youth)

L'Refuah Shleima: Chaim Yisroel B. Chana Tzirel, Aaron Yehuda B. Gitel
For The Refuah Shleimah Of Eliyahu ben Bracha Tova, Ron ben Gittel Chaviie

See more material on this type of stuff, see the writings of the Izhbitzer in Mei Hashiloach.

You still have no proof.