Hi, I am starting a 90 day goal.

I don't think I am addicted. I have an urge that usually surfaces once every 2 weeks or so. Nothing specific is triggering it to my knowledge.

I tend to view my struggle in this area the same as one would view a struggle with over eating.

​Please feel free to comment or challenge how I view this struggle, it fuels me to reach my goal.

Thank you. 

FYI, this is Rabbi Twerski's opinion on defining addiction...
"There are probably a number of ways to define addiction. If you have a desire to do something, and know you shouldn't be doing it but go on to do it anyway, that indicates a loss of control. When this is repetitive, it justifies being considered an addiction."

Even if someone can go without these behaviors for long periods of time, he is still addicted if specific situations make him feel powerless to resist it - in spite of it being against his morals and inner desires. As Rabbi Twerski once asked someone who claimed he wasn't an addict, "so why don't you just stop?"

Wishing you hatzlacha on reaching your goal! 

Thank you DavidT for that insight!

So, I suppose that I am in fact addicted.

Iv'e been reflecting on what works for me and what doesn't, and why curtain things that worked for me in the past no longer do. Or why curtain things that worked and then stopped working, now work again etc... And I have come to the conclusion that HASHEM's hand is always involved whenever I succeed, and without his constant involvement, I would not succeed.

If I'm not mistaking, This is one of the 12 steps of overcoming an addiction. Knowing that I am not really in control, and that without HASHEM's help I couldn't do this.

The first 3 steps are:

1. We admitted we were powerless - that our lives had become unmanageable
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of Hashem.

The Michtav M'Eliahu says, you cannot fight the Yetzer Harah head on, you will lose. He compares it to a spring. The more you push down on a spring, the stronger it's tension will be to spring back on you. So, it is almost like a no-win situation. If you try to fight him by facing him straight on, you are finished. He is too strong.

We cannot possibly defeat the Yetzer Harah on our own. Hashem is the only one that can help us. But before he does, he wants us to be moser nefesh for him, it is the only way that we can win, it is the only way that we will get the heavenly assistance that we need.

@Polar Bear, don't jump into addict land just yet. Have you ever spoken to anyone about this? That might be the first step, if you are truly an addict, you are going to have to do that regardless, either way, many guys found it to me a gamechanger. 

You can read about the steps, in order to actually do them, you gotta go to meetings or at least talk to people on the phone.

I'm working on this, thanks.

But as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter what I call it.

And if I wasn't an addict and I did the 12 steps - it's not going to help me?

Iv'e treated bad habits like they were addictions, and I've only grown from it.

Sure anyone can gain from the 12 steps, by reading through the literature and working on them. You can also look at a mussar sefer if that talks to you or Pirkei Avos, the 12 steps plus are all in there. The power is in the fellowship not just the material, the actual steps are basically just working on your middos and emunah. 

Hi,

I was wondering, does everyone feel bad after they acted out?

polar bear wrote on 18 Nov 2021 23:35:

good question; my guess would be that if you would survey gye fellows, most of them would respond in the affirmative; personally, nowadays, my answer (sadly) would be "no."

polar bear wrote on 18 Nov 2021 23:35:

For me its a Lav Davka.

For many years I didn't feel bad at all.

polar bear wrote on 18 Nov 2021 23:35:

I'm wondering: does anyone feel GOOD after they acted out? 

DavidT wrote on 19 Nov 2021 16:58:

for the record, yes, and i think it's important for you and others to recognize that.

I would like to elaborate.

Does everyone feel EMOTIONALLY bad right after acting out?

​Trouble: It's pretty obvious that it's physically a good feeling...

I'm asking because I want to discuss a theory on the matter, but if the fact is that people in general are not necessarily feeling bad, than there's not much to discuss on the theory.

10 days. That's 1/9. 8/9s to go.

I try to put up little milestones so I don't feel like I'm just in no-man's-land on my way to 90 days.

I heard from a top psychologist that even in secular circles, after the euphoric sensation dissipates, it is usually replaced by a depressed shleppy feeling.