Tom Riddle you have never and will never be the most powerful wizard of all time, Albus Dumbldore is and will always be more powerful than you!

The way I understand addiction, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that you are not addicted to lust, alcohol or narcotics. An addict is an ADDICT and the way his personal addiction manifests is in the way he acts out such as lust or alcohol. Acordingly even if he "white knuckles it" and does not act out in 90 or 180 days he will still be an addict and his addiction will manifest itself differently. This means he will probably just find another drug such as over use of computers or something else as he did not solve the root problem. An addict is lifeless and his only life comes from getting high by acting out. Even if he does not get hooked on another drug an addict will end up with a terrible life either miserable and deppressed or constantly lashing out in anger due to the fact that he does not have his prized drug e.g. lust available. The only way for an addict to solve his problem is by fixing the root issue and adressing the addiction itself. The way to due this is through the 12 step program with in person SA meetngs and working through the steps with a sponsor. The 12 step program is designed to completely upend the person and turn him into a new honest, humble, kind hearted, and giving person with a constant and growing connection with Hashem. I hope this is helpful, I am a beginer in all this and don't have too much to offer for more info please reach out to those in the 12 step program forum who have years of sobriety and work in the system.
All of the above is for those of us who can dare live with the creed of the Great Albus Dumbledore who belives that love and sacrafice is farmore powerful than than any force of dark magic, but for you Lord Voldemort you are lost in a cruel dark loveless world. All you know is power you are utterly hopeless and nothing will ever help you!

azivashacheit101 wrote on 17 Feb 2025 19:06:

Well said, except I am not utterly hopeless. Only the meek and feeble are hopeless, for there is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it...

Great characterization of addiction, we do not disagree. Yet I am still genuinely curious about how you are understanding what you have termed "chein addiction", if you are not understanding it as being under the umbrella of lust. You seem to be disagreeing with the way I see things for myself, and although you are totally justified in doing so, I still do not understand how you view it...it is not lust, than what is it?

If I may interject via flu powder,

    Most people on here at gye are not full blown addicts. There's a difference between a clinical addict and a behavioral addict. I'm no expert on how to distinguish who is or isn't but I would like to add my thoughts on what you've said before from a behavioral addicts point of view.

   It seems to me that you were craving attention (totally understandable) and in that you really were craving for a connection with others. I don't know your childhood but it could be from a lack of feeling a connection with those around you (parents, siblings, friends...) that you started trying to attract attention from others to fill the void. 

Eventually (remember this is speculation because i dont actually know your situation) when you discovered masturbation it temporarily filled that void. This is something that Lust tricks us into thinking. It makes us beleive that we are filling in the missing connection when in reality it's actually creating even more separation from others. 
.   Then we Bezras Hashem get married and find some of the void is gone. But unfortunately if this nisoyon hasn't been dealt with then it's a very temporary fix because while in the grasps of Lust we can never truly feel connected to those around us. We will just feel as if the people we love can never love us back because of our darkest secrets.

We can't expect to just wave a wand saying "acio connection" but we can cast a Petronus to fight off the dementors of Lust and the "Piertotum Locomotor" to further protect ourselves from evil. 


Keep on Trucking, One Day At A Time!!

I think "chein" is something other than lust, just as someone enjoys a nice veiw of nature or a beautiful painting a person enjoys goodlooking people (though in a live person this is way more powerful). Then there is the addition of charm and personality which all adds to the attraction, I don't think this is necesarily lust as we can get to know these people and not think of them in a lustful way at all. (I do think our minds do tend to turn them into lustful attractions at times and with these people we are much more vulnerable of thinking about them lustfully, but that does not mean all of our obsessivness with them is lustful). If you keep your eyes open you will see that people with chein are treated better by everyone including by older Rabanim and Rebbeim. I don't belive they are all scuming to lust, I think this is just how our minds work. Chein becomes an addiction when it takes over our lives and we become completely obsessive and compulsed by it.
I'd love to hear and am open minded to all other opinions so anyone who has what to add please respond!
Thank You

hatzlocho!

jewizard21 wrote on 17 Feb 2025 19:50:

You know I don't live at Hogwarts... you can always just aparaite or even take a ride on a Hippogriff if you need to reach me.
You made a good point, and it's way above my paygrade at this point to know if I am a clinical addict or just a behavioral addict, but it is a helpful destinction. Than You