Another tip for the shower is to play music while in it (probaly better if its jewish)

I would err on the side of getting into the shower, clean yourself off, and getting out and drying yourself as quickly as possible. I think that any delay in the shower can be a potential trigger.

A true eitza tova. Tactics in the fight against the problem - for a shower here, a shower there...but aren't they gimmicks all? Anybody here get liberated from their problem because of any tricks? Not me.

But do you hear what's really going on here yet? The pedestal issue and the meaning that has to be attached in the mind to your private parts before the shower actually becomes a chronic problem?

No eitza tovah works unless you recognize before you get into the shower that the potential for acting out in the shower is an issue that must be dealt with-just like any other potential trigger. Is such an eitzah foolproof-Absolutely not-you have to recognize the machalah before you can even think of a refuah.

Lucky for me my biggest trigger is when I'm naked in my car, so I am sure glad there is no shower in there!

1- I gave a karma point to serenity so whats his name should get 5 or 7 now or whatever, too...who is in charge of karma here, to arrange that please?

2- I have the same problem as the Serenity guy, so I never get naked in my car any more, either.

3- SIB1018546592, do you get my direction here? I'm saying there is likely no 'eitzah' for this at all. Either he wants to have sex with himself in the shower, or he doesn't. If he is in-between (ie: wishing he didn't look forward to the pleasure of masturbating there but really still does and knows it), then playing with eitzos like 'shortening the time' is probably just delaying the inevitable. He will stop masturbating himself in the shower and start doing it in bed or elsewhere anyhow...just like most guys here do.

If he has a need, then he has a need. The shower is not creating it. He is then in real trouble, not the shower. And until he deals with it openly, bravely, safely, and honestly, he will not really be safe with his own body.

Maybe that is what you meant by 'recognizing the machalah'. If so, I agree w you all the way, man - but recognizing it does not help until we are ready to take real actions of real lifestyle channge, right? Even eitzos tovos will not help until then.

Dov wrote:


thanks tonz!

and I thought you were my friend.

Extra squattin' is a real killer...especially after four pints of ice cream.

time for OA

Dov-I agree 100%-you have to
1) realize that you have a problem
2) be willing to change your life
3) take positive actions to reimforce your decision to change. Eitza Tovas don't work until you have internalized the above three steps.
Look at this way. We aren't supposed to despise tarfus , but rather realize that tarfus may be in fact taste good, but the Torah prohibits it. We are also supposed to realize that anything that the Torah prohibited, we can obtain in a fashion that the Torah permits.

SIB101854 wrote:


Just wrote a megilla on another thread about this and don't know how to refer people here to it for a response to similar issues being brought up...and too lazy and tired at 11:30, too. But when I read things like 'we are not supposed to', or 'we need to', it reminds me how clear it became to me that what the Torah says has little if any bearing on our practical, actual decisions in this issue. And neither does it have much bearing (if any at all) on our recovery. It may upset some folks and may sound like I am rejecting Torah in some way c"v...but I am not doing anything of the sort.

I just like to point out that for the addict like me and most whom I know, if what we should or shouldn't do were that relevant, we'd not have unzipped our pants so often and with such mesiras nefesh in the first place! Why start pretending that I 'need' Torah now? Sanity I need; honesty I need; integrity I need...and none of those things are 'Torah' or mitzvos, as Rav Chaim Vital wrote in the intro to Sha'arei Kedusha. They are the background, the derech eretz. And they are as relative and precious to goyim who need them as they are to Jews who need them, to atheists as they are to the gedolim shlit"a. Self honesty is a human value, not a Torah one. Like the preciousness of not being a fool to oneself.

To me, 'recognizing the problem' is all about admitting exactly how much I do indeed love and trust in porn, sexual fantasy, sex, etc, even more than i want or trust many other very good things. Seeing the degree of personal risk I take for it, the money, time, the stress and the faking I do - just to protect my secrets and treaure, even from the women I love and who loves me the most. Erotic fantasy is surely the greatest treasure the sexaholic has in the world. How nuts I am in addiction...in other words, how nuts I am!

So I agree w you too, but would add that the only person who 'needs' to recognize they have a problem, is the person for whom his behavior is an actual problem. Just because it is a problem for his Neshoma, for the Torah, or for G-d, will not be enough. Its just not relevant, and we know it.

Is that too stated coarsely? Please let me know if I could have said it differently. Thanks - I am working on being softer and more accepting.

Lots of love, chaver

Dov

Chaverim, Please have a little rachamunus on the people who have written extensively on recovery in the Q & A section and other sections of this site including this forum. They have devoted their time and effort to address many of our concerns and questions in those sections. If we aren't at a minimum reading the information that is available to us on this site, how much time and energy are we actually putting into our recovery?

I'd like to add to what Dov said. Derech eretz kadma latorah. It forms the backbone without which we can't even begin the journey.

Dov-I agree with you as to recognition of one's addiction, but would maintain that once you recognize that you are an addict, you have to take the proper measures to not set yourself down the twin rabbit holes of masturbation and porn. You either control the addiction by whatever means works for you, or it controls you. It is as simple as that.

If you are not being facetious, you could wind up in front of a judge for such conduct.

Please define what you mean by "derech eretz". Do you mean acting in a generally civilized manner, having "midos tovos", or working for a living? Derech eretz means different things to people.