world wrote on 13 Apr 2011 21:09:


I promise you that it's not mine....but you are welcome anyhow. 

dov wrote on 12 Apr 2011 21:27:


Dov, you are beautifully eloquent, and your post was clear in a way that I could never be.

Something I'd like to add is that I find ignoring, on its own, difficult.  That's mostly because I have a relatively empty head, and my thoughts often jump around a lot.

Therefore, I need to ignore and replace.  Otherwise, the thought will ask "why are you ignoring me?", and I'll strike up a conversation with it, and it will keep pestering me.

When people immersed in Torah & Avodah ignore it, there is Torah and Avodah to replace the thought (See also Perek 28 in Tanya).  When people like me are on the train, and not doing anything useful...  Or lying in bed...  Or overtaking a bus full of cheerleeders on the highway...  Ignore and replace works best for me.

Sometimes there is a busload of cheerleaders being driven around in our brains!

Really, thanks for your kind words, and I really meant what you wrote: replace self-centered self-pleasuring with trying to help others (=anybody besides me); replace the lying with openly telling the sometimes-ugly truth to another person; replacing the obvious belief that every single lust/porn/sex addict harbors, that "Hashem obviously does not have a clue what I really need. For what I feel I need is porn, sex fun, and fantasy - yet lo and behold: when I get into the habit of using it, my inner and outer life get wrecked! (we all scream inside:)It should not work that way! He obviously is not running this world right, at all!" ...replacing that perspective with some humble prayer to Him, for a change.

Early on, we typically daven to Him telling Him what we need! "I need You to take away this challenge from me completely!/make the bikini ladies go to the other street, quick!/ make me ignore the legs of the lady in the canned food isle/make me forget that porn I just watched (for an hour)!...etc.

This is not humble tefilah and is not the way it works, at least for me. It is actually just a continuation of the very same thing we were always doing before, while searching for schmutz or while we were masturbating to take care ourselves and "make things feel right'. It was not essentially evil - we were just trying to take care of ourselves and we kno it! And so does He! But davening that way is just more of being in the Driver's seat. In prayer! Lo zu haderech, in recovery. Maybe it'd be OK for normals (I daresay it is!), but not for us - it just perpetuates our diseased thinking. We need nothing less than surrender, our experience tells us. Surrender to the truth about ourselves (the disease) and surrender to Hashem.

"Surrender to the disease?! Gevalt! That means giving in to it!" No. It doesn't. The disease is not in charge of anything, Hashem is. And maybe I can be, too, with His power. But not a disease. True, the disease must be respected and adjusted to - but it controls nothing.

Sorry for the rambling, but you really struck a cord. Thanks for reminding me of all this, as I need it today.

we all need to understand that when an urge attacked us, we only need to push it off for a few short minutes, its not -that individual urge- a long battle to deal with.

You need to stay focused for just a few minutes till the urge disappears, so when an urge hits you. before the urge takes over full control of yourself (yes i think there is stages within an urge) vow to come on the forum and write to anyone, even in the joke thread. Or vow to do anything else  (not something that takes too long. just something you will enjoy and doesn't take much time)

Of course even you successfully pushed away THAT urge, another urge could and would come again,but thats would be a new urge nothing related to the previous urge

For me I found it extremely helpful. even as a general tool to overcome this addiction (Ive mentioned it in a few of my posts), because ultimately every fall starts with an urge

The Chofetz Chaim at the very end of Shmiras Haloshon, Chasimas Hasefer perek 3, says if an unclean thought comes into your head, look at your tzitzes and it will go away.

Blind Beggar wrote on 20 Jun 2011 09:54:
Beautiful! Notice that he zt"l did not say to fight it really hard by looking at your tziztis, but to look at your tzitzis instead of lusting. And Hashem will help with the fight - Only He is 'Ish milchamah', not us.

...and that is all talking to non-addicts! For normal people also get lust thoughts!

Truly beautiful.

Bumping this thread.
Please read the first post, and add any ideas.
(Oh, and Bigmoish, I know what you're thinking...)
Thank you.

I'm usually a goner by then.....I need to stop it before it enters head.

Shteeble wrote:

Can you give me a hint? If you know, at least help me out a little...

Well, if you act out, then the urge will get out of your head.

Not for very long...

Interesting thought, but since you seem serious about recovery, that is not actually what I was thinking.
In an attempt to lure cordnoy into this conversation, perhaps we can allow for ideas on how to prevent the urge from entering your head as well.

I would prefer to keep this thread to the purpose it was started for.

However, I would very much appreciate such ideas to be posted on my "attempt at honesty" thread (link below).

Thanks.

Yid1 wrote:


then, I will keep quiet here.

Some Rabbonim tell guys to get engaged. They say that real sex in marriage will get the silly temptations out of their heads. (I was told this even after I told a Rov about my problem!)

For guys who are already habitually masturbating and romancing fantasy women in porn for years....boy, are those Rabbonim so dead wrong. It's so very sad...of course no sex can compete with fantasy sex and the porn images strangle and real sexuality.

But now after some years sober bH...I say the same thing (sort of)! And it responds nicely to the very question of this thread:

Get engaged in real life. (same word, different usage  )

Living in fantasy makes little or no room for real life, or for real emotions in real life, and creates even more hunger for fantasy. Compared to any fantasy, real life - even a life of Torah and avodah - stinks.

Now, in recovery we addicts basically learn to more comfortably engage in the realities of real life...the subject of all the steps. So, I discovered that non-addicts do much better when they engage more actively in real life. The more into real living they become, then less drawn to fantasy they find themselves to be. Trusting that, is a challenge. That is where therapy can help a lot.

An illustration:

Some guys find that as long as they are shteiging away 'with a brenn' in yeshivah, they are saved from their own lusting behaviors. We usually like to attribute that to 'Torah is meiging umatzli'....but it is not the reason. The real reason is that we are not in real life there, at all. They are away from home, in a yeshivah w/o work, w/o money issues, w/o family life, and w/o real responsibilities. As they say, 'ein ben chorin ella mi sh'osek baTorah!' Yeshivah is a greenhouse.

No wonder the draw to fansaty is not that strong for some guys there. They have no real life issues there!

The escape from facing real life issues makes for a peace borne of blissful ignorance. I went through that in EY - didn't masturbate for nearly 2 years while I was there - though prior to going I did it practically daily. When I came back, it hit me like a hammer. Coupled with the depression of failing the EY model of bitul olam hazeh, I also had a horror to tend to: real life was there again, waiting for me. I was 20 years old and life was a combination of problems of the present and of the looming future - and the past wouldn't leave me alone, either. Needless to say, I tanked. 

When life sucks, engaging in it is nothing but a horror. Addiction thrives in that environment.

So if you want to learn how to get the urge out of your head and you are not (yet) an addict, the answer is simple:

Learn how to engage in real life with comfort so that you have no need to run away into play-land. You have one. It's right there, with your family (sorry  ) and your self (sorry there, too  ). If you cannot seem to do it, then for G-d's sake, see a good therapist right away and get the help you need to start living in your real life, not in someone else's. Real life is great and there is nothing like really being engaged in it and not running.