I'm very sad now because I had to tell Dov some painful things.

Last night I was reminded of the fact that when you diet seriously you don't need a lot of sleep. It's much better if I put off bedtime for an hour or two doing some strenuous, then take a shower and pass out.

em·i·nent
ˈemənənt/Submit
adjective
(of a person) famous and respected within a particular sphere or profession.
"one of the world's most eminent statisticians"
synonyms: illustrious, distinguished, renowned, esteemed, preeminent, notable, noteworthy, great, prestigious, important, influential, affluential, outstanding, noted, of note;

Day 4

Im a novice over here in the light of other more experienced users.

However, because I am only 60 days through (and many other life reasons) I can relate to what you are saying MZL.

Telling people deep personal things are painful. In my experience though, they are only painful when they are emotionally troubling and holding me back. I can talk freely about someone close to me who was killed and while it is sad it isnt painful because I have worked through it. In contrast, a close family member who my relationship which is strained (on the way up B"H!) I am very sensitive about talking about it and would break down in tears and PAIN if I told you how I really felt.

I will not take the liberty to try and figure you out. Nor will I conclude that you have pain from your situation. I definitely will not conclude that you are an addict and therefore telling yourself illogical things to explain your unique situation. Those are all possible, but as you say, I dont know you and have no statistics to prove it.

I WILL say, however, that the surest way to living a positive and happy life and dealing with any behavioral issue, or really any issue in life, is through brute honesty and open-mindedness. This has been my experience and seemingly countless others. 

What other people say that is insulting don't really matter. It is a waste of time defending yourself from things you don't believe to be true. However, there is an ENDLESS amount that could be gained from thinking about criticism/advice openly and seeing if there is anything you could learn from it. 

Some of us will always live harder lives than others but we can still be at piece with ourselves. That is my goal in life and purpose for using this forum - to continue to work and grow in a healthy way.

I daven that you should be happy and content with everything that is happening in your life.

I'm definitely a lot happier now that I know that for whatever reason my wife is not going to have a miscarriage if I do act out, and therefore I don't have to pressure her and then watch her suffer through it. Because she's not going to be in the mood for the next several months. And the forum will be a reason to use my tools for staying clean as it was for 117 days straight. Whether depression will stay away I don't know yet. I think dieting, working strenuously and using my tool for my bipolar disorder should do the trick. Time will tell.

It's not what I would have liked obviously. My preference would be to stare at my wife every now and then and make love. But that's not realistic.

I think the thing that really bugs Dov is that I can have a recovery method where I can afford to act out once every few months because the method has limited scope, because it's based on regaining control. Dov can't deal with someone whose recovery method is about regaining control, because his method is about losing control.

To me the distinction is really not that interesting because ultimately his method is also about having more control, it's just a paradoxical approach. It's collective control. A group of brains gain excellent control together. Like a computer that has more than one processor, each with its own memory attached. They are mostly independent but tightly coupled. It's just I'm bipolar and once I learned about Dov's culture I quickly processed it and got past it, whereas he's still impressed with it. I'm also socially awkward so the hive mind approach really turns me off.

I also think that people ignore the Torah approach, which is not a hive approach but a fear-based approach, as in nazir. The lifetime nazir is a true addict, and the 30-day nazir is the guy that get can get over it. Of course people don't understand how to generalize the halachos of nazir to sex addiction.

It's irritating for him because he needs to "bag" some new addicts every now and then. A hive mind of recovering addicts does not wish for true addiction to disappear from the face of the Earth, else the existing addicts would eventuallt die off, leaving the last few to act out. But Dov is also personally invested in bailing out true addicts from their sick brains. I totally understand that. It's a delicious pleasure to help others and it also keeps him sober.

I think the thrust of his post about changing the definition is a method which is based on loss of control has no exceptions (at the cost of being at the mercy of other people.) So his point was that instead of seeing my acting out as proof that my method has exception cases and jumping on to his method, I acknowledged the exception and moved on.

(And I was able to do that because my method increases control.)

I think the difficulty is that I'm a rare case (maybe the only case in the world) of a true addict that walked his brain back and regained most of his control. Bipolar people are pretty weird and hypercreative, because the payoff of a new achievement in terms of ego tastes pretty sweet. That's the source of friction.

Well, I spend some time reading through your posts. I see that some people here who are probably understanding what I wrote are voicing their disagreement with you by suggesting that you reread what I wrote because you misunderstood it. I agree with them, and see even more clearly now how you misunderstood most of what I wrote. As I read your questions about what I wrote, I became more surprised at how misunderstood my words were. 

But in all my years on this forum I have never witnessed anyone find help by being argued with. So I won't argue with you, and certainly not in writing. The written medium is actually the easiest way to be misunderstood when it comes to subtle things like personal attitudes and beliefs toward life itself. I have discovered that it is much easier to successfully emerge from an argument in writing about things like politics, history, or morality than about how one actually faces life. I think that people can debate about all those other things pretty well in writing - but when it comes to discussions that touch on the actual behavioral choices we make an actual current living (not the theoretical), it falls short and except in rare cases, usually leads to alienation and frustration. I believe that the reason for that is simple: we're not talking about philosophy here. We're talking about motivations. Motivations that stem from beliefs, desires, beliefs about the fulfillment in life, regrets and pain of the past, present and future, as well as emotional (not just intellectual) confusion. If we could 'understand' ourselves out of most of these things, we would usually have done so, long ago.  That's why i feel that your offer for sitting down and having a cup of coffee is the most insightful thing you've said so far, in my opinion. 

For I have found that a few very simple and powerful things avert arguments, set egos aside, and make discussions such as these extremely fruitful. The simplest and easiest thing that enable success is meeting face-to-face. There are few things as disarming as two people with no real axe to grind meeting face-to-face. Whenever I have met anyone else face-to-face for this purpose, the contentiousness evaporates almost  immediately. A hello and a sincere smile demonstrate that we are not debaters any more, but that we are just two well-meaning and vulnerable people coming together to grow. The hackles go down, the egos all but dissolve, and the sincerity begins to flow.

I don't expect that to happen here for another reason besides the fact that it is in writing: you and I both have an audience to impress. Who knows how much that affects us both? It surely does. And that messes a lot up.

Let me try to make a few things clear before dropping this discussion (unless you were serious about meeting for coffee which I be glad to do):

I have no problem with people finding success using methods different and even antithetical to the 12 steps. GYE sends plenty of people my way to talk to about their addiction problems, real or imagined. I typically spend a good amount of time with each one of them trying to dissuade them from assuming out right that they are addicts. And with many of those who do think they may be addicts, I often spend a good amount of time trying to help them into good therapy instead of them jumping right into 12-step groups. Those who we both agree may be appropriate for 12-step groups right now, I help get them on the phone with sober 12 step meeting goers who live in their area who can help them find and settle into a good meeting. I am also probably the last guy who is going to do things the typical GYE way and hound anyone who isn't coming to meetings or posting, sayin, "Hey, where are you, chaver? You need to come back, no?, etc" I have expressed my belief many times and in different venues that I think people can come to recovery or therapy for a while, find great Improvement in their lives, and leave all the better for it - and that that is okay.  So, what you wrote about me and my frustrations with your success are probably a misunderstanding.

What you wrote about my desire for more people to be attracted to recovery groups for my own benefit, isn't accurate, either. I feel secure that if I quit doing 12th-step sharing with others, my recovery would still continue growing just fine. My relationship with Hashem would continue to grow, my continuing freedom from lust and my character defects would keep bringing success in living with my wife and others. In fact, I believe that if I were to be stranded on a desert island and live alone, G-d forbid, I would also continue growing and living life to the fullest. I'm telling you this not just to celebrate these beliefs (though I think it really is something to celebrate!) but to let you, a friend, no that I don't need you, I don't need other addicts, I don't need anyone else in the world, in order to live the good life. My program gave me this state of being - and I am sure that some people can get this same gift from good therapy, religious work, just growing up on their own (the option that seems the most attractive to you), and maybe even through yoga.

Finally, I think that your assessment of the 12-step program is a bit more negative than necessary. I'm sure that the 12-step program is far from perfect. But I would suggest that this strong suit of the 12 step program is that it puts a premium on humility. And at the same time it suggests bus to put our nose to the grinding stone and get to work with real actions.  In this way and many others, it is very akin to yiddishkeit, lehavdil, and very different from the 'self-made man' path that many of us prefer. Heck, I preferred that path all the years that I was still in active addiction, and rationalized to myself that it was surey the path that Hashem expected of me. Oh, well, I've been wrong many times in my my life, and those 20+ years were no exception...

But things are better now, bH. Because of humble people who didn't need me to join their group but we're sincerely willing to share what they had with me, as long as I was the one asking for it. That's what they mean in 12 steps when they say we operate "by attraction, not promotion." And I think it's a further demonstration of humility and think that it works great!

Hope that was helpful...and any time you really want to talk or even meet face to face for a coffee, I'm game. And my name is Dov, no usernames needed in that case.

Funny! I just pressed 'submit'  and see that it loaded with a typo right at the start. And that's okay, cuz I'm sure there a many more! I don't like editing what I write because that usually seeds in 2 more self serving nonsense. Wishing everyone a great Shabbos!

I suspect that coffee may require a bit of travel unfortunately. But if we do get together for coffee the last thing I want to talk to you about is my addiction and how I'm not humble enough yet.

mzl wrote on 12 Oct 2018 20:53:

I doubt you have an addiction, chaver, so no reason for you to free on that account. I'm possibly the last guy who would try to get you to admit 'powerlessness' or anything of the kind (just like the 12step programs, that never try to 'get' anyone to believe anything). 

And regarding the distance, if you want to know the facts about that, PM or email off this dangerous forum would be the only way for you to learn the truth about that. Opening up on this forum with any identifying information about ourselves is highly dangerous in my opinion. A forum is not a safe place for that. I've always taken pains to help people understand that and have helped many folks protect themselves, here. So if you wanted to know logistics, it'd have you be off the forum. My email is wequithiding@gmail.com , as is mentioned on other places on the site, and I try to respond to PMs, as well. Chats don't come to my phone, so chat isn't a viable option.

I have not asked you to do a thing, remember, and it's your dime. But I've found that friendship and understanding are precious and enjoyable with anyone, and I trust you would be a good friend to have.

mzl wrote on 12 Oct 2018 20:53:

The 1st on the list is discussing what type of brew you prefer

2nd will be how many kashrut stamps you require

Last will be addiction

Ok sounds like fun

Ps. Here's why the written word ain't always perfect

Hah, I forgot the other thing your email mentioned about how yucky it'd be to sit and accept my criticism about your arrogance.

I've never called you an arrogant person, either. I have arrogance that doesn't make me an arrogant man. It makes me a man with arrogance.

I have been called out by loving friends (and some who are not so loving) pointing out possible motivations for mistakes I have made. I don't get insulted by that comma because we all have problems. The insulting stuff starts when people call others names. If you read my notes carefully, all I've ever done is suggest that arrogance is a (possible) motive for some things you have chosen to write, here. To me, it's nothing extraordinary or insulting. In fact, if you read what I wrote carefully you'll see that a number of times I was careful to be clear and say that I wasn't even talking about you but simply saying that people who make some of the choices that you were making in your writing may be tricked/motivated by arrogance, to do so. I am pretty sure I've got more, or at least as much, arrogance as you may have. I guess if you feel insulted by what I have written then you probably feel that I obviously have more arrogance than you do. Okay, whatever. The point is that I tried writing from my heart and tried passing along what I thought could be helpful if a person wanted to listen. As I clarified above, you did make a few assumptions that were Incorrect, and I'm pretty sure that there are a few more. I don't consider that an insult either. For I make lots of mistakes and I know that I may be mistaken right now and most of what I'm writing you. And that's okay too. communicating in writing does not bring the whole person to the table, so I nor you nor anyone can really know anything for certain. We can only share assumptions. And I think that's okay.

Hoping you have a nice Shabbos with your family. You obviously have significant challenges as many others do and I'm sure that life can get better and better when good decisions are made. Good motivations are obviously the cause of sound thinking and sound thinking can lead to good decisions. That's why I've been writing mainly about motivations. See ya!

Coffee and arrogance are my middle names. The invitation is open for all. Distance no difference. I make it my business to try to meet upon my travels. I've met in my town of residence as well.

Godspeed!

Day 6