Here's something I've been working on lately:

Somehow I got into a rut of living just to survive. Anything I do is measured by what I HAVE to do or what I NEED to do or what I OUGHT to do. Even hobbies, somewhere along the way, became only worthwhile if I could somehow put a price tag on them and market them (which, for the most part, I couldn't).

So, under all this pressure of doing just what I am SUPPOSED to do, life gets very tense all the time. So, of course, I end up wasting lots of time to escape the pressure. At my best moments, that would translate into acting out.

I want to spend all day at things I enjoy, so I have been living this fantasy that I will make a living out of my hobbies. But this isn't realistic.

Someone told me recently that, "the things you enjoy doing--there's never ENOUGH time for them." But, I can put a little bit of time aside for these things.

I've started making time for things I WANT to do and enjoy doing, even though I can't justify them as a parnoso endeavor or as anything else. I can't even justify that they are useful, necessary, or even rational.

For example, I got a bug in my head that I want to make a pair of saw horses. Now, I am handy and do home-improvement projects every so often. However, for that once a year I need to saw something, I don't really need a pair of saw horses for that. On the other hand, it would be a lot nicer for that once a year to have a proper set-up instead of balancing things on rickety ladders and half-broken tables. So, I finally got around to making these saw horses, even though it doesn't really make a lot of sense and it's not entirely rational.

I have a certain writing project that I would like to undertake. However, I don't have any donors lined up with thousands of dollars to make sure this endeavor is worth the time I put into it. But, it is something I am rather passionate about. Yesterday I took the bus and had nothing particular to do while I was traveling. So, I took advantage of the opportunity to work a little bit on this writing project of mine.

These are things I'm not spending tons of time on, and I'm not sure exactly when I'll have a chance to continue this work. However, it is something I enjoy doing, so I made a little space for it in my life when I had it, and just from these tiny little things I've got a more positive feeling about life overall.

--Elyah

It makes sense. When you engage in some activity for your own pleasure you watch yourself doing it and you think to yourself deep down "I am doing what I want, it must be that I deserve it somehow." So it makes you feel worthwhile.

TehillimZugger wrote on 04 Nov 2012 17:30:


Neither do I. I think it's a 'shoresh neshomo' thing.

MT

Machshovo wrote on 05 Nov 2012 15:29:

That's what happens when you spend too much time in "pre"-Eitz Chayim.

Yeah, I think it's time to switch to Etz Hadaas Tov Vera.

MT

First he tells me not to show off....

BTW, are you looking for a chavrusa, or are you already doing it with Eliyahu Hanavie?

MT

Don't tell him!

Speaking of 'sodos', I just returned from the polls, and I'm not disclosing whom I voted for. It's a 'sod nifla' (that's nifla, not nfila).

MT

Machshovo wrote on 05 Nov 2012 15:29:


I enjoyed reading this discussion which I unintentionally kicked off. As far as I can tell Dov said that having a thought is a sakana, Machovo Tova says that a feeling is not assur. I think the two positions are easily reconciled. A feeling is not a conscious thought. It can be viewed as caused by an unconscious thought, but that is not the same as a conscious one. So they are talking about different things.

It seems to me that a feeling (not the thought that may follow it) is a kapparah for the person, it is not a sin. The unconscious thought is there because the person put it there by building a certain belief, but now it's done.

However if I have a feeling and I respond it by thinking about the wrong thing I am accountable for that. But whether the thought is really counted as a sin or not is not necessarily the concern for someone who secretly believes that the more aroused he is the less he is culpable for thinking some more about sex. As Dov said, it's a problem either way.

I also want to add that although the feeling may not be a concern halachically speaking, it is probably one purpose of the mitzvos to change beliefs which are not Hashem's beliefs. For example, if I keep kosher I get a terrible feeling when someone offers me something treif to eat. This shows that I have internalized a belief that treif is not okay, which is what Hashem believes. Similarly, as long as when I see a trigger I feel like I am dying my work is not finished. The work is finished when I don't get that feeling any more. That's nekius.

I just posted this blue stuff on MBJ's thread. He is very geshmak, and asked about getting free of viewing women the wrong way.

While it is certainly a great thing to become a Kadosh, and Nekius is certainly a part of deveikus (and part of 'fitting my neshomah' better, which the RMCha"L defines as being more 'like Hashem'), that does not mean that it is therefore the right way for addicts to go. The Chassidic concept of explaining concepts "al derech avodah" (see the Divrei Chayim, the Hornosteipeler Peleh Yo'eitz and other sforim - and Rav Avigdor Miller and Rav Shimshon Pincus's writings - for more of that approach).

Theoretical piety is not necessarily practically relevant, 'al derech avodah'. It may be ignored, actually, if it impedes real progress. And Recovery as I am being shown it is the 'al derech avodah', par excellence. Destination-thinking is really just taking outcomes into our hands...and basic emunah for everybody is that ratzon and hishtadlus are ours - outcomes are purely G-d's. Recovery focuses on that a bit more to the extreme...'al derech avodah'. It's just the way it works for so many addicts. As Chuck C used to say, "You can't think yourself into right living. You can only live yourself into right thinking." (yeah, I got that right )

There are many paths to success, harbei drachim laMakom v'harbei sh'luchim laMakom. I have found that the path to some high things is davka through (durch) the lower road. It is the despised road labelled "Mediocrity". Being just a normal, decent Jew - not The Rebbe. By aiming at Kedusha (or more accurately, at what we label as Kedusha), we often consign ourselves to the same cycle - just on a longer and more bitter track. So:

[color=blue]Messilas Yeshorim: "v'Hachasidus ha'amiti - rachok hi m'tziur sichleinu!" We generally have a poor concept of perfection and piety. And that was written to normals. Addicts have a twisted and poor perception of perfection.

The perfection and piety you seek seems to me to be a way to abdicate your more reasonable and more likely Ratzon Hashem: just being OK. No, we need to be great. It seems the only way out for us. But that is a lie our disease tells us. And it always has - that's why we kept acting out and flopping even though we were feeling like we were growing holier.

Sure, in long term sobriety and recovery you may always notice a woman's breasts first, or her figure, etc...but what is bad about that? It's just hard-wiring, and quite meaningless. It does not need to lead you to really interact with her as though she is a sex candy machine, and that's the point. The old ba'al mussar said on his deathbed that if someone held out money to him right now - he would still feel the desire to reach for it. Was he saying he was a failure? No way. He was saying that he was a success precisely because he never pretended to himself that he was pure as the driven snow - or deserved to be. He recognized he had the proclivity - but that did not dictate his behavior. He lived a life of success in freedom from ahavas mamon...but having the desire and seeing it operate in him was not a failure.

To you I believe, it would be a failure. And I am here to say that's a pity. It need not be that way. You can grow up along with all us addicts if you need to, and get freedom from acting out your lust by G-d's Chessed, one day at a time. He gives the reprieve daily - like the monn in the desert - so that we recovering drunks, druggies, and perverts do not ever believe that we beat it and are above it all now. For that pride would make us so holy that we would not need Him any more. And that would be the 'sof pasuk'... :-[

Hey - hatzlocha! [/color]

Nekius is usually just around the corner. It is not such a high state. The road is only blocked by rationalization. You can indeed think your way there but not all by yourself because you secretly believe that your present state is the best one for you. You cannot think your way out while preserving all your current beliefs, something has to change. Someone with the proper skills has to show you that you have alternatives and help you figure out if they are better.

And nekius doesn't mean that I see women as geese, which is probably a much higher state. I still see their bodies but I feel strong against the yetzer hara because I see it with clarity, with objectivity, I see that it's all advertising, it's all marketing, I see where it leads me and I also see that I have much better places to go because I have been there. And the yetzer hara doesn't bother with people like that.

And definitely Hashem wants everyone to be a tzadik without rationalizations, a clean man, and you should do that any way you can.

If after your are clean you want to go on to prishus (even from there Kedusha is way off) then kol ha kavod. I think if an addict wants to pursue prishus though he should double-check why he is doing it. If he wants to go to a higher state then he may well lose his sobriety because that kind of low self esteem is what gave strength to his yetzer hara. Also, behaviors of prishus may rekindle the irrational belief that he is powerless (if I have to run away from it I must be weak!) However if he wants prishus because he has done a painstaking cost-benefit analysis and he can spell out why the advantages outweighs the disadvantages then I think he would be free to go ahead.

Dear nederman,

It is unclear to me why you call it 'irrational' for a person to simply observe that he or she is actually failing for years and years at enjoying porn and masturbation successfully. Even the AAs do not mean in their 1st step that they admitted they were "powerless against alcohol." They say they finally admit that they are powerless over alcohol - meaning over using alcohol. That they cannot successfully use it, is the entire point.

SA's "powerlessness" is about being a failure at using erotica and lust successfully. Not about being a failure at not using it. This is so basic, perhaps (as Messilas Yeshorim writes about the most basic things) you are not aware of it.

Now, the frum guy who uses them is doing it even though it is assur. The fact that these things are assur is personally irrelevant to him or her, for he does them anyhow! So for him - especially if he is an addict and it is naaseh lo k'heter as Chaza"l put it - it is for all practical purposes identical to alcohol. No inherent evil is in it as far as he is concerned. The only real and relevant question left now is: can he use it successfully, or not?

The 'powerlessness' in AAs 1st step is the terrible answer for the suffering addict: "No, I see I cannot use it successfully." I hated it - though it brought amazing relief in its wake. In the moment, it's a true tragedy for him or her. Those who have been there know what I mean. But we have no other options but to stop using lust and erotica, even though we love it so much. We can't afford it any more. That's the 'bottom'.

Do you hear what I am writing here and how it differs from your refrain of referring to powerlessness over the yetzer hora? Addiction and recovery have got nothing to do with the yetzer hora, at all. And it certainly has nothing to do with beating the yetzer hora, as I tried to explain.

That's why surrender is the only option, for it is no longer a moral issue - only a practical one. Morality is for fighting and controlling. Not this - it is just practical matter: Derech Eretz...which is kodmah laTorah. Or as Bill called it, "Enlightened self-interest."

Your chaver in recovery (and lots of other things I hope),

Dov

Dov,

I am going to let you have the last word here because I was threatened with ejection from the web site, and also because we have already been over this.

dov wrote on 30 Oct 2012 20:19:


I had a long conversation the other day with someone from SA, it brought out to me my true feelings on this matter. My true feelings on the matter are that if I don't have sex very soon with the perfectly shaped girl I will die, I cannot go on breathing only in my imagination. I must die, because my wife cannot give me the physical shape and emotional intensity I need to keep on living, and I don't ch'v want her to die, so every time I see a attractive shape on the street, I feel that I cannot go one living this way.
I told the SA fellow that if I miss a few meeting he should call me to make sure I'm still alive. He said that my goal is to die sober, if that means to die from it, that's fine.
This is where I'm holding almost one month into recovery, maybe one day I'll learn that sex is optional. I better, cause if not I'm dead.