Testimonial of the Day

Doing the 5th Step with Duvid Chaim

Lizensk wrote:

Yesterday I went to speak to someone. I went armed with a little pocket-sized blue book, and a few papers of work that I had done. After a quick hug, we got down to work. 

3 hours later, I walked out a new man. It was nighttime here in eretz yisroel, but the sun was shining bright. My new life was just starting. I took a deep breath, smelled the flowers, and apologized to the grey striped cat that was blocking my path.

I was finished my own personal pesach-cleaning, now it's time for me to leave the slavery of mitzrayim and move on.

For all of you that still don't know what I'm talking about, yesterday, I went and did my 5th step. I have never felt a feeling like I did when I walked out of Duvid Chaim's apartment. I felt on top of the world, a free person. The people who I had resented for whatever reason, I now wanted to do something for them. At that moment, Hashem made a flower store appear in front of my eyes, I went in and bought something for my wife. No expectations and for nothing in return, just because I love her. For the first time in our life together, she appreciated the romantic gesture. And it was a red rose no less, something she always told me she hated (they didn't have anything else). It's now on display on our dresser.

Since I walked out of that apartment, every thought, every sight and every action has been preceded by a thought, "am I doing this looking through the right pair of glasses?"

I saw the sky grey, I saw my life black and I saw my future bleak, all for one reason: I was wearing dark sunglasses. Duvid Chaim spent 3 hours ripping those glasses off my face and putting on a new pair. This morning the sky was a beautiful blue, my life is amazing, and right now (here's a biggie) I don't care about my future. All that counts is TODAY.

Looking past at my previous bitter posts, I can only thank Hashem for sending me to do the 5th step at the exact time that I needed it. I also davened for one thing this morning, "please keep me thinking along these lines, so that I may better serve you and be a pleasure to be around".

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Daily Dose of Dov

The Inner Wiring of an Addict

Someone asks Dov:

I understand that as long as I have lust, I'll never be satisfied, and will always look at others. I would like to know how to be with my wife without lust. To have relations without lust. How do I rid myself of lust?

Dov Responds:

You are asking a great question, but it is advanced...I mean, are you putting the cart before the horse here? If so, it will not work yet - but it is possible, yes...but...

What I mean is this: You wrote that you want to remove lust from your sex and relationship with your wife so that your desires for other women will be eliminated.

Now, the pain of struggling with lust for other women is actually not coming from any other place than the very lusting you are doing with your wife is. They are the same thing, not separate aspects of the same thing. Lust is lust. And satisfaction is satisfaction. When you are satisfied with yourself, then you will be satisfied with your wife - and with the sex you have with her. You will be a bit of a different person in that respect - a person who is not hungering for things outside himself  - and then the sex you have with your wife will be much more satisfying and enjoyable, and naturally seeing other women as potential sources of satisfaction will evaporate.

For ultimately, the only reason other women tempt us so much is because we walk around seeing them as potential sources of true satisfaction - the pretty and forbidden ones who can give the us the tasty and essential thing we are dying for...if only they'd be allowed, if only we'd have the guts to use them, if only they'd turn to us smiling and beg us to do it with them, etc. Fantasy is our enemy, not anything outside of us. It is us, our lust.

Lust is not a thing outside you or me. It is ours, and we can let it go if we are ready and want to. And then sex with our wives will change from a thing we demand in order to 'get satisfied', into a thing that we can do that is fun - if we want to. The Torah wants sex between husband and wife to be fun, not a need, but a choice. Only a choice can be fun. A need is way too serious - and a big turn-off to any healthy wife, too! A choice - not a 'necessary evil', certainly not a 'salvation' or a 'big relief'...and certainly not a thing we get so that we are satisfied enough to not  feel that we must lust for other women as much.

Do you hear me so far, chaver?

As long as sex with your wife - or even satisfaction with sex with our wife - is seen as a thing necessary to save you from having to lust after other women - it will never ever work.

The way it really works is quite the opposite, actually, as above.

Now, if you are ready for that freedom - freedom from lust - and are really ready to take steps to loosen its hold on your marriage and yourself, let me know and I will start to describe ways to do that.

Please let me know if I am being clear about the issue here, and we can move on, be"H.