The 12-Step Program

Most experts in addiction will tell you that the two most powerful methods in finding freedom from addiction are:

• Group Support: Get out of isolation and connect with others who are going through what you are - and succeeding!
• Work the world's most proven and powerful method of all time: the 12 Step program.

What is “The 12-Step Program”?

The 12-Steps were developed back in  the 1930’s by a group of alcoholics. These people had tried everything in the world, and yet they could not stop their addiction to alcohol even though it was completely destroying their lives. Somehow, Hashem opened their eyes to a simple spiritual program of 12-Steps that began helping even the worst cases to recover. The success of this program slowly spread, and today there are thousands of 12-Step groups throughout the world for every type of addiction, whether it’s alcohol, gambling, over-eating, narcotics, or sexual addiction. This simple program has helped millions of people to recover from even the strongest cases of addiction. The 12-Steps work best when worked together as a group,  and with a sponsor. Here is a summary of the 12-Steps:

1. We admitted that we were powerless over *lust* - that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible,  except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, we promptly admitted it.
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to others with similar problems, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Guard Your Eyes provides a few anonymous 12 Step phone groups to help Jews connect with other addicts and work together to break free from the grasp of this insidious addiction. Besides for the immense power of  group support that these phone conferences provide, we also learn the tools of how to find freedom from this addiction this life-saving program with an experienced sponsor. Rabbi Avraham Twerski indeed suggests to people that they try the GYE phone groups before deciding to join a live 12 Step group (which is the next tool of this handbook). See our website for more information on the  many  different phone conferences that GYE offers throughout the week.

A list of the phone conferences is available here.

GYE also offers phone conferences for the wives of addicts, to help them learn to deal with what they have to go through. There is a special whatsapp group for spouses of addicts as well, where they can give and receive support and chizuk to each  other. This network of support has saved many marriages. For more info see Spouses.

Learning about the 12 Steps

To begin internalizing the power of the 12 Steps, we can click through the recommended reading choices in the 12-Step section of our website. Particularly recommended are the Big-Book of AA and "The 12 Steps and 12 Traditions". We also highly suggest reading the ‘White Book’. It is a wonderful supplement to the Big Book for people who suffer from lust addiction. All of these books are available for purchase in hard copy or can be downloaded in PDF format from  our website.

Reading the literature can help us become acquainted with the steps and the profound philosophy behind them. By reading the many true stories in the "Big Book" we can see how the 12 Steps helped people turn around their lives to G-d and break free of the powerful grip of addiction.

You can also study the Big Book together with a group on our free and anonymous phone conferences, as mentioned above. A typical cycle through the 12-Steps can last a few months.

Introduction to the 12-Step Program

David Hamelech says in Tehillim (13): "Ad ana ashis eitzos binafshi - until when will I try different tactics?"..."ad ana yarum oivi alai" - until when will my enemy  rule over me?"... "Habita aneini Hashem Elokai, ha'eira ainai pen ishan hamaves

-  look and help me, Hashem my Lord, enlighten my eyes lest I sleep the death".

If we feel like these Pesukim were written for us because:

·       we've tried every tactic in the handbook till here, yet we still keep falling back into the same pattern,

·       we see we cannot do this alone anymore,

·       and lastly - but most importantly, we feel that we will "sleep the death" as Dovid Hamelech says, if we don't succeed;

then we have "hit bottom" and we are at the first of the 12 Steps, which states:

"We admitted we were powerless over the addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable".

The 12-Step program, if internalized properly, has consistently proven to be the most powerful approach to breaking free of addictions, all over the world. The 12 Steps are a spiritual program to overcoming addiction that is based on three core principles: (1) Trusting G-d, (2) Cleaning House and (3) Helping Others.

The 12 Steps are built on spiritual principles that are fundamental to ALL  religions. Some religious Jews find it hard to accept that they will be learning  from non-Jews how to give their life over to Hashem. But this Pasuk in Koheles 7:29 perhaps says it best: "asher asa haElokim es ho'odom yoshor, veheima bikshu cheshbonos rabbim - G-d has created man straight, yet they have sought many complications".

The 12 Steps are the ABC's of being a human being, created in the image of G-d. And we can learn these ABC's from  any human being who has lifted himself  up above the level of "animal" and seeks to be a humble servant of G-d, regardless of the nuances of the particular religion he may follow. One religious long-time 12-Stepper uses the following metaphor: Often as frum Yidden who are keeping Torah and Mitzvos while acting out in our addiction, we are like someone riding an 18-Wheeler truck that is careening out of control! Instead, we need to  get off the 18-Wheeler and get back onto a tricycle again; simple, slow, safe and real.

Technically, the meetings are secular; spiritual but not religious. The program doesn't teach us anything at all about G-d. Instead, it teaches us about  ourselves, and somehow that helps us to let G-d in.

At the Agudah Convention in New York (in November of 2009), Rabbi Twerski spoke about the 12 step programs, saying “they work" and denied that they have  a Christian component. Each of the steps they entail, he said, "is in Chazal”. We once asked Rabbi Twerski why the 12-Steps work even in place of where mussar didn’t help. Here was his reply:

Years ago, a person in recovery requested that I develop a recovery program based on our sifrei mussar. I wrote the book "Self Improvement? I’m Jewish!", which is such a program. At the end of the book I say, “Now turn the page and read the 12 steps.” The two are essentially identical. However, instead of the phrase “G-d, as I understand Him” we would say Hashem.

• I have attended many mussar shiurim. Everybody understands the importance of mussar, but I doubt if many people walk away with the feeling, "If I deviate from this, I'm dead!" A person sincere in recovery realizes that his very life depends on following the program, not theoretically, but very practically. If people would accept mussar that way,  it would work.
• No one in any mussar shiur I attended has ever spoken up and said, "I tried to do things my way, and I fell right back into my old ways." That  helps bring home the message that one's life depends on following the program.
• I don't recall anyone in a mussar shiur being so touched that they began to cry. It happens often in the 12 step program.
• No one in a mussar shiur shares strength, hope and courage. These things are what makes the difference.

There’s also a great article called “Addiction & Recovery Through Jewish Eyes”  by Carol Glass, which compares the 12-Step program to the  Teshuvah Templates of the Rambam and Rabbeinu Yonah, finding remarkable similarities.

Many religious Jews who have joined this program have achieved not only recovery from their addiction, but amazing success in all areas of their lives.

Understanding the magic of the 12 Steps

We will discuss here briefly the secret power behind the 12 Steps, and what it is about this simple program that has enabled millions of people around the world since the 1930's to break free of the most severe cases of addiction.

The first three steps are the core of the program:

• Step 1. “We admitted we were powerless over lust - that our lives had become unmanageable”. This step is about “Hitting Bottom” and admitting defeat. We admit powerlessness, i.e. that we have a mental imbalance, at least as far as lust is concerned. (We will discuss more below what "hitting bottom" means). Our lives are unmanageable and we know that we must stop, yet we simply cannot. We are between a rock and a hard place.
• Step 2. “We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity”. We cannot do this alone. Belief in a higher power is easy for frum Yidden, since we always believed in Hashem. But we need  to strengthen that belief, and make it more real to us. We can use our 12-
• Step group and our sponsor at first, as a way of learning how to use the help of a power outside of ourselves and greater than us.
• Step 3. “We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of G-d as we understood Him.” This is the core of the program, where we completely surrender our lives and will over to our Higher Power. "Let Go & Let G-d". We internalize that we are completely dependent on Hashem - a "life and death" dependency, like a one day old baby is dependent on  its mother. And we give our lives and will over to His hands, and trust in Him fully to take the addiction away from us and care for us as we heal.

The rest of the 12-Steps are really about how to do Step 3 properly. No one ever succeeds in completely giving their lives and will over to Hashem, but through the other steps of the program, we consistently grow in that direction. And an  amazing thing happens as we grow in our 3rd step and begin to live a life of humility, honesty and integrity in all our affairs (through the other steps). No one understands exactly how it works and science can't explain it, but we

miraculously find that we no longer have to overcome the addiction. Instead, Hashem does it for us, as it says: "Hashem yilachem lachem, ve'atem tacharishun - Hashem will fight for you, and you shall be still". We learn to leave the entire issue of our  Yetzer-Hara / disease completely for Hashem to deal with, and instead we focus only on living our lives as a servant of Hashem to the best of our abilities. And when we do this right, a miracle seems to occur and Hashem gives us a "Free Pass" from the addiction, one day at a time.

This sounds impossible. But it is documented in thousands of cases. We can  read some of the stories on our website, the stories of the Big Book and join the 12-Step groups to hear for ourselves how the most hardened addicts were able   to make a complete transformation through this program. As Bill W. writes in the Big-Book:

My friend sat before me and made the point-blank declaration that God had done for him what he could not do for himself. His human will had failed. Doctors had pronounced him incurable. Society was  about to lock him up.  Like myself, he had admitted complete defeat. Then he had, in effect, been raised from the dead, suddenly taken from the scrap heap to a level of life better than the best he had ever known!

Had this power originated in him? Obviously it had not. There had been no more power in him than there was in me at that minute; and this was none at all.

That floored me. It began to look as though religious people were right after all. Here was something at work in a human heart which had done the impossible. My ideas about miracles were drastically revised right then. Never mind the musty past; here sat a miracle directly across the kitchen table. He shouted great tidings.

I saw that my friend was much more than inwardly reorganized. He was on a different footing. His roots grasped a new soil.

I finally realized that it was only a matter of being willing to believe in a power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning. I saw that growth could start from that point. Upon a foundation of complete willingness I might build what I saw in my friend. Would I have it? Of course I would! Thus was I convinced that God is concerned with us humans when we want Him enough. At long last I saw, I felt, I believed. Scales of pride and prejudice fell from my eyes. A new world came into view.

While Step 3 is about "letting go and letting G-d", it is important to realize that "letting go" is really all about changing ourselves from within. For this, we need  the rest of the steps. As we learn to "let go" of the familiar setting of our inner attitudes and reactions to what we feel with our hearts more and more, the "let G-d" flows more and more naturally. That is the main work and fruit of the program.

As long as we remain the same people inside, we will just keep fighting ourselves. Through the rest of the steps, we learn to behave differently - i.e. that we should not have to resort to acting out with lust when stress, pride, fear,       and life (with its many bumps) hits us. The other steps assure that we don't remain the same people that we were before. "Knowledge" we have already. Instead, we need an inner change. As we fix our spiritual condition and learn  how to do Hashem’s work rather than our own, Hashem gives us a reprieve from our insanity, one day at a time.

Dov, who is sober in a 12 step program for 14 years (see his story below) writes:

“The 12 Steps help us recognize that we are sick and cannot afford to  struggle with lust at all. Instead, we learn to change our focus from a  “struggle” to simply doing Hashem's will for me today, by being useful to others and to Him. Lust is viewed simply as a distraction from focusing outwards, that's all.”

More about the program

We mentioned above that for Step 1 of the 12 Steps to truly work, we have to “hit bottom” first. But let us clarify this. It doesn’t mean we have to wait until we are suicidal, divorced or bankrupt. All that is necessary to “hit bottom” is to know that the addiction is too strong for us and that we cannot break free alone.

See the section called "Hitting bottom while still on top" on our website to read terrible stories of where this addiction can lead, such as the story of the religious man whose life was ruined and he was imprisoned for chatting inappropriately  with minors, or the serial killers who blamed their evils on the influences of their lust addiction, and the horrible stories of divorces and suffering of the wives of addicts.

Once we recognize that this is a progressive disease that will cause us not to be able to lead a normal marriage, hold down a steady job and progress  in  ruchniyus, and especially once we recognize the dangers of where this can lead, such as imprisonment and even death c”v, then we don’t have to actually experience the self-destruction ourselves before being able to “Hit Bottom”. And this is indeed one of the goals of the Guard Your Eyes network: to help people  “Hit Bottom” while still “On Top”, and get proper help while their lives are still intact.

The 12 Steps are a set of fundamental moral principles so basic, that even non- Jewish “drunks” are able to use them and ultimately become men of G-d. They  are the ABC’s of what it means to be human beings created in the image of G-d, as opposed to being animals who don’t have free choice. They are such basic foundation blocks, that they come before Judaism, before Torah and before Mussar, as Chazal say: “Derech eretz kadma la’Torah”. We have to learn the Alef-Beis first, before we can continue on to learn Torah and reach ever higher levels.

Unfortunately though, many of us never internalized these basics. It is  often ironic, that only when a man is desperate, is he finally forced to learn the real ABC’s of being a mentch. As addicts, we are forced to learn these important moral principles, and through them, we have the potential to become much greater people than average! And that was what Hashem was waiting for all  along. That is perhaps why he gave us such a seemingly insurmountable addiction in the first place.

It’s interesting to note that steps 2 through 12 (of the 12 Steps) do not even mention drinking/acting out. Instead, they are all about learning how to live right and think right, so that we do not get uncomfortable enough in our lives that we feel the need to medicate ourselves through acting out. The 12 Steps teach us how to trust in Hashem and live with His help instead of relying on our own strengths. They are about living in the solution, not in the problem.

On GYE we do not push anyone to join a 12-Step group. The 12-Step philosophy proliferates through “Attraction” and not “Promotion”. One cannot be forced or pushed into this life-changing program. There must be a sincere desire  to  change, that comes from deep inside of us. We have to know that we MUST   stop, and yet we know we CAN’T. Then, and only then, is there indeed hope that we will be able to internalize the “spiritual experience” that the 12 Steps can awaken in us.

Can we really be free of lust one day?

By working the 12 Steps properly, we will find that we no longer have to run and hide from the world. We no longer will feel that we are walking a tight-rope every time we go down the street or go shopping. We will be able to live normal lives "out there" in the big world, and still remain serene and sober.

As the Alcoholics wrote back in 1939 in AA (p. 101) about how they felt after recovering through the 12 Steps:

Assuming we are spiritually fit, we can do all sorts of things alcoholics are not supposed to do. People have said we must not go where liquor is served; we must not have it in our homes; we must shun friends who drink; we must  avoid moving pictures which show drinking scenes; we must not go into bars; our friends must hide their bottles if we go to their houses; we mustn't think or be reminded about alcohol at all.

We meet these conditions every day. An alcoholic who cannot meet them, still has an alcoholic mind; there is something the matter with his spiritual status. His only chance for sobriety would be some place like the Greenland Ice Cap, and even there an Eskimo might turn up with a bottle of scotch and ruin everything! Ask any woman who has sent her husband to distant places on  the theory he would escape the alcohol problem.

In our belief, any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure. If the alcoholic tries to shield himself he may succeed for a time, but usually winds up with a bigger explosion than ever. We have tried these methods. These attempts to do the impossible have always failed.

LIVE 12-Step Groups

Because the 12 Steps are truly a life-changing set of principles as we discussed above, often they can be internalized properly only through joining a live face-to- face group. Trying to give up our will to Hashem is hard, since He is abstract to  us. But by learning to give up our will in the group, and learning how to share honestly with the group and our sponsor, we are able to learn how to give up our will and be honest with Hashem as well.

Through the group, we learn how to work the steps into our lives, and we are  able to see what others do to break free and follow their example. We get to hear the real-life stories of others who were even worse off than us, and watch as they miraculously recover. We share hope, strength and experience  with the rest of  the group and feel a strong sense of “accountability”. And we get a sponsor (from the group) who has good sobriety, and we work closely with him on implementing the steps into our daily lives.

One addict, who is sober in a 12 Step program now for many years wrote:

I didn't get sober until I was desperate to stop and reached out frantically for help. A drowning person does not quit until they feel safe again. B”H for me it wasn't just a moshol (parable), I really felt I was dying, so I didn't give up.

I was told to go to meetings to meet other people and be introduced to the real me by looking at them. The support was tremendous.

Still, many come to meetings and do not get sober. They leave after two or three meetings and stay out there. The next thing I needed was faith in the steps - at least temporary faith, so I'd give it a shot. Nothing else worked, so I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, for I saw that the way things were going I was about to lose it all.

And I have not yet turned my back on  the knowledge  that  I  am just as close to losing it all today, too. And if that ever becomes “just words”, I believe I'll be lost for good. I don't think I'd be able to hold onto that reality without at least some live in-person connection.

Trying to learn the 12 Steps without a group is similar to learning brain surgery from a book. Anyone who wants to become a professional surgeon must participate in hundreds of real-life surgeries before they may be qualified to practice surgery on their own. Rabbi Avraham J. Twerski, who provides guidance for our network and is a world-renowned expert on addictions, has always advised those who contact him for help on this issue that the live 12-Step groups are the surest way to break   free of any addiction. They have a very high success rate with even the most hopeless cases. Here is what Rabbi Twerski wrote to one religious person who had been struggling with the addiction for 20 some years, thinking that he simply had a much larger Yetzer Hara than most other people:

"Your case is not unusual. I say this because I can tell you what works and what does not work. Sexual compulsions come in a variety of ways, but the common denominator is that the person has a compulsion which he finds very difficult to resist. He tries all kinds of ways (like you did) but nothing works, including marriage. This kind of compulsion is essentially an addiction. The only thing that works, in my experience, is participation in a 12-step recovery program for sexual addiction. They have meetings everywhere, including Israel.

There are many excuses for not attending meetings. What happens if someone sees me? The bottom line is, if a person wishes to be cured from cancer, he'll do anything. If one wishes to overcome a destructive sexual addiction, nothing should stand in his way. Psychotherapy is the frosting on the cake, but the 12 step program is the cake. When you attend 12 Step meetings, you may be able to find the name of a competent therapist. Be aware though, that many psychiatrists and psychologists have not been  trained in addiction.

The particular type of sexual compulsion does not make much difference. A beer drinker can be as alcoholic as a whiskey drinker. The core problem is   the inability to restrain one’s self from doing something that one knows he should not be doing but appears powerless to control it. Quite a number of religious people have been able to do with the 12 step program what they were not able to do with mussar (religious ethical texts). Perhaps this is because of the group support. We may learn mussar together, but we don't practice it together, which is what happens in a 12 step meeting.”

See also our website for a page of correspondence from Rabbi Twerski where he answers many people’s questions about these groups.

The 12-Step groups are very zealous in protecting the anonymity of all their members. “Your secret is everyone’s secret”. In spite of this, Rabbi Twerski suggests that it is preferable to try and internalize the 12 Steps first through GYE’s anonymous 12-Step phone conference groups that we discussed above  (in tool #15). Going to live groups is not recommended for low level addicts and may prove harmful.

However, for those of us who did not find the phone conferences to be sufficient, we will need to take our recovery to the next level and seek out a live group in our area. For information on finding a live 12-Step group, contact the GYE helpline at help@guardyoureyes.org or call our hotline 646-600-8100.

There are a number of types of 12-Step groups that deal with sexual addictions (SA, SAA, SLAA, SCA, SRA, PAA). However, for religious Jews, Rabbi Twerski agrees that the SA program is best suited. SA works on “lust addiction” and nothing else, and their definition of sobriety is the closest match to the Halachic guidelines of our Sages. Also, SA is also predominately male, while other groups (like SLAA) are often mixed.

Even if the group meetings are held in side rooms of a church building, Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky rules that the behaviors we are trying to break free of are by far more severe, and one should not hesitate to join a 12-Step group because of this (barring the main sanctuary).

• See also https://guardyoureyes.com/articles/12-step/item/is-it-permissible-to-enter-a-church-to-attend-a-12-step-meeting.

For spouses of addicts, there are S-Anon and CODA groups in many cities, where the spouse (usually the wife) learn how to live with an  addict.  These groups are very helpful for spouses, and besides for learning to understand the nature of addiction, they also receive much needed guidance and support. GYE has special CODA and S-Anon phone conferences for spouses as well. Contact us for more info.

Dov’s Story

Dov, who is the head moderator of our forum today and runs a virtual 12-Step group and phone conference on GYE, is sober in SA now for over 14 years.  When Dov first found our network, he posted his story and shared  his  experience. We can all gain a lot from reading what he shared:

For years and years, I had thought I was just plain “bad”, at best pitied by, at  worst despised by, Hashem. I was, in fact, doing severe aveiros (sins) and failing miserably at being an eved Hashem (servant of G-d). I knew that life was not supposed to be this way, but I always seemed to fall into trouble and act on my compulsions. As a  result, my emunah (faith) that avodas Hashem (divine service) was really possible for me, was very low. That continued for over ten years.

Then I got married and it got much, much worse for yet another ten years. I went to a few different therapists and spoke with a few Rabbonim, usually under the pretense of “having marriage problems”. The real problem was, of course, that I had a double life and it was driving me crazy. Some of those people were a little helpful to me, some quite the opposite. I even called Rabbi Twerski (in 1991 or ‘92) who told me exactly what you report here on your website: that I probably need a 12-step group. I couldn’t do that though (I thought), because my wife  would find out (I couldn’t hide going to weekly meetings!!). Also, I felt that the whole complicated recovery thing would “cramp my style”. I resigned myself to thinking that the best I could hope for, would be to die at a ripe old age with a big, giant, ugly secret in my safekeeping.

About six years later, I finally hit bottom. It became clear to me that I was getting only worse, never better, and that if I would take even one step further down – which I felt I HAD to do – I’d have to leave everything behind; my family, my self- respect, my community, the Torah and mitzvos, and even give up on  any  struggle for a connection with Hashem… In short, everything I defined myself   and life by, was “up for grabs”.

I saw no way out and was terrified. I had been terrified many  times  before (usually by getting caught or fearing getting caught), but this was different. I knew it had nothing to do with getting “caught” by anyone. Even alone with myself “uncaught”, this life became unbearable.

I went to a therapist the next week and told her my story, and she suggested I go to SA meetings. Having no choice I took her advice, and after doing the first of   the 12-Steps (admitting powerlessness) and sharing my story with others, it became clear to me that I was actually very ill. I have been going to SA meetings ever since and have been helped directly and indirectly by Hashem – Who I now know as my Best Friend – to stay sober so far.  My davening (prayer) and  learning went through a long cold period (for about 3 years) soon after getting sober, but with lots of help and a few years of patience, it finally turned a corner, and now, like my marriage and my life in general, the davening and learning are better than I had ever dreamed they’d be. I often have some awareness that I am really, comfortably, living with Hashem.

Of course, I still have plenty of problems and have ups and downs, but they   aren’t as big a deal as they used to be, and there is always this “background music” of hope, telling me it’s going to be alright.

Here is my point: The traditional AA approach saved my life. By this I mean, the AA message that I have a mental illness of addiction (to lust), a spiritual disconnect from Hashem and from people, and a physical allergy (to lust) that will eventually kill me. Immoral lusting in any way, makes my life completely unmanageable and makes me useless to others. Many other people appear to   be able to use lust a little without suffering as I do. For them it is just a “moral failing”, while for me it leads to a downward spiral of insanity and failure, just like alcohol for an alcoholic.

In my case, focusing on my struggle as having to do with my normal “Yetzer Hara” (evil inclination) was a sure recipe for failure. It made me simply try harder and use new tricks, which never worked. The message of AA to me (through SA) was not about any of those. It was about accepting the fact that I am fundamentally different from non-addicts, and accepting that I am not a BAD person getting GOOD, but rather a SICK person getting WELL – with help from Hashem.

I had to accept that this disease had me completely beaten, just like cancer or diabetes. You don’t struggle against a disease, you get the treatment. Plenty of people don’t, and they die as a result. The standard “Teshuva” (repentance) thing did me no good at all, simply because it is not structured for crazy people. This was not just a “Ruach Shtus” (spirit of folly), it had become my standard of living.

I needed to first learn to get honest with myself and others. That took me about a year and a half of frequent program calls, regular meetings, work with  my  sponsor, and the 12-steps. And my recovery was still clearly a neiss (miracle). Just like Hashem cures people from cancer and other illnesses when the patient takes his or her medicine/treatments, I had to do the same, and He did the same for me. And Hashem continues to do it each day, because I believe that I would still use my addiction and continue to ruin my life, should I just get uncomfortable enough with living. Putting the steps into action every day, keeps me comfortable and sane (at least it has so far!).

I think that some frum (religious) people, especially those who feel strongly about either beating the Yetzer Hara (evil inclination) themselves as a supreme kiddush Hashem (divine sanctification), or who feel that the answer must be in the Torah   if they only look hard enough, may have a hard time with my approach. But I  doubt they would use a “Torah” approach with any other disease. For me, it was too confusing to mix mussar concepts with the 12 steps, particularly early on. It was toxic, actually.

Yes, I know that lust – i.e. using and acting on lust, is not exactly like alcohol, as   it involves aveiros chamuros (serious sins), while drinking alcohol is not an aveira per se. Nevertheless, hanging onto the purely religious approach would have left me as I was for twenty years: looking for the answers with broken eyeglasses.

The way I read them, the 12 steps are about getting my eyes (mind and body) fixed and THEN getting frumer (more religious), not about getting frumer in order to stop. In fact, I got very frum, but the frumer I got, the sicker turns my addiction took! I grew quite disgusted with myself along the way, to put it mildly.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that any other  approaches are wrong, I’m just sharing what worked for me. Even though the principles of the 12- Steps are Torah-based, AA, in my experience is a sanity-building tool, not a religious one.

Because I am a Jew though, after I started to gain sanity and some freedom from the compulsive acting out and lust-thinking, I was able to start growing, thank G-  d, into the Jewish man that  Hashem wants me to be. And the steps are a tool  that I use to stay on that path now as well, one day at a time.

References

• Efrati, Y., & Gola, M. (2018). Treating Compulsive Sexual Behavior. Current Sexual Health Reports, 10(2), 57–64. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11930-018-0143-8 (Efficacy)
  • There are currently studies in progress investigating the efficacy of 12-step programs for CSB treatment, and some therapists have adopted many of the 12-step principles in their treatment methods [9, 61, 71•, 72•, 73].

Further Reading

• https://guardyoureyes.com/articles/12-step/category/12-step
• Some Thoughts on the 12-Step Approach DuFrene, Troy; Wilson, Kelly. The Wisdom to Know the Difference: An Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Workbook for Overcoming Substance Abuse (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook) (p. 157). New Harbinger Publications, Inc.. Kindle Edition. (Calms a lot of fears about the 12-step approach)
  • Table 14.1 - SAA 12-Step program [Simplified] Hall, Paula. Understanding and Treating Sex and Pornography Addiction (p. 175). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
• 12-Step fellowships Hall, Paula. Understanding and Treating Sex and Pornography Addiction (p. 173). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
  • Project CHOICE as explained in that book could be a good model. See also Hall et al., 2020, UK.
• THE TWELVE-STEPS Weiss, Douglas. Sex Addiction: 6 Types and Treatment (p. 71). Discovery Press. Kindle Edition. (Has a nice interpretation)
• Exercise 12. Twelve Steps for You O'Connor, (Psychotherapist) Richard. Rewire (p. 217). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Simplified steps)

From GYE Members

• Just want to share some experience that before I attended a live meeting I also thought the world would come to an end when I walked in. Maybe I would know someone (I did:) ), maybe someone would know me, I would be mortified exposed etc. When I reached a point where I had to and went to my first SA meeting all I found was acceptance, caring, and people who related to me and I related to them 100% (ok and the occasional kvetch). It was scary in the beginning but is now the most natural thing in the world for me. And after about 16 years of struggling and just wanting to get sober or die I'm now sober with the help of SA almost 2 years. Point being for me it was one of the last lies I told myself that going to SA would be impossible when in reality it is the best most accepting place for me. And for me the only place I was able to recover. @jake08