Imagery techniques

References

• Use imagery. If you feel as though you are about to be overwhelmed by urges to use, imagine scenes that portray those urges as storms that end with calmness, mountains that can be climbed, or waves that can be ridden. Everyone can find an image to maintain control until the urge peaks and then dissipates. Some people imagine being a warrior who can defeat urges as if they were an enemy or an explorer who can slice through tropical underbrush and carve out a trail. Images can be made vivid by using relaxation techniques and all the senses (e.g., seeing the thick green jungle, hearing the blade swishing through the leaves, smelling the tropical plants). Photographs of loved ones also can distract you. Steinberg et al (2005), Brief Counseling for Marijuana Dependence: A Manual for Treating Adults p. 113
• Use imagery to get your mind to a different place. You can try imagining a safe, quiet place, or a place that you would love to be in that moment. Just be sure that the place you choose is not compatible with drinking or using. Glasner-Edwards, Suzette. The Addiction Recovery Skills Workbook: Changing Addictive Behaviors Using CBT, Mindfulness, and Motivational Interviewing Techniques (New Harbinger Self-help Workbooks) (p. 123). New Harbinger Publications. Kindle Edition.
• Disgust must surely be the most reliable, irredeemable and durable of passion-killers, its effects lingering long after the triggering event. Toates, Frederick. How Sexual Desire Works (p. 205). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.
  • Cultures that are highly restrictive sexually, such as the Irish island of Inis Beag, tend to see almost any expression of sexuality as being ... ‘dirty’ (Messenger, 1971) and by implication disgust helps to set the norms. Toates, Frederick. How Sexual Desire Works (p. 205). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.

In Torah Sources

Think of a role model

• כתב בספר ייטב לב (פנחס ד"ה במסורה) אשר יצ: מבואר בסרפים מי שמחוקק בלבו ומצייר בעיניו צורת צדיק ורבו המובהק הוא לעזר ולהועיל להגן עליו ולהנצל מן החטא וכו', וכן מצינו ביוסף שניצל מחטא על ידי שראה דמות דיוקנות של אביו שלמד אצלו תורה עכ"ל. והובא בשמירת המחשבה (פ"ד אות מ"ד) [וכעין זה כתב השבט מוסר (פרק י"ב - הובא בתורת ההרהור עמ' רלט).]
• See also תורת מנחם - אגרות

Using Disgust

• בעלי הנפש להראב"ד: וכמו שאמר החכם אם ראית צורה נאה וחמדת אותה הפוך את הצורה ותראה מה יש בתוכה. והיא כמו שאמרו רבותינו ז"ל (שבת קנב א) שהיא דומה לחמת מלאה זבל ופיה מלא דם
  • אך אעפ"כ צריך לקבוע לו עתים גם כן לשית עצות בנפשו להיות מואס ברע כגון בעצת חכמינו ז"ל אשה חמת מלאה צואה כו'. וכהאי גוונא. וכן כל מיני מטעמים ומעדנים נעשים כך חמת מלא כו'. וכן כל תענוגי עוה"ז החכם רואה הנולד מהן שסופן לרקוב ולהיות רמה ואשפה וההפך להתענג ולשמוח בה' ע"י התבוננות בגדולת א"ס ב"ה כפי יכולתו אף שיודע בנפשו שלא יגיע למדרגה זו באמת לאמיתו כי אם בדמיונות אעפ"כ הוא יעשה את שלו לקיים את השבועה שמשביעים תהי צדיק וה' יעשה הטוב בעיניו. ועוד שההרגל על כל דבר שלטון ונעשה טבע שני. וכשירגיל למאס את הרע יהיה נמאס קצת באמת. תניא פי"ד.
• מגיד מישרים פ' משפטים: ה' עמך גבור חיל אזדהר ממיכלא ממישתא ומהנאה בעת שתתענג במאכל ובמשתה בהסתכל מיאוס האוכל בעת לעיסתו וכל שכן מיאוס של האוכל שנעשה בעת הוצאתו

From GYE Members

• Yesterday I had to remove a dead bird from my basement. It was quite unpleasant and disgusting. But the feelings of unpleasantness and disgust were short-lived, and I "recovered" pretty quickly. Compare this to when we, chas veshalom, engage in disgusting behavior that affect our Neshama. In that case, the feelings of pain and disgust are much worse, and take much longer to go away. So next time anyone is tempted, just remember: you'd be far better off picking up a dead bird than giving into your temptation! Note: This reminds me of a story I heard with one of the previous Karliner Rebbe's. He was once served an expensive dish of cooked pigeon. When he felt pulled after the desire, he stopped himself and began to think about all the places the bird hung out, in garbage, in excrement. And he thought about the things the bird ate, worms, insects, until the Rebbe began to gag and pushed away the plate. I just wanted to share the news that I've decided to aim for a life of pleasure. The question is, how to achieve that? By giving into lust and inappropriate sexual desire? I know from experience that, after experiencing some brief pleasure, I am totally miserable when I do that, and it takes days just to BEGIN recovering. So, whatever it means to live a life of pleasure, it will require me to stay clean and sober, one day at a time. #Kedusha
• I thought of an idea that might work. If you are holding by mas or p think what would happen if you died with your pants down and that's how you were. Nobody would like that scenario. I guess that's yizkor yom hamisa in a real way. @MAALIN BAKODESH
  • lol I actually have thought about this a number of times!!!  Well in my twisted case I there was a real chance since I was sinning while driving.  If I got into an accident (well, another accident) what would the police have told my family?  Would the police cover up the fact that I had my pants down?  Talk about humiliation. @ontheedgeman
    • That never worked for me. I would actually think "What if i dropped dead this second and they found me like this" and 2 seconds later I would think "I don't give a da**, I need my fix NOW!!!" @Gevura

Further reading

Realize that porn stars are really suffering

• The Porn Industry’s Dark Secrets
  • See also Dr. Karen Countryman-Roswurm Speaks Out On Trafficking & Its Connection To Pornography
• "None of us like doing porn. In fact, we hate it. We hate being touched by strangers who care nothing about us. We hate being degraded with their foul smells and sweaty bodies. Some women hate it so much, you can hear them vomiting in the bathroom between scenes... Some of us caught HIV from that coercion. I, personally, caught herpes. Another porn actress went home after a long night of numbing her pain and put a pistol to her head and pulled the trigger. Now she’s dead. ... We are traumatized little girls living on antidepressants, drugs, and alcohol, acting out our pain in front of you, who continue to abuse us... Some of us have had physical tearing and damage to internal body parts. " From Truth Behind the Fantasy of Porn: The Greatest Illusion on Earth (Excerpt appears in Condeo program)
• "As with all prostitution, the women and children in pornography are, in the main, not there by choice but because of a lack of choices. They usually “consent” only in a degraded and demented sense of the word (common also to the law of rape) in which a person who despairs at stopping what is happening, sees no escape, has no real alternative, was often sexually abused before as a child, may be addicted to drugs, is homeless, hopeless, is often trying to avoid being beaten or killed, is almost always economically desperate, acquiesces in being sexually abused for payment, even if, in most instances, the payment is made to someone else." Catharine A. MacKinnon, “Pornography as Trafficking”, in Pornography: Driving the Demand in International Sex Trafficking, ed. David E. Guinn and Julie DiCaro (Los Angeles: Captive Daughters Media, 2007), p. 34.
  • Some have dismissed MacKinnon’s statements as gross overgeneralizations based on anecdotal evidence, but this is far from the truth. Extensive research (much of which can be found in the terrific anthology Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography) backs her up.

GYE Boosts

• Using Powerful Techniques Rabbi Ben Tzion Shafier suggests an extreme battle technique for specific situations.