Guard Your Eyes

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A website for Jews struggling to maintain their moral purity in today's world
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The importance of the 12 steps
 
Read Chizuk e-mails 438-450 on this Page to get a deeper understanding about how the 12-Steps work and why they are so important.
 
Summary of the 12 steps

Notes & Explanations on the Steps

 

Join our "Anonymous Phone Conferences", based on the 12 Step Program

 

Click here for a letter from Rabbi Twerski on the importance of the 12 Step Groups

 

Click here for answers from Rabbi Twerski to important Questions about the 12 Step Groups

 

Click here for answers from Elya to important Questions about the 12 Step Groups

 



To learn and understand the 12-Steps properly, here is our reading recommendation order:

Free Reading Online and Offline


1) SA short Newcomer brochure

2) SA Why Stop Lusting brochure

The following pieces of literature represent the cornerstones of Strong AA.

3) The 12 Steps & 12 Traditions 
(Replace the word "Alcohol" with "Lust") 

 

4) The Full and Complete 1st edition of the "Big Book" with stories  (Replace the word "Alcohol" with "Lust")  For Palm OS

 

5) Gresham's Law

6) A very important early step guide called "The Detroit Pamphlet", which was the inspiration for the Back-to-Basics Program:

 

7) A widely quoted story in AA, "They Stopped in Time". Learning true Acceptance.


Offline Hardcopy Only Reading by Purchase:

Buy the SA Book (known as White Book due to its anonymous White Cover). It is available for purchase in hard copy over here:

 

Get the 12 Step Books

 

AA Big Book audio MP3. (Man voice over). Free online. $10.95 to download.

 


 

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 Duvid Chaim - an experienced sponsor, on his free and anonymous phone conference, as we mentioned above. A typical cycle with Duvid Chaim will last a few months.


If you want to learn the basics of the 12-Steps much faster, you can join Boruch's "Back to Basics" phone conference where you'll cover the 12-Steps in just 4 weeks. The literature for the "Back to Basics" program can be downloaded here.


Hundreds of thousands in AA have also found "Joe and Charlie's Big Book Study" very meaningful. Many believe that Joe and Charlie are the single best introduction you can get to the original program of the Big Book. (The link above is a word-for-word transcript of the recordings available here in mp3).

 

We also highly suggest reading the SA Book (known as White Book due to its anonymous White Cover). It is a wonderful supplement to the Big Book for people who suffer from Lust addiction. It is available for purchase in hard copy here.

 


 

Elya posted on the Forum: It helps a lot to work the 12 steps with a sponsor.  I know for the first 5-6 years I just went to meetings and never worked the steps.  But once I started working them by writing things down and exploring the resentments, anger and fear, after admitting I was powerless, then I began to get better and heal.  

 

"Kookookreekoo" Posted on the Forum: Nothing helped me until I was told that I am an addict a "Sex-Addict" and that my only option is to work the 12 steps. Nothing, absolutely nothing in this world can keep me sober, but Hashem is working with me thru the power of the program.

Listen my friend, if you are a addict like myself then be aware that it only gets worse, this addiction really kills. It kills us spiritually, mentally, and physically. Don't think that by just making phone calls, and/or posting on the forum you will be healed. It doesn't work that way. 

Maybe you are not an addict, but if you are, then the only option is to work the twelve steps of recovery.

 

Dov, who is sober in SA for over 10 years wrote:

 

The 12-Step program way of looking at the whole business is actually different than what we are used to. 
It is even different from what normal people 
without these problems are used to.
The program is not about answering questions to beat the desire. 
It is not an answer to the problem, at all. It does not make one "stronger", at all. 
It is about changing myself and the way I think so that I do not have the problem in the first place. 
This is done by the steps and by being part of a group of other people with the same problem getting better the same way. 
It would not work at all if it was done under the instruction of a teacher or Rav, or shrink, because it is about being together with folks who know you because they are the same as you are in this respect. 

Looking at it as a "struggle", I find useless and poisonous for me. To struggle, for me, implies that I can beat it if I only try hard enough and that is how I got so messed up  in the first place.

I got this messed up my way.
Now it is time to do things a different  way.
Because I finally became 
ready for things to be different.
And yes, the solution is not "long term", but neither is your kabolas ohl malchus shomayim. You can only be mekabel it for today, right? Can you eat for tomorrow? Can you go to the bathroom extra today, so you will not need to go tomorrow? No. In the same way a person can "commit" himself to keeping the Torah/mekabel the ohl forever, but his commitment is actually hevel. You cannot guarantee that you will keep it tomorrow. It says "hayom" in the Kriyas sh'ma, no? It's really really new, each day.

This is how the program's solution works, for me. This is all it means when we say, "One day at a time."

When we get honest about our limitations, like "we are sober only for today," it's not because it is too hard to do a week or a year. It is not about willpower at all! It's because it is just the truth: we are only sober one day at a time, and that is our only business.  Not tomorrow. Focus on tomorrow's sobriety is more shtuyot.
We get honest with ourselves and with others like us, to make it all more real to us. And that is the first step.
If you want to know a lot about the 12 steps I suggest reading the books called "the SA white book", and the book called "Alcoholics Anonymous". But what worked for me was not reading or studying. It was attending SA meetings, spending time with other people  with my type of problem who were getting better, and actually following the directions of the steps to the letter.
Thank-you for your patience with me. It takes me a long time to say things, sorry.
Hatzlocha and if we do not communicate again before RH, Have a kesiva vechasima tova you and all your family!
- Dov