Group Support
a
4
Ideas for Group Support & Accountability
d
Moshe Rabbeinu says in Devarim:
"Aich Esa Livadi?" - "How can I carry
alone?"
Don't go it alone! Having the support of others is vital in recovery. The renowned religious psychiatrist, Rabbi Avraham Twerski, author of many books and a renowned leader in dealing with addictions, has been known to encourage group support for religious people with problems of internet addiction (see here). Rabbi Twerski's exact words were "Psychotherapy is the cream on the cake, but group therapy is the cake". He also said: "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 here for Rabbi Twerski's answers to some important questions about the 12 Step Groups.
Not only do others provide "support", but they also provide another vital ingredient in recovery, which is "accountability".
Here are 5 great ideas for group support & accountability:
1) Join the Jewish Healing Group Hotline or an SA group in your area. Rabbi Avraham J Twerski, expert in addictions, holds highly of SA groups - even for religious people. See here.
See here for Rabbi Twerski's answers to some important questions about the 12 Step Groups. And see here for Elya's answers to these same questions.
2) Join our "Chavrusah" system. Sign up on the forum to seek an accountability partner to keep in touch with. You will give each other encouragement and update each other on your progress, either every day or every few days, depending what you feel you need and what you decide with your partner. Every time two new e-mail addresses are posted on this section of the forum, we will try to pair them up (see note below for some guidelines). See here for more on how the partner system helps you recover.
3) Seek a "Sponsor" who has already a track record of sobriety and is at least one step ahead of you in his journey. He can give you tips on what worked for him, as well as accountability. You can find such a sponsor either by joining the Jewish Healing Group Hotline or by posting that you are seeking a sponsor in the "Sponsors & Partners" board of our forum.
We can help match you up. Download this questionnaire in "Word" format, fill it out and e-mail it to us to help us find you the most appropriate partner for your situation.
4) Write about your struggles on the forum and encourage others there as well. This is definitely a type of "group support". The members of our forum are a vibrant community of dedicated users who write about their struggles and give each other support. Some people have reported significant progress since they began posting their struggles and progress on the forum.
5) Join a Torah Based Sexual Addiction Rehab Program
Note for Partners: One member send us his concern that partners could actually sometimes be detrimental if they describe their falls to each other in too much detail, leading the other partner to get ideas that he might otherwise not have had. Therefore we suggest, that if G-d forbid there's ever a slip, don't detail exactly how you went about falling, but rather just write your partner that you had a slip. Instead of detailing exactly how you slipped, write your partner about what you perceive to be the causes of the fall (possible examples could be: having a computer with no filter, boredom, alone in house, got aroused from something, watching movies, etc...). In this way, you can encourage each other to keep a distance from the things that bring you to fall. This will also force you both to make a self-reckoning after each slip, to discover what brought you to fall and to learn what to avoid for the future.