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🙄 I grew up in Provo where my father taught at BYU so as a kid I spent a lot of time on campus and at the Richards Building P.E. facilities––swimming pools, basketball court, etc. In the ninth grade I started smoking pot, and soon after drinking also, the result (I think now with almost with years of retrospection) of being abused/molested by a 20-something female BYU student. I was around 13 or 14 at the time, and when it ended I fell headlong into drug and alcohol abuse. Of course maybe this would have happened anyway, even without the abuse, I don’t know. When I was of age my father succeeded in getting me on a mission, despite my checkered past (I never would have made it today, after the church “raised the bar”), and I entered whole-heartedly into the “work of the Lord” and became not only a good but a model missionary. When I returned home I went to BYU, graduating with a bachelor’s degree, and later I would go to the Univ. Of Utah. It was at the U where the cracks first started to appear, the cracks in my edifice of faith. Unlike at BYU there seemed to be many RM’s at the U who were leaving the church, some that I knew personally, but still I hung with things and continued attending my local student ward, although I increasingly felt alienated from Mormon culture.What kept me in the church when I saw so many others leavings? Ironically, what kept me going then and also today is the very thing that has caused so many others to leave: the Joseph Smith story. Church history has always fascinated me; I spent many hours pouring over the history, looking at it from every angle, going through things that most LDS never pay any attention to, and I came to the conclusion–independently of the spiritual witness I’d received as a missionary–that Joseph Smith was telling the truth. “There are stranger things in heaven and earth…than are dreamt of in your philosophy”, Hamlet tells Horatio after seeing the ghost of his dead father, and this quote seemed to epitomize for me much of LDS Church history/theology.
I got married when I was a little older than most because I was very different from your average active RM, and it took me a while to find someone compatible as well as active in the church. But as it turned out she was active for only a little while, in fact after our sealing in the temple she never went back, although she did attend church for a year or so. I continued to go, although it was very difficult due to my increasing estrangement, not from LDS theology or history, but LDS/Utah culture, and because of this and also other difficulties and pressures, I started to drink again when I was in my mid-thirties although I managed to keep it a secret from my wife, mostly because I only did it, maybe, once a month or so. But life has a way of catching up with you, and as the years went by I started to drink more and more, and soon I couldn’t keep it a secret anymore, “I came out of the closet”, so to speak. I thought this would help matters but it only became worse. My wife divorced me, and then I really began to drink. Two years ago I admitted I was an alcoholic, a year ago I remarried, and today I am sober and also active in the church although I am no more comfortable today with the culture than I was before. The thing that keeps me going today is the same thing that kept me going before–the Joseph Smith story. I believe he was telling the truth.
Thanks for listening.
Wow, jmason, quite a story! Welcome, I hope you can find some help here. There’s alot of people who have shared various versions of what you have been through and are going through.
You’ll get lots of advice here too. So, don’t be surprised by the questions. Everyone here is very loving and caring, so it’s a safe place.
Having said that, I do have a question about something that seemed off in your intro: you mentioned that you’re sober in one place and then that you are addicted to pain meds. Are you saying that you’re sober from alcohol but not pain meds?
That’s correct. I don’t drink anymore but I’m addicted to pain meds, so I have yet to achieve complete sobriety. But I keep trying. Welcome. I hope you find comfort here. Given your diagnosed issues, I hope you continue to receive professional help. We can provide support and listening ears and caring hearts, but we can’t replace professional care and proper medication for your issues. I’m sure you know that, but it needs to be clear, imo. We will do all we can to help you, and what we can provide can be important, but the foundation always must be your own attention to and care of your issues that are out of our control and influence. [Moderator hat for a moment: Everyone, please do not discuss the disciplinary court part of this introduction on this thread. There is another thread that addresses that exact topic directly among the active topics, and it’s better to have that discussion in that thread.]
jmason welcome You have shown an immense amount of courage and I greatly admire you for that courage and indeed for your humility. As a retired counsellor I agree with Ray, talking to us here may well be an important resource but you need to keep working with professional support. You may well be addicted to prescription meds but that is as difficult a withdrawl process as any done for drugs or alcohol so don’t undertake it on the spur of the moment.
Hang on to Joseph Smith and don’t worry about the multiple versions of his first vision, academic scholars simply do not recognize nor understand the concept of sacred experiences and it is clear that Joseph was very reluctant to share his First Vision with anyone after his first encounter with the Methodist minister as an excited young man. It is easy enough to create an “academic” reason for each of the expanded versions of the vision but the essential truth is that he was growing both as human man and as a prophet. He was not able to fully express himself until he had the self confidence that can only come from living life even though he was in contact with Heavenly Father. I hold on to Joseph as well.
As Ray notes we should be discussing your Church court in another thread, just let me say that my heart bleeds for you and your pain that is clearly still there.
However, are you still keeping that journal? If not, start it up again, there is a lot of research now on the theraputic value of writing to reflect on life and work through your issues.
jmason, I’m so, so sorry for your difficult cross. How I wish things were different. How I wish our church could be a better church, and in many ways a different church. Bless your heart. Tom
jmason, I hope you find peace.
The Church does seem to be a bit confused regarding addiction. It’s a disorder that ruins many lives but is should, IMHO, be treated as what it is….a disorder….not a moral or character flaw. I don’t think Joseph Smith Sr. would have been chosen as patriarch if it was that big of a deal, but I could be wrong of course.
I guess, as a fundamentalist-type, I have it a bit easier. Attempting to make the WoW a commandment would be considered contradicting a former revelation due to the fact that Section 89 was given “not by commandment or constraint”. So, living the 4-no’s is not used as a measuring stick although it’s certainly encouraged. However, as a former active Church member, and an alcoholic, I fully understand where you are.
I’m sure you are aware that the Church has their own version of a 12-step program that appears, at first glance, to be a sincere effort on their part to help…instead of just condemn. I really hope you find something that works for you. My sister-in-law is in really bad shape after years of pain-med addiction. It is something that is not being adequately addressed in our society and almost not at all in the Church. Hopefully that will change. Best of luck to you….
Welcome, JMason! Like the others, I find this site very therapeutic on many levels, and I hope you will too. A few of us here have experience with substance abuse. I went through a dark time of my life when I learned of some processes in the church that bothered me. I was an acting bishop at the time, and it disturbed me to the point that I started researching the challenging history points of the church. That made things worse. I had an injury that started me on my “drugs of choice,” and I found that it also relieved my emotional pain. I was off to the races.
It took me a few rehabs to finally get it, and I’ve been clean for ten years now. It wasn’t an overnight revelation, but like most that do eventually get clean, I learned that it was not something outside myself that needed to change…
It was me. I needed to change my attitude about life. And it WAS a spiritual adjustment. The key was acceptance and forgiveness…mostly of myself. I had grown up with the typical guilt and shame many have, and it was only after accepting that I was okay — warts and all, that my craving for drugs stopped. I didn’t need to escape my “reality,” it was just fine.
I became a drug and alcohol counselor for a while, and found that most have the same basic issues I had. It seems when we don’t have self worth/self love, that we are driven to find a chemical that (even if only temporarily) allows us to forget our fears. But of course it only comes back worse when the drug wears off…and the vicious cycle continues.
Find a way that you can replace your drug with a different healthy release…exercise, hiking, art, music…and give it your all. After being clean for a while, the unhealthy cravings fade, and you begin to find the self confidence to guide your life. Find a way to be comfortable with your spirituality — not what others say it is, but what works for you, and enjoy the communion with God in your unique way.
Good luck, and I hope you will report back with your progress!
Hello Jmason. I am so sorry for the trauma you experienced….from the college woman, and the church court, to the choices you made that brought you into bondage. I haven’t been through a court, but I have sustained “traumas” from dealing with priesthood. Ones that weighed on my heart for a very long time and made me feel, if nothing else, extremely unloved. I have also helped my DH through addiction recovery, so I am familiar with some of what you might be experiencing.
I want you to know that all your feelings are valid. No, those men perhaps didn’t see your heart or your needs at the moment or understand that words you couldn’t say. And yes, you were right that you didn’t get the healing emotional attentiveness you needed in those so very difficult moments. I am not sure that means that the decisions of the counsel were not exactly what the Spirit had directed. I, of course, can’t know. Only you would be able to receive understanding on that count. I know my SP made some very wrong decisions and I know that God helped me to understand the truth about it all. That helped me a great deal as I tried to process what had happened and as I came to see that he was still a very good man. Maybe these men had thoughts and feelings they couldn’t speak either or capacities they hadn’t acheived. God is somehow helping all of us pass through this veil of tears together. And sometimes it doesn’t look like any good is coming of it.
A lot of time has passed since my traumas occurred. And God has helped me a lot. I look back on many of the experiences and the painful people associated with them, and God is helping me see the whole thing differently. At the time, I could only see pain and the disabling of my spirit because of it. I now see that all of us us (the people and me) were all doing the best we could. I believe the same for you….even if your best was only getting your feet to move you into that lonely chair. And you know, God is helping me be ok with all of it. He is even turning all the yucky parts to good. It kinda feels like what a burned forest might look like as green growth sprouts into something beautiful and new. And He is doing something else too. I was a lot like you…..alone without anyone to see or hear or give me what I needed. And I was handicapped by lists of expectations of what I thought others should do for me. Now God is teaching me to be that person for myself. I can’t go back, but I can trust myself to be there for me when I have needs or wishes or pain. That is a great thing! I would love to say that bishops and SP’s have this capacity for everyone that comes into their offices. But then that would take our focus off of Christ and off ourselves, now wouldn’t it? If they ever are there for me, I will be grateful. But it is to myself and to my God that I now place my trust. And that feels offly good.
Give your pain to Father. Hand the burden to the Savior. Let him sort the parts that won’t sort and the pain that won’t heal and let him turn the burned parts into green trees and flowering fields. Take responsibility for the parts of your pain that belong to you. Our healing is our responsibility! We can’t control outcomes. We can’t stop pain from happening. We can’t make everyone do what we think they should in key moments. But we can give ourselves what we need instead of medicating, blaming and wallowing. Let go of the story you are telling yourself about all the events in your life. This might open the door to letting God rewrite the script.
Get back into recovery. It’s such a kind thing to do for yourself. So many of the answers you need concerning faith and healing are found there. Faith is about trust, letting go, and surrender. I hope you learn that you can pass through pain and trauma and stress and loneliness and rejection with love and compassion and forgiveness and self care as you put your life in the hands of Christ and as you take up the ownership of your life too.
It is important to process and mourn our losses. Anger and arguing are part of it. But don’t stay there too long. And don’t stay in victimhood either. It satisfies for a bit, but really it blinds us to our self power and wastes valuable time.
Welcome to the site. I hope you know you aren’t alone and that no one here is judging you. There is healing. There is loving friendship. There is hope.
Best wishes.
Thanks to all who have taken the time to respond to my story. I read each of your posts carefully and have learned from them. Some things are/were hard for me to hear, for example, the suggestion that nothing outside of myself needs to change, only what’s inside (ouch!). Like a lot of addicts I tend to “self-isolate” and so a place like this is good for me.
A comment or two….
Someone here said––Bruce, I think, a fellow alcoholic (former)–that the church is beginning to understand that addiction is not a failure of the will or a moral failing but a disease, and I have to say I agree. When I went through my court experience nobody understood this, least of all me. I managed to stay sober long enough to be reinstated but then it was back to the bottle again. And really this is the problem I have with church courts, or at least my church court. What was accomplished? It not only did me no good, I was actually worse coming out of it. I say this knowing full-well that everyone in that room had my best interest at heart, they were trying to do the right thing, they prayed and asked for guidance. But nothing changed––disfellowshipping me did nothing to address the issue(s) that caused the problem in the first place and in fact it made it harder for me to do so myself. The confidentiality requirement was not kept (I don’t know who leaked, whether it was one or more), in fact a neighbor woman asked me a week later how the court went and what was it like, etc., and I also found that my oldest daughter was no longer allowed to play with her best friend whose father was a member of the high council, and that’s just the beginning. I was isolated before the court, a Democrat and an intellectual (whether it was true or not, and it wasn’t, but I guess it depends on how you define the word), isolated from my neighbors and fellow church members, and now after the court I was doubly so––or so I felt. I really questioned for the first time in my life whether there was a place for me in the church, whether I was even wanted. I continued to attend services until I was reinstated, but then I stopped and really haven’t been back since.
But of course this is my experience only and so it is only anecdotal at best, I don’t think for a minute that it has universal application. I don’t know what the answer it, in fact the older I get the less I know, or think I know. But in some circles this passes for wisdom.
Welcome brother, I sincerely hope you can find your peace with the church. Poppyseed wrote:Give your pain to Father. Hand the burden to the Savior. Let him sort the parts that won’t sort and the pain that won’t heal and let him turn the burned parts into green trees and flowering fields. Take responsibility for the parts of your pain that belong to you. Our healing is our responsibility! We can’t control outcomes. We can’t stop pain from happening. We can’t make everyone do what we think they should in key moments. But we can give ourselves what we need instead of medicating, blaming and wallowing. Let go of the story you are telling yourself about all the events in your life. This might open the door to letting God rewrite the script.
Fabulously inspired words, poppy! This is the recipe for everyone to live by, whether addict or not. Thank you for this.
jmason wrote:It not only did me no good, I was actually worse coming out of it. I say this knowing full-well that everyone in that room had my best interest at heart, they were trying to do the right thing, they prayed and asked for guidance. But nothing changed––disfellowshipping me did nothing to address the issue(s) that caused the problem in the first place and in fact it made it harder for me to do so myself.
I agree, jmason and bruce, the church disciplinary system dealing with addicts is woefully, shamefully inadequate. I would imagine that in most cases, an addict will get worse after this experience. Mostly because the addiction is usually fueled by a lack of self-worth and a lack of feeling worthy of good things happening to oneself. And disciplinary action would validate the low self-worth and unworthiness thus accelerating the addict cycle down.
I’m sure it could have other outcomes as well that aren’t so damaging but…
This is a copy of what I wrote on the church council thread. I hope you take this in the spirit in which it is offered: jmason, I’m going to say this as carefully and gently as I can,
but I’m going to be very direct. 1) You are an addict. You have been addicted to one substance; you are currently addicted to a different substance. You are engaged in very destructive behavior. Even according to the general rules of the society in which you live (not the LDS Church, but American society generally), your actions are not seen as “acceptable”. The general advice you would get from “the outside” would be to go into some kind of program and stop using what you are using – even if that meant a detox center that was “isolated from the community”.
2) With the LDS Church’s even stronger stance against addiction, you EASILY could have been excommunicated (isolated from the community). You were asking for total leniency, even while still an active addict – which is quite typical of addicts. You weren’t excommunicated; you only were disfellowshipped. That action usually is a second chance, if you will, to change while still associating with the Church and its membership – without being isolated from your community. Again, based on what the normal recommendation would have been on the outside, it was a fairly lenient decision – but you have continued to hold onto the worst possible reason for the decision. You need to consider why that is.
3) The man who “walked right past you” might have been in rush to get home. He might have been uneasy about talking to you at that moment in a public place – concerned that you might start talking about the council in a location where he wouldn’t have been able to respond. He might have been trying to protect you from others knowing about what happened. You say he was a good man, but you have continued to hold onto the worst possible reason for his actions. You need to consider why that is.
4) The biggest hurdle for addicts usually is denial; the first step in the classic repentance process is admission and remorse – followed immediately by resolve to change. Frankly, it appears to me that you still are blaming others for having to deal with your addiction in ways of which you don’t approve – even though those ways were NOT as extreme as they easily could have been and, in fact, appear to have been as lenient as they could have been. You need to consider why that is.
5) We can help you here in some ways, but we can’t help you in the most important way you need help. Above all else, you need to get clean and end your addiction. You need to stop blaming others for your disfellowshipment and take FULL responsibility for the result of that council. You need to repent (meaning simply “change”) – and I’m afraid none of your other issues are going to be resolved internally until you stop using your addiction as a crutch. The central issue is NOT how others have reacted to your addiction; the central issue is your addiction. The central issue is NOT others and how they have acted; the central issue is you and how you will act from this day forward.
Again, I am sharing this with you as gently as I can, but I am being direct because I love you – and you really do need to consider why you continue to hang onto your need to blame others for the result of your addiction. I hope you understand why I wrote what I wrote – and
I hope God holds you in His arms and gives you the strength you need. Jmason, I hope this next bit will show that perhaps the tide is turning. In one interview, my bishop told me of a letter from CHQ addressing porn addiction and trying to explain to bishops that it sometimes takes 50-70 failures before people can stop and that the process of recovery could take 3 to 5 years. The letter explained that while accountability is crucial, that coming down so hard is not productive and damaging to recovery. My H never had to go thru a court. The SP wanted to, but wanted my opinion first. Now, had the leaders woken up sooner before my H entered recovery, then a court would have made sense. But at this point, I didn’t feel it did as I knew he was headed in the right direction even though his daily behavior may not have looked like it. At one point I asked him “what would be the point”? He said the court would be a wake up call. I explained that my H was already awake….painfully awake to his reality…..and that now he needed something very different. The SP understood that going forward would be less productive and over time things turned out much better for my H in terms of priesthood support.
I don’t know how many similarities there are with regards to PA and alcholism, but I do think the ship is turning slowly to a better paradigm of how to handle things. I think they are realizing that the court isn’t necessarily the best cure. It may be a tool for repentance issues or perhaps at the intervention stage, but as you and I know repentance is only part of the dynamic and recovery and helping one through it is a much better course to the same end. This of course doesn’t address your personal pain or the damage that was done inside of you. I honesty think that as misdirected as the brethren were, they thought they were helping you. Feels like the old time dr.’s that thought bleeding a patient would cure them. They actually killed a lot of people. …… But, God judges on the heart. Maybe we have to as well.
Quote:Some things are/were hard for me to hear, for example, the suggestion that nothing outside of myself needs to change, only what’s inside (ouch!).
Knowing that we have to change the inside of us hurts, but only at first. I remember the day when I realized how codependent I had become. It was a royal stinger! Not to mention humiliating. But you know…..the truth makes us free so this notion is actually a wonderfully powerful revelation! If there is some thought that is keeping me stuck in pain, for example, then I can let go of it. I don’t beat myself for having thought it or for hanging on to it so long….and I did hang on with all my might!! I now go to gentle work with the part of me that needs to hold on to it and the notion of why I believe it is serving me. If it isn’t serving me, then I know I need to let go. And when I do, good things happen. If there are notions in your thinking that are trapping you in your pain, then you can observe it and make adjustments. If one can get the shame and self reproach out of the process, then it actually becomes a rather peaceful, powerful, easy thing. And it changes the way you see your own mistakes. And then surprizingly, it changes the way you see others’s mistakes too. It’s humbling…..but not just in the deflating way. But humbling in the strengthening way too. I think I now understand more about what it means to love others as ourselves. The way we see and treat others is often a reflection of how we see and treat ourselves. It really works, I have to say. I now see that some of my pain was of my own making. I also see now that I have so much power to make things different. Letting go is actually one of the kindest acts. I think this is what God does when He remembers our sins no more. Once the paradigm shift clicks into place for you, I bet you won’t say ouch in the same way.
Well said, Poppyseed. jamson, to echo what Poppyseed just said, you might want to read the following post from our archives about grace:
“Grace – Long Initial Post” (
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=201&p=1641&hilit=grace#p1616 The conversation in the thread is interesting, and I think it is helpful for someone whose addictive tendencies might be “natural” to consider the role of grace and our 2nd Article of Faith.
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