SDB’s vs. Addictions

[Anonymous]

I saw that our stake is offering a course on conquering self-defeating behaviors. I don’t know if it’s the same manual and materials, but I think moving away from so much addiction talk is good.

[Anonymous]

I agree. A personal story: one of my teen-aged daughters came to me in tears after having looked (purposefully) at some pornographic material (mainly out of curiosity in my opinion). The first words out of her mouth were “I think I’m addicted to pornography!” If she hadn’t been so dead serious I would have laughed. I explained to her that a momentary lapse of judgment or a brief fleeting weakness does not an addiction make. We discussed appropriate use of the internet and that she should bring her device out of her bedroom in the future to remove future temptations.

I’m not qualified to determine whether one can be addicted to pornography or not (I know there’s controversy about this) but I really dislike the “A” word being thrown around so indiscriminately. That really shouldn’t have been the first thought in my daughter’s mind once she regretted her action. I think some qualification of terms has been a long time coming.

[Anonymous]

I find it very interesting to see the over lap between efforts of clergy to preach religious support in tandem with psychology and support for behavioral issues and for addictions and mental illness.

I still think we know little about the differences between these, but I would think stakes that organize these are making good efforts to provide support to a need in their community. I would imagine it is done with the skills and experience of someone in the stake that has background in psychology, and the effectiveness depends on that person’s skills to do it.

There is a stigma that also makes these issues hard to talk about.

Ann, do you think this comes from prior efforts to treat “addictions”…only to find those programs don’t exactly reach some people or approach many things correctly, because it would lump too many circumstances into “addiction” instead of more controllable behavioral things? And so…based on the feedback from prior efforts…they are approaching SDBs?

I find it interesting the fine line that can separate secular psychology with religious preaching to help individuals heal and grow.

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

I find it very interesting to see the over lap between efforts of clergy to preach religious support in tandem with psychology and support for behavioral issues and for addictions and mental illness.

I know that we are not the only church to use the addiction term fairly loosely in terms of looking at pictures. An SDA pastor I know had said that he was addicted to porn as a youth. I later asked him about it since what he described did not seem to be an addiction in the clinical sense. The pastor responded that it was a behavior that he felt bad about but was unable to stop thus in his mind it was an addiction.

Ann wrote:

I saw that our stake is offering a course on conquering self-defeating behaviors. I don’t know if it’s the same manual and materials, but I think moving away from so much addiction talk is good.

Another local church has a “Celebrating Recovery” program. It is described as for anyone working to recover from “Hurts, hang-ups, or hardships.” They are sorta like religiously themed AA meetings that cover more topics than alcohol.

[Anonymous]

As a recovering alcoholic, I’m trying to understand the Church’s addiction recovery program.

It seems that they are trying to define an addiction for everyone or you could feel left out.

Addictions like alcoholism & drug dependence is serious business. I don’t see how the church

can offer much hope or meaningful recovery when you include shopping, etc.

There are times when the addict needs to be hospitalized or taken out of society to really have a chance to recover.

There is a different kind of honesty with it too. You can’t pray it away. There were times when I

had “come to Jesus” discussions with men who have been through the depths of hell to get sober.

I don’t see it happening to the same degree within a chapel of the church. I would of avoided it at all

costs. Jesus & gospel principles were the last thing I wanted to hear at the early stages of my recovery.

Recovery is really a miraculous process. You have to desire & work for it. It has to be completely anonymous.

Has anyone gone to a meeting?

What did you get out of the meetings?

[Anonymous]

My stake hasn’t used the “self defeating behavior” language before, but they’ve told us several times to avoid the word “addiction” when youth are struggling with pornography. The worry is that the person will label themselves as an addict and that it will be self fulfilling.

[Anonymous]

As the adult child of a alcoholic, I have attended Al Anon meetings. I found them very helpful.

Talking to LDS peeps who have gone through a 12 step program and then attended an LDS recovery program, they essentially ran screaming back to a non-LDS 12 step program. I haven’t heard great feedback about the LDS program — but I have only the opinions of a couple people.

I am sure the LDS program can be very helpful for many.

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

Ann, do you think this comes from prior efforts to treat “addictions”…only to find those programs don’t exactly reach some people or approach many things correctly, because it would lump too many circumstances into “addiction” instead of more controllable behavioral things? And so…based on the feedback from prior efforts…they are approaching SDBs?

Don’t know, but if I learn more, I’ll add it.

[Anonymous]

I would like to see a move away from addiction and to SDB, especially regarding pornography but also other behaviors. When you call it an addiction, the focus a lot of times gets into why or why not it should be called an addiction, not why or why not the behavior is unhealthy and what to do about it.

[Anonymous]

Minyan Man wrote:

As a recovering alcoholic, I’m trying to understand the Church’s addiction recovery program.

It seems that they are trying to define an addiction for everyone or you could feel left out.

Addictions like alcoholism & drug dependence is serious business. I don’t see how the church

can offer much hope or meaningful recovery when you include shopping, etc.

There are times when the addict needs to be hospitalized or taken out of society to really have a chance to recover.

There is a different kind of honesty with it too. You can’t pray it away. There were times when I

had “come to Jesus” discussions with men who have been through the depths of hell to get sober.

I don’t see it happening to the same degree within a chapel of the church. I would of avoided it at all

costs. Jesus & gospel principles were the last thing I wanted to hear at the early stages of my recovery.

Recovery is really a miraculous process. You have to desire & work for it. It has to be completely anonymous.

Has anyone gone to a meeting?

What did you get out of the meetings?

MM,…I like your post here.

I’ve been to lots of the church’s basic addiction programs, for both substance abuse as well as porn, and I think they miss 2 VERY essential and meaningful points: 1) they have no support network. You are NOT supposed to exchange phone-numbers and have any type of sponsorship program, except perhaps with your bishop (and those bishops have no idea, many of them, how to support someone who struggles at 2:00 AM, for example); 2) they omit the whole idea of the “cage” problem.

For anyone interested, there is a TED Talk that is fascinating….and I believe 100% accurate:

https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong?language=en

The position of the LDS faith is to restrict privileges when someone crosses certain lines, like sexual addiction (if such a thing exists)…and that restriction further isolates people.

John Hari says something quite interesting at the end of his discussion–perhaps addiction isn’t about the drug,…perhaps its about the cage; and the opposite of addiction is not sobriety–its connection.

Just some thoughts…

[Anonymous]

churchistrue wrote:

I would like to see a move away from addiction and to SDB, especially regarding pornography but also other behaviors. When you call it an addiction, the focus a lot of times gets into why or why not it should be called an addiction, not why or why not the behavior is unhealthy and what to do about it.

It would be nice for the church to spend some time asking the question: “Why are these people engaging in a behavior that is unhealthy or dangerous?” I don’t feel like they have done this very much…..that is my honest opinion and gosh I wish I were wrong.

I’ve been to a LOT of these types of meetings (on the addiction side), and they all say the same thing: “You have lost your connection with God”. I’ve always wondered how God was going to come down and put his arms around me when I needed it. And yet, the church still focuses soooooo much on reading scriptures, saying prayers, etc….

I think MM above said something about sometimes you need a hospital. And, unless you can find out what the addiction is covering, how can you fix it?….pray and scripture reading is NOT the answer to everything.

[Anonymous]

Rob4Hope, thanks for the TedTalk video. It was very interesting. It is one of those presentations I will have to think about for

a while to get the full impact. The talk seems to be based on academic research & study. When you are in the middle of your

alcohol or drug addition, all academics are gone or don’t make sense. Your whole goal was to continue with your lifestyle. I

thought it was working for me. I thought I was fooling everyone around me. Any suggestion I was an alcoholic kicked in my

reaction or strategy, to convince you I was not. I could accept that I may be depressed. But not a sick alcoholic. The stigma kicks

in with addition.

I’m not sure about creating a “rat paradise”. It is turning out that there are a lot of kids in the rich suburbs that are using alcohol or heroin now. Grantide they are damaged in other ways than just economically. I have to think more about that.

[Anonymous]

Rob4Hope wrote:

2) they omit the whole idea of the “cage” problem.

I’m not sure if I’ve missed it…I didn’t go through the whole talk and materials…

but can you elaborate on what the “cage problem” refers to?

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

Rob4Hope wrote:

2) they omit the whole idea of the “cage” problem.

I’m not sure if I’ve missed it…I didn’t go through the whole talk and materials…

but can you elaborate on what the “cage problem” refers to?

Thanks

You will have to watch the whole TedTalk thing. The guy doing the talk doesn’t preach–he asks some pretty interesting questions. The original studies about addiction used rats and cages. The rat was put into a sterile cage, given 2 bottles to drink from, and overdosed on the cocaine one. Later on, another researcher created “rat heaven” cage–toys, gadgets, and all kinds of crap that rats LOVE to play with,…and put in a bunch of rats. There were the same 2 bottles, ones with cocaine in it. All the rats tried the cocaine bottle, but NON used it. The conclusion of the researchers was there was too much other fun stuff in the cage the rats wanted to engaged in, so they didn’t use the drugs to escape, they wanted to be present.

The parallel of the TedTalk guy?…maybe the problem isn’t the drug, maybe its the cage (or environment). The conclusion is the more enriching the environment AND THE CONNECTIONS WE HAVE to those around us, generally speaking the less pull addiction has.

I recognize there are exceptions–but I think this guy is really onto something. I really really do…….

[Anonymous]

That’s super interesting, Rob. Thanks.

I would guess the problem is if a rat got the cocaine water…then was put in the cage with toys AND cocaine water…that addicted rat would act differently than the other rats who had not used the cocaine water to escape. And in that case…how do you break an addiction?

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