Addiction -- A Family Disease

This is Part II of my wife’s notes from her ward conference presentation to sisters on addiction. Part I is here. I’ve edited her notes slightly for reading.

Addiction is a family disease—the effects of one person active in an addiction will be felt by all who are close to him or her. Family and friends of addicts can feel emotions of hurt, betrayal and loss. They may be overcome by feelings of anger, fear and sorrow. They may ask themselves why this is happening to them or what have I done wrong? They may feel responsible for not helping in the right way or protecting or nurturing family members well enough. They may be trying to keep up appearances that all is well when it is not. They also might feel like they are in a situation that they don’t know how to escape.

Feelings of fear, guilt or shame may dominate their thoughts and affect their relationships with others and with God.

Trust in their addicted love one may be shattered and some even feel that God has failed them by allowing this pain and suffering to come into their lives.

If any of you are like me and have been in this cycle, then you know that where anger and fear exist, there is no peace and faith: one’s emotional and spiritual health are affected. My greatest crises of faith have been a result of my reactions to my loved ones’ addictions.

Even though the snare of addiction is vicious and the consequences of addictive behaviors are destructive -- even disastrous -- to both the addict and his /her loved ones, there is a way to heal and find peace.

Jesus said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Our Savior promised that as we surrender to Him the burdens we carry that we can receive his promise, “…my peace I give unto you…Let not your heart be trouble neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). Healing and lasting peace can come by letting the Savior step in. Using the power of the Atonement to heal the wounds gives us strength and guidance to carry on.

Elder Ballard counsels:

If anyone who is addicted has a desire to overcome, then there is a way to spiritual freedom—a way to escape from bondage—a way that is proven. It begins with prayer—sincere, fervent, and constant communication with … our Heavenly Father. It is the same principle in breaking a bad habit or repenting from sin of any kind…fervent prayer is key to gaining the spiritual strength to find peace. Heavenly Father loves all of His children, so thank Him and express sincere faith in Him. Ask Him for the strength to overcome the addiction [or destructive emotions and thoughts] you are experiencing. Set aside all pride and turn your life and your heart to Him. Ask to be filled with the power of Christ’s pure love. You may have to do this many times, but I testify to you that your body, mind, and spirit can be transformed, cleansed, and made whole, and you will be freed.

A way to follow Elder Ballard’s counsel is through the Addiction Recovery Program.

The Addiction Recovery Program (ARP) is specifically designed by the Church to help those suffering from addiction heal by applying the Atonement through a 12-step program, but makes clear that family members can also benefit from participation. The Family Support Group (FSG, a program similar to AlAnon; FSG is still in the pilot phase and has only limited availability) offers that same help for family members. The first “12 step programs” were developed in the 1930s by the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. This inspired program has helped countless individuals find and maintain sobriety and peace in their lives over the years because it is based on the principles of faith, hope, repentance and forgiveness that, when exercised, can allow the Atonement to heal all wounds and change hearts.

The church has based its Addiction Recovery Program and Family Support Group on these 12 steps but has also included teachings from Latter-day Prophets and LDS scriptures in its readings. The program is intensely spiritual and confidential. Anyone can attend these meetings. For more information about these meetings you can ask any member of your Relief Society presidency or your bishop, and there is a geographical listing of meetings online through lds.org.

For any of you who may be suffering any of the effects of addiction your life or the life of someone close to you please know that you are not alone. The Lord loves you and all those around you; He will help you as you come to Him and release you from the bondage you feel. I know because He has been with me as I have walked this path.

Addiction and Agency

Last week I posted a rather negative response to a Family Home Evening on addiction presented by LDS Living. In an effort to add something positive to the conversation, I offer the following:

This is a guest post of sorts. My wife is a member of our stake Relief Society presidency and gave a brief presentation based on the following notes to the sisters at our stake’s ward conferences earlier this year. This is Part I. Part II will follow on Friday. I’ve edited the notes for reading.

I have been asked to talk about a topic that is serious in nature and much more common around us than we would like to believe. It has been called the number one health problem in the United States today and many of you have had either personal experience with or someone you love has had to deal with the pain of this disease. This disease is so vile and pernicious that it not only does it affect one’s physical health but will also seriously damage one’s emotional and spiritual health and some of that damage can spread to family members. The name of the disease is addiction.

While the damage and pain experienced by those caught in its snare can be massive, there is hope for healing. I will leave the physical healing to medical doctors but today I want to discuss how those who suffer emotionally and spiritually from addiction can find healing from the One who can heal all wounds –our Savior, Jesus Christ.

What is addiction?

To try understand this disease let’s begin by looking at a story that Elder Ballard told in last October’s General Conference :

The goal of the fly fisherman is to catch trout through skillful deception...He will often craft by hand the lures he uses. He knows these artificial insects embedded with tiny hooks need to be a perfect deception because the trout will identify even the slightest flaw and reject the fly.

The use of artificial lures to fool and catch a fish is an example of the way Lucifer often tempts, deceives, and tries to ensnare us.

Lucifer knows our … weaknesses, and tempts us with counterfeit lures which, if taken, can cause us to be yanked from the stream of life into his unmerciful influence.

Satan is the father of lies and will try to make evil seem good to ensnare us.

One of our greatest gifts from God is our free agency. It was part of the plan of salvation and is required to show obedience to our Father in Heaven. In His plan He could give us mortal bodies but we have to choose to follow His commandments to be able to be blessed by Him in this life and return to Him after we die.

Our free will is the only thing we truly have to give to the Lord.

One of the chief ways Satan lures us to give away our agency is through addictions.

Elder Ballard said:

The battle over man’s God-given agency continues today. Satan and his minions have their lures all around us, hoping that we will falter and take his flies so he can reel us in with counterfeit means. He uses addiction to steal away agency. According to the dictionary, addiction of any kind means to surrender to something, thus relinquishing agency and becoming dependent on some life-destroying substance or behavior.

How does this work? Elder Ballard continued:

Researchers tell us there is a mechanism in our brain called the pleasure center. When activated by certain drugs or behaviors, it overpowers the part of our brain that governs our willpower, judgment, logic, and morality. This leads the addict to abandon what he or she knows is right. And when that happens, the hook is set and Lucifer takes control. Satan knows how to exploit and ensnare us with artificial substances and behaviors of temporary pleasure.

This process has been likened to an allergic reaction. Once the brain is exposed to the chemical reaction it changes. Engaging in the addiction literally changes the brain’s chemical function.

Elder Russell M Nelson summarized this affects one’s free agency: “Addiction surrenders…freedom to choose. Through chemical means, one can literally become disconnected from his or her own will” (“Addiction or Freedom”, Ensign November 1988, 6).

Addiction can take many forms. Drugs (including prescription abuse), alcohol, tobacco, eating disorders, gambling and pornography are a few examples. People who are inclined to addiction may suffer from a number of different addictions.

Once the addiction sets in it is a bondage that entraps the person. Addiction is not just a bad habit to be conquered by willpower alone. Caught in this bondage the person can become so dependent on a behavior or substance that they no longer see how to abstain from it.

Telling a person in addiction that if they really cared they would stop destroying their lives is like telling a person who is sick with pneumonia not to cough. Until they get the appropriate treatment the problems will persist.

Elder Ballard counsels, “Medical research describes addiction as “a disease of the brain.” This is true, but I believe that once Satan has someone in his grasp, it also becomes a disease of the spirit.”

Coming in Part II – Addition is a Family Disease; How to Find Help

FHE Lesson on Overcoming Addiction? Really?

This week’s LDS Living Family Home Evening suggestion was on overcoming addiction. You can read more here.

I’ve been trying to figure out in what context that FHE lesson could possibly make sense. I suppose that FHE lessons by nature tend to be general and require refinement for application in any given family. And the 12-step slogan, “Take what you want and leave the rest” applies, as well.

If the lesson helps families to be aware of the church’s Addiction Recovery Program, then great. Elder Ballard’s talk on addiction, referenced in the material, is also great in its own right. But packaged as a Family Night lesson? I’m still trying to make sense of that.

You see, I have addicted loved ones. I’ve been involved in a 12-step program for several years and my wife and I now serve in our stake’s application of the Addiction Recovery Program and the church’s pilot of the Family Support Group (for families of addicted persons).

The lesson presented in the link introduces the ARP guidebook, tells a story of someone who is coping with his addiction while attending 12-step meetings and then has a family activity of an obstacle course. I can’t imagine that a family with young enough children to use the obstacle course (which does provide an elegant lesson by itself) would also use the story of Jeff, a lifelong member who overcame his issues with tobacco and alcohol on his own, but needs 12-step help with his pornography addiction.

I can’t see parents teaching this lesson in FHE in the hopes that a child might therefore agree to enter treatment. (That said, if I squint really hard I can imagine using something like this lesson to explain why a family member is in treatment, though the confidentiality of recovery and the need to allow each person to tell his own story would still require significant modification in the lesson.) My experience is that addicts don’t seek recovery until the pain of recovery is less than the pain of their addiction. And I’m all in favor of the church’s Addiction Recovery Program. I’ve watched it change lives in the 18 months I’ve been participating in it. And family members of addicted persons need their own recovery as much as the addicted persons do; the 12 steps have blessed my life in incredible ways. And any member could benefit from working the steps of recovery.

But the FHE lesson as outlined just doesn’t seem to be the way to get there for me. Far better in my view is to teach the pure doctrine of the Plan of Salvation, to teach repentance and atonement, to teach submitting to the will of our Father in Heaven. That is what one learns working the steps. Indeed, one could teach a series of lessons based on the steps themselves.


UPDATE: This post seems to draw some traffic from Google searches. I wanted to link to another helpful post on the blog.

One Day at a Time

Twelve step programs like AA use the phrase "One Day at a Time" to remind their participants that change comes in small bits, and that when confronting addiction (or co-dependence, in the case of family support groups like Families Anonymous or Al Anon), a long time horizon is not a good thing.

Contrast that to our gospel perspective. So much of what we do in the church has a very long time horizon. "Eternity is a long time," my old stake president used to say. And yet, I think we have something to learn from One Day at a Time.

Repentance is the second principle of the gospel, right behind faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (without which repentance would be futile). I have asserted more than once on this blog that one of the great and awesome blessings of the atonement is the opportunity we have to change for the better. Not just to overcome grievous sin (some many never commit grievous sin, thank goodness), but just to improve from day to day.

For an addict or a co-dependent person, signing up for a lifetime of change may be overwhelming, even impossible. And so learning to recommit oneself each day to principles of change associated with overcoming those addictions makes a lot of sense. Even as I type this sentence, I think about our practice of recommitting ourselves weekly to our baptismal covenant via the sacrament. The weekly participation in the sacrament is there not only as a remind of our Savior's physical sacrifice (which is incredible), but also recommits us to live by the covenants we've made.

Twelve step programs rely on the strength of a Higher Power, "God as we understand him." The church's Addiction Recovery Program, with its 12 steps adapted from AA (with permission, but not with their review or approval, as AA does not endorse any outside program) are far more explicit about reliance on the Savior and on our Father in Heaven. The principles of the 12 Step program teach participants to admit their powerlessness over certain things, and to seek God's will for them through prayer.

That's frankly a great formula for everyone to follow in morning prayer each day. Elder Henry B. Eyring said, "A morning prayer and an early search in the scriptures to know what we should do for the Lord can set the course of a day. We can know which task, of all those we might choose, matters most to God and therefore to us. I have learned such a prayer is always answered if we ask and ponder with childlike submission, ready to act without delay to perform even the most humble service" (Liahona, May 2007).

Sometimes there is value in our stepping back from planning for our eternity, and planning instead just for today. What will I do today to serve someone else, to help myself, to learn and grow, to overcome a habit I'm trying to overcome, to better know the Lord? I suggest this not because I think our to-do lists are too short. Quite the contrary, I suggest it because I think our eternal to-do lists are too long! It can be overwhelming to bear the burden of perfection in all things forever. But there are things I can do today. And tomorrow, I can worry about tomorrow.

For me, a focus on each day (when I succeed) allows me to live more in the moment, with less worry about what might be, or what should have been. Instead, I can say, today I will… And at the end of the day I can say, today I did… And tomorrow is another day.

12 Steps to the Atonement

I have an addicted love one in my family, and therefore I have participated for several years in Families Anonymous, a 12-step program. I've debated about writing about my participation because there is a great need for anonymity in recovery programs to protect everyone involved. But I feel strongly enough about what I'm writing today that I decided to take the plunge.

Before coming to my 12-step program (they're all quite similar, and grow out of Alcoholics Anonymous' 12 steps, though AA does not affiliate with other 12-step programs), I assumed such programs were for people who were too weak to overcome their problems. After years of failing to come to terms with my own problems, I finally began my walk along the steps.

As a faithful latter-day saint, I can tell you that it is embarrassing to contemplate the need for such a thing in your life. In a culture where "perfect" families are the goal, such glaring imperfection is heart breaking on many levels. But in my case, I'm glad that I finally overcame my pride enough to seek help for myself. (Of course, it wasn't until I began my work on the steps that I really understood what pride I had.)

I learned many things along my path with the steps (I'm still on it, and will be for life, I suppose), but the most startling thing I learned is that the 12 steps are little more than a clear method of applying the atonement to our lives. Although I did not participate in the Church's version of the 12 step program, I found nothing in the steps to be inconsistent with what I had learned in all my years in the church. In fact, working the steps forced me to reexamine how I lived my life, how I applied the teachings of the Savior, how I prayed, and how I exercised my faith.

My first round through the steps was not a walk in the park by any means. The 12 steps are for personal healing, and that healing rarely comes without opening up and cleaning out some wounds, nor without identifying and rectifying some pretty self-destructive (and sometimes just plain destructive) behaviors. Such self examination is not for sissies, but the rewards on the other end are sweeter than one might imagine.

Those twelve steps encourage us to recognize our own powerlessness in dealing with certain areas of life, acknowledge that there is a higher power who can deal with those things we can, and give over to the God of our understanding our lives. Then we begin to inventory our own lives for good and bad, to sort out who we may have harmed, to make amends where possible, and then to engage in an ongoing cycle of self assessment and rededication to God, applying the principle of the steps in all our affairs.

The steps are, as my wife observed, a framework for applying the healing power of the atonement in our lives. And they work.

- Paul

For information on the church's 12-step program, check this  website.
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