TBMs addictions to the CULT...
I honestly believe that TBMs become addicted to their "callings" and their dreay Cult lives etc.

They should have meetings where I could walk in (for example) and say "I am verilyverily and I am a MORONHOLIC. My cult callings have complete control over my life and are destroying my family. I feel terrible since the family is the entire raison t'etre! I am ready to surrender to a higher power (like perhaps someone who has had their 2nd annointing and is now a god).

Mormons would be the least likely to admit they're less than perfect, and addicted to *anything.*

The first step to any successful recovery from addiction is admitting there's a problem in the first place.

Most Mormons are in such denial they're worser than the worst alcoholics. Who me? Never!

They have to admit they are powerless over themselves, and that only their Higher Power can deliver them from their bondage.

There's the '12 steps' plans, but they are for people who WANT to get out of whatever their addiction is.

And then there's 'deprogramming', which if there were a reliable method, I'm sure many of us would nominate candidates for *treatment*.

good points elderdog - I think many of us on the board have deprogrammed ourselves and one another. Nice to know you are all here to help with that.

This is interesting, because I was thinking this week about the emotional high one receives from "believing." It really fuels your endorphins in a way - but in a false way I think if that makes sense (like the feeling you get from an awesome summer camp as a teen - it's hard to sustain and probably damaging if you do). Finding out the church was a fraud and then coming down from a decade-long "high" of "feeling the spirit" was really eye-opening to the addictiveness of it all and just how much it affected emotional health. So very timely post on your part :)

I think it was Melodie Beattie who said, "Addictions are things we have to lie about," and that one strikes me as spot on.

Similarly, Dr. Patrick Carnes who pioneered treatment for sexual addictions (which, unfortunately are "over diagnosed" by paranoid Mormons and other rigid and extremist groups and sects) characterizes addictions as "a pathological relationship with a mind altering/mood changing experience."

Richard Packham--whom I'm hoping will see this--has a "modfication" of the 12-Steps he feels are useful (and I agree; I just don't happen to remember them).

My own "take" is that for many who discover the church is an utter fraud after being deeply immersed and enmeshed in its culture is that the experience and attendant trauma is on par with "an alcoholic hitting bottom." There's a shattering of beliefs, often an alienation from family and friends, and a horrible sense of being disconnected and lost that creates a real need to grieve (addicts and alcoholics also "grieve" their relationship with their "drug of choice"). I'll give alcoholism a "worse" characterization because of physical withdrawals, but those are temporary while the "timetable" for full recovery runs nine years minimum according to Terrence Gorski.

What I find most important to recovery is a solid support system of non-judgmental sorts and a recognition that everyone's experience and "emotional hangovers" are different.

You can't really decide for someone else that they have a problem. Most Mormons I know don't see their participation as problematic. And for many, it's really not IMO.


When you sell all your belongings bc of a prediction for the end of the world, go to church sick, not have any interests outside of Mormonism, maybe there's an issue. But there's often nothing one adult can do to convince abother adult to change, particularly when they don't think there's a problem.

Of course it is an addiction. Why?

Because it is an all invasive, mind control oriented, self exclusive organization.

It's very existence necessitates a gross invasion of privacy.

It will continue to invade privacy until the one invaded demands that they stop.

One can become addicted to this type of encroachment and once control is given over to an "other" it is almost impossible to recover it.

Some Mormons feel special

However, many feel superior. This group is addicted to showing how righteous they are. It is a huge ego boost in a cult that has a, brag about everything Mormon you do, culture

The leadership, your number of kids, your kids that served missions, kids that married in the temple, you number of grandkids, the members that see you at the temple...

It's a very powerful high. You don't have to be rich or beautiful, but it does help, but you do need to show constantly your devotion to Mormonism, but not Jesus.

Mormons love the cult, not Jesus. They are emotionally invested to the cult above all else. And they only love/ accept those that also show that devotion, or have the potential to drink the koolaid with them.

Those that only feel special, are reprogrammable. The superior, not so much...