In the early stages, it is difficult to identify when religion becomes addiction. It looks so good. As the addicts serve themselves, they appear to serve God. No one guesses that they are playing out dangerous roles that will deprive them of faith and hope. As the addiction progresses, it does so along a predictable course. Like other addictions, it grows in its destruction. The addiction intensifies as the abusive behaviors and toxic beliefs provide less and less relief. Addicts get hooked on the false hopes, mood alteration, and ability to distort reality. Those who fall deepest into the addiction deny reality altogether.
Addiction comes from the desire to escape. Addicts will destroy everything else to be able to escape into the addiction of choice. Nothing else matters. But as relief becomes more difficult to achieve and escape is no longer possible, addicts will turn to other addictions. They will eat, drink, steal, lie, have illicit sexual encounters, or engage in many other compulsive behaviors that also will eventually control them. Everything that can become a form of escape is used to run from feelings and brutal reality.
Toxic-faith systems are all too willing to have religious addicts join, because they are created to take advantage of those who seek escape. So the addicts escape into the accepting arms of those who seek more and more new recruits. They escape into an unreal world where people, ideas, and rules replace a relationship with God. The farther they drift from God, the more desperate the addicts become, until they are willing to lie, cheat, steal, or kill for the toxic-faith organization or its leader. They become so hooked that they are almost unreachable or unapproachable. Finally they hit bottom and change, go crazy, or kill themselves. Those are the only three options for religious addicts who have progressed through all of the addictive stages.
Religious addiction doesn’t occur overnight. It is a long progression that subtly captures every aspect of the addict’s life. It rarely begins in adulthood. Most of the time the roots of addiction can be traced back to a difficult childhood. In the early years, seeds of toxic faith are planted that eventually grow into addiction. Those seeds can be anything from rigid parenting to ritual abuse involving children in the occult. Whatever the source of the toxic-faith seeds, the future addict is in search of a god that does not exist, a god created by man, like any other idol created in our own image.
But just as a foundation is laid, it can be ripped up. No one is doomed to a life of religious addiction and toxic faith. If a person is willing to go through the painful process of breaking through the denial and seeing the addictive progression, there is hope for change. The following section traces one woman’s addiction from the foundation through the late stages.
Faye Stanley was an only child born into a dysfunctional family. Although she survived emotionally, her family’s problems affected her entire life. She never escaped the destruction caused by her father and the family he created.
Faye’s father, a rugged man, worked in a machine shop. He normally came home from his dirty job with grease on his work pants and black grease under his nails. He would enter the house after work, grab a beer, head for the shower, and then spend the rest of the evening walking around the house in his pants and a sleeveless undershirt. Rarely did he shave except on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings when he would take the family to church. He was mean, uncaring, and miserable to be around. He did not allow his family to display any feelings.
Faye’s mother never graduated from high school. An unskilled woman, she would have left her husband long ago, but she had no way of making a living; she feared that she and Faye would starve on the streets. So she stuck by her husband and tolerated his abuse, partly because of her feelings of dependency and partly because of her belief that a woman should not leave her husband. While Faye’s mother prayed for her husband to change, Faye and her mother suffered his abuse. He hit his wife and abused his daughter verbally. He projected his feelings of inadequacy onto the two females by demeaning them in all sorts of ways. By the time Faye was ten, she felt totally inadequate and inferior to her friends; she felt especially inferior to men.
Faye developed physically quite early. Her father was the first to notice the shapeliness of her hips and the budding of her breasts. Her menstrual cycle started when she was eleven—and so did her father’s sexual abuse. One night a week Faye’s mom met with the other women at church. It became a time of terror for Faye as “Daddy’s special time” came around each week.
Faye stopped facing life as other little girls did. She crawled into a complex world of fantasy to survive the abuse. She felt as dirty as her father smelled when he came home from work and labored under extreme guilt. For two years the sexual abuse continued until Faye’s mother came home early one night to find the two of them in bed. None of them talked about it again, but Faye’s mother never left her alone. They lived with the nasty little secret, each one rationalizing it away.
The verbal abuse continued throughout adolescence. Faye was always ridiculed for less than perfect behavior. Her parents expected her to excel above them, which drove her to work hard and make something of herself. She did well, but that was never good enough. Her parents merely affirmed her efforts. They commented about how something could have been better or how someone else appeared to be working harder and doing more. Faye felt driven to meet their needs but never saw how incongruous it was to have two underachieving parents demanding more than she could possibly deliver. The pressure became so intense that shortly after graduation from high school, Faye married and moved out. Within a month she was pregnant.
Foundations for Religious Addiction
At the age of twenty-four, Faye Stanley grew fed up with the way her life was going. Her husband left her three years before, and she felt miserable raising her daughter alone. Between her job at the phone company, her housework, and the care of her daughter, she had little time for herself or a social life. She became deeply depressed and wondered if life could ever be any better. At times she thought of suicide—and probably would have done it if not for her daughter.
Faye had few opportunities to fix herself up and feel good about the way she looked. She dressed up only when she went to church, which she rarely did because she felt so alienated. When she married, church people were her best friends; when she divorced, they treated her like she threatened their marriages and images. In her loneliness she became a seething caldron of unresolved emotions. Every area of her life seemed to be drifting out of control.
In Faye’s darkest moments she cried out for God. She felt a deep emptiness that she knew reflected a lack of spiritual growth. It was hard for her to completely trust her life to God since she had never resolved some of her childhood faith problems. She felt distraught over how a loving God could have allowed her to be abused. It made no sense to her that her father could be so evil and yet continue to be part of the church. Many doubts hampered her spiritual journey. She longed for a relationship with God and with a man. Any attention would be better than the loneliness crippling her.
One day at work a fellow worker saw Faye’s depression and provided her with a listening ear. In the middle of expressing her pain and explaining her extreme stress, he asked her to attend a meeting with him. She was more than happy to go. She arranged for a coworker to keep her daughter, and off she went on the closest thing she had had to a date in three years. She felt like a little girl in the presence of the man. She giggled and talked nervously while he silently drove the car to the meeting. She admired a strength and calm about him. She was pleased that they were going to a religious meeting their first time out.
They arrived at a church building with no name on it. As they entered the rear of the building, the people were silently praying. At the front of the church a woman dressed in a colorful robe chanted. As she chanted, she motioned with her hands in small circles, her middle fingers touching her thumbs. No crosses or Bibles could be seen in the church; it looked very stark and plain, unlike any church Faye had attended. The minister asked the followers to raise their heads and slowly open their eyes. The flutist who had been playing during the prayer stopped, and the minister began to speak.
The minister’s voice mesmerized Faye. She felt warm listening to the words and sitting next to her friend and the others in the room. The minister instructed the people to hug one another and express something positive about the person being hugged. Faye hugged her friend and told him she admired his calm strength. He then told her that she was very beautiful and obviously a very smart lady whom he was proud to be with. She almost melted at his words. Later she would remember that during the hugging time she began to feel wanted. She felt good, and a wonderful sense of relief came over her. She felt like she belonged, like she had found a home.
When the hugging was over, the minister began to speak about a life free of pain and disappointment. She talked about the incredible faith that must be developed to find the level of living where even the death of a friend is seen as something good. She said that the suffering of the most sincere believer is accompanied by gratification in the midst of the crisis.
Faye saw the evil in her life and how she had been so negative. The woman was speaking right to her, it seemed. It was the first time a minister had communicated so directly to her need. She told her friend she wanted to join the group. He told her it was too early. He encouraged her to return a couple of times before she made a decision. She agreed that she would come back.
Faye was astonished that they didn’t ask for money. They encouraged people to come for a month before deciding to give anything. That made a great impression on her. She was tired of the money-hungry ministers always begging her to give more than she had. She felt it was a true sign of their integrity and sincerity that they would not immediately solicit financial contributions. Before she left, there was another hugging session, and the minister gave her a special blessing. She felt great and looked forward to returning.
On the way home, her friend told Faye that she fit in well with the group, that she seemed to be one of them. He said that the minister had spoken to him on the way out and described her desire for Faye to be part of the group. Faye was overwhelmed with his comments and the evening. Before he had spoken to her that day, she was depressed and lonely. Within a short eight hours she felt loved, accepted, and part of something very good. In her glorious feelings of euphoria and belonging, she never stopped to realize that no one had ever mentioned God.
The first experience with a toxic-faith system can be intoxicating. One feels a rush in breaking away from isolation and into the arms of several others who appear to care deeply. The leader’s attention only enhances the intoxicating effects of finding a place to belong. The hurting person reaches out and needs are met, attention is paid, and the potential addict becomes hooked on the warm fuzzies of the worshipers.
It seems amazing that a person feeling so left out could feel so wanted so quickly. The victim equates sincerity with attention and wants to belong to something that provides such a sense of belonging. If the victim was depressed before hooking up with the toxic-faith believers, relief from the depression is so dramatic that he or she often feels emotionally healed just from being with others who care so much. The person discards rational thought and objective evaluation in order to enjoy the emotional rush that comes from breaking out of isolation and joining others in spiritual pursuit. It feels so good that the victim is convinced it must be right and it must be of God.
As in any addiction, the initial experience alters the mood. A person tries something and feels better. God doesn’t have to change or heal the person’s emotions; the group’s affirmation is the only thing necessary. Although some individuals feel uncomfortable in the presence of other followers, a susceptible victim, full of pain and disappointment, doesn’t evaluate the experience or feel threatened. He or she simply feels the warmth, and it feels wonderful. The religious experience, intensified by contact with the religious leader, is just as powerful as a shot of tequila or a hit of cocaine. It radically changes how the person feels, and that person will come back for more.
The susceptible religious addict doesn’t realize that every aspect of the first exposure to a toxic-faith system has been premeditated. None of what happens and what is said to that potential follower is accidental. Everything works together so the person is easily manipulated into liking the group and wanting to return. Having physical contact, hearing a special word from the leader, statements that make the victim feel exceptional, no plea for money, and delaying a decision to join—all are tools calculated to win the person into the group. The leader wants control of the victim’s life and provides a very addictive initial experience to lock the person into the toxic-faith system.
The initial experience does not have to be in a worship setting; it may occur over the telephone. My wife and I were watching television one day when we flipped the dial to a program featuring a man who was trying to build his following on the air. I wondered aloud to my wife what would happen if I offered to give money to the organization. I called the number and acted as if I were a susceptible victim. I told the woman that I wanted to give money. She astounded me by saying that she did not want a first-time caller giving money. She was there to help and suggested I listen further before giving money.
If I believed the fellow was a wonderful man of God, I would have thought that such a response indicated a sincere heart for ministry. I suspected the man was a fraud, however, because I recognized the organization’s strategy as a very clever scheme to hook a person into the toxic-faith system. Every day, susceptible victims enter the early stages of addiction by naively aligning themselves with a toxic-faith system. A remarkable initial experience is the hook.
Faye soon received a visit from the group leader. Their time together bonded Faye to the group. Faye thought the leader seemed very spiritual. Faye was told that she, too, possessed many spiritual powers that would be developed as she participated in the group. The leader assured Faye that they were there to meet her needs and she should call on anyone in the group at any time. That this person came to her house made Faye feel very significant. She loved the sense of belonging and the special attention.
Before leaving, the woman spent a few moments with Faye’s daughter. She told Faye that she sensed some very deep spiritual rumblings within the center of the child. These needed to be calmed, she said, so she asked Faye to bring the girl to their next gathering for a special time of spiritual cleansing. Faye had worried about her daughter, so she was relieved to discover there would be a cure for her withdrawn and listless behavior.
At the next gathering Faye became hooked. Her daughter was prayed over, hummed with, touched by everyone in the group, and hugged until her clothes wrinkled. Also the group prayed that Faye would find a special man and that her spiritual guide would lead her out of despair and into the life she wanted. By evening’s end, she realized she was feeling something she had not felt for some time—namely, hope.
It became obvious that the people weren’t worshiping God as she had worshiped him in church while growing up. They rarely mentioned God and they never brought up the name of Christ unless they were referring to a teaching compatible with their beliefs. Because Faye was caught up in the ecstasy of acceptance, their beliefs didn’t seem to matter. She had found a home and people who seemed to love her. Those incredible feelings of belonging seemed to matter most. She felt so much affection and love that she really didn’t care what they believed. To her, being with the people and sharing in their worship were direct gifts from God. She wanted what they had, and she wanted to be a part of what they did. That they cared equally for her daughter made them all the more attractive.
Faye is like many other addicts from dysfunctional homes. Instead of growing from the dysfunction, she fell back into it. The early experiences left her (and other addicts like her) hurting and distrustful, searching for a way out of the pain. Whatever is convenient and available, anything that will provide hope or just a change in the drudgery of everyday responsibility, can become a source of dependency.
Whenever people with lingering pain and a growing sense of emptiness are not focused completely on God, they are likely to fall for a counterfeit or become dependent on a compulsive behavior for relief. They can be attracted to the most unattractive things, such as prostitutes, anonymous sex shops, smelly bars, and repulsive behaviors. Anything becomes attractive as desperation grows.
In the case of religious addiction, the attraction is not so difficult to see. The addict’s desperation does not have to reach the same depths. The people look good and smell nice, and all the activity is supposed to be for a glorious purpose. It’s no wonder so many individuals can become attracted and then addicted to a toxic-faith system.
Religious addicts don’t worship God. They use spiritual highs to satiate the need to experience something other than the boredom and pain of their existence. They use activity to distract themselves from their tough reality. They pervert what God intended for good. Seeking faith in God, they become so diverted by the experience and activity that they miss God.
Just as sex is good and draws marriage partners together in a richer relationship, religion can be good and draw people closer to God. But anything that is ordained by God can be perverted into an experience of ecstasy used only for relief. Both the act of sex and the worship of God can be perverted into the worship of self. Relief of the painful self becomes the entire focus of the endeavor.
The addict’s neediness and brokenness in coming from a dysfunctional family makes perversion possible in the worship of God and the practice of religion. The foundation of dysfunction allows for the distortion of something good into something negative, self-centered, and exploitative. The severe dependency needs of the addict turn faith into a practice of rituals, beliefs, and doctrine as a way to make life tolerable. The intended focus of real faith is distorted and perverted, lost in the delusional reality that the religion drug can provide. The victim continues to practice the rituals of the religion and falls out of love with God and in love with the compulsion. The perverted faith looks good and feels good, but it is a counterfeit of a true love for and faith in God.
The religious addict begins a gradual transition away from God. Church attendance is no longer based on the need to know God; the addict attends church to feel significant and secure. Prayers are no longer ways of communicating with God; the addict prays to have an experience as a person of God and takes pride in being able to talk of the hours spent in prayer. He or she uses the church to avoid life rather than to find the strength and guidance to encounter all that life has to offer, good or bad. What could have been a place to find shelter from the storms of life becomes a place where the religious addict “sets up camp” to hide from life. Hiding there takes priority over worshiping God.
The addict sacrifices the family and family relationships for church work completed in the name of God. Attendance at church becomes excessive to the point of obsession. Every spare moment is devoted to a church-related activity. Other family members become concerned because when they are together, the addict is at church; the noble cause of serving on committees is not to be questioned. As the intimacy needed to maintain significant family relationships is sacrificed, faith grows ever more toxic. Each family member starts to take a separate path away from the religious addict. Unfortunately, those paths often lead away from God.
Eventually, the addict focuses back on self and away from God and others. While the addict initially judges himself harshly and wishes he could be as good as the rest of the world, as his compulsive nature develops, he starts to judge others and defend himself. Rather than recognize the personal areas that need work, the addict refuses to change and becomes increasingly locked into the behaviors that maintain the religious addiction. The addict loses all humility; he or she no longer embraces the imperfections of humanity or acknowledges any personal shortcomings. Living in denial and self-justification makes life without God easy, and the addict’s rapid downward slide accelerates.
False faith becomes an excuse to hurt others. Scripture is used as a weapon. The addict quotes it to justify and rationalize her problems while she contorts it to shame, dismiss, and disqualify others. The “us versus them” mentality of the toxic-faith leader becomes a part of the addict’s mentality. As the dependency on the toxic faith grows, the addict becomes more hostile and isolated. A new family replaces the old one. The new family of believers does not confront and allows the addict to live according to her delusions. The old one becomes too reality-based to tolerate.
The addict’s entire perspective on life changes. Simplistic answers replace explorations of the many dimensions of a problem. The difficulty of a true walk of faith is replaced with the magical belief that all is well for the faithful. Pleasing the other faithful takes priority over pleasing God. The addict is forced to conform to the other toxic-faith believers; pressure mounts to not disappoint those who are the new source of love and encouragement. True faith is destroyed as a toxic faith grows.
The initial stage of religious addiction is difficult to spot. Many who are involved in the same activities as religious addicts are involved in a real faith, but their motives and foundations are different. Many faithful followers would be wrongly labeled first-stage religious addicts; many addicts would be considered faithful followers of God. Only in the second stage does the differentiation become marked.
Characteristics of the Early Stage of Religious Addiction
It wasn’t long until Faye’s growing attraction turned to complete attachment. She deeply immersed herself in the group. Their identity was her identity. She belonged and felt valuable and significant. She wanted to be the strongest member possible, so she talked about her religious experience at every opportunity, gathered faithfully with the others, and read books that explained how to develop spiritual powers.
She would do anything for the group. That included giving about 30 percent of her salary to the leader. Upon receiving every paycheck, she first wrote out a check to the group. Sometimes her daughter had no milk for her cereal. Sometimes they had to eat beans every possible way beans could be eaten. She didn’t think it was too much to give, even though the leader drove an expensive foreign car. Some months, if the group needed more money, Faye went beyond the usual 30 percent. She was so attached to the group that she almost felt it was a commune where everyone should share everything. Her attachment to the group was complete.
Faye stopped all relationships with anyone outside the group. She didn’t trust people who didn’t hold her views and cut herself off from them. The only outsiders she spent time with were the ones she tried to recruit into the group. She so adopted the philosophies she learned and the practice of faith with the group that she burned with desire to bring others into the group. She saw every person she met as a potential member. She would listen to an individual, searching for a point of need she could address. Once she found it, she promised her group would meet it. Many were turned off by her pushiness, but others were attracted to the group because Faye was so strong in her beliefs and association with the other members.
Addiction usually begins from a desire to self-medicate pain and suffering and to remove the weight of being a responsible person. Where meaning, purpose, and spiritual strength are lacking, the developing addict will find some means to drug the pain and emptiness. Religious experience becomes the source of medication. The repeated search for an ecstatic experience becomes a quest, much like the heroin addict looking to score a new supply of drugs. Sometimes it is successful, sometimes not. When it isn’t successful, the hunt for ecstasy continues.
Religious addicts work themselves up into a frenzy to experience a religious catharsis. They swoon, fall over, scream, yell, faint, jump up and down, and do anything that will pump adrenaline through the blood. They learn how to induce the euphoric rush. What looks to be a supernatural encounter with God is nothing but a chemical reaction; it’s not as powerful as heroin, but it’s just as destructive. Addicts search for the high—not for God. They feel inadequate and incomplete whenever they walk away from a gathering or service in which they did not have an incredible rush.
All of the pent-up hurt and depression must find a source of release. Anyone could sex it out, drink it out, or gamble it out on a temporary basis. Religious addicts choose to ritual it out. Each session of worship repeats the behaviors that led to the previous emotional catharsis. If no catharsis occurs, the emotions remain imprisoned and the addict continues to seek a source of release. Anger and rage may result from the unexpressed emotions. The deluded addicts function at such an unemotional level that they are unable to see they are out of control and their emotions are about to self-destruct. If the service or worship experience does not manufacture the fix, religious addicts may look elsewhere to find it. This leads to the development of other addictions alongside the religious one.
Religious addicts cannot find relief from a religious source every time. Because they become frustrated that they are not experiencing the same intensity as they did in the early days of their faith, they turn to other sources to supplement the addiction of choice. Some drink and become dependent on secret times of drunkenness; these binges usually follow some of the most intense worship times. Most commonly, however, religious addicts become food junkies. They love sugar rushes and they adore the hours they take up eating everything they can find. The leader of the group, who is often overweight, never speaks against overeating. Too many people would feel abandoned and potentially not return to the church. The leader will yell and scream against alcoholics, but he or she will never insinuate that someone is committing the sin of gluttony.
Sexual sins and sexual addictions also can surface as the intensity of the religious experience weakens. Secret and shameful sexual experiences produce a high similar to religious ecstasy. The tightly wrapped addict, afraid to break any of the organization’s rules, is afraid to admit frailties and desires that would be labeled unholy. Unexpressed lust is coupled with the intense need for relief. The need for relief lands the addict in the arms of the first person willing to participate in meeting his or her needs. The forbidden sins of faith saturate the body with mood-altering substances as the adulterer is lost to a fantasy world of secret sex and irresponsibility. Many are hurt by it and no one understands how such a dedicated person could commit such an offensive act.
In the middle stage, the religious addict is destined to recruit as many individuals to the group as possible. A day without an attempt to attract someone into the group is a wasted day.
Now, the true Christian also shares his or her faith in God with others. A person with the gift of evangelism loves to talk with others about faith. But the religious addict is more interested in sharing the experience. Each new person who is willing to share the experience becomes a reassurance that the addict is doing the right thing. Each new recruit affirms the decision to affiliate with the group and becomes a motivation to work even harder. The addict is compelled to tell others of the pleasure that comes from the group, its leader, and the practice of the faith.
Anyone refusing to participate is shamed, ridiculed, and labeled as ungodly. The addict’s beliefs must be reinforced; anyone rejecting those beliefs must be discounted. The more entrenched the person becomes in the system, the bigger the threat when he or she is rebuffed. Anyone who declares why the group is not practicing true faith must be swiftly rejected. Each rejection, interpreted as rejection by God, produces tremendous pain and insecurity. It motivates the addict to try harder, talk to more people, and grow spiritually so people will be attracted to the group.
During the middle stage of religious addiction, dependency on religion encompasses every aspect of the toxic believer’s life. Like a junkie whose life is consumed with his next score, the religious addict is obsessed with the next crusade, worship service, street-witnessing extravaganza, or whatever the ritual that sets up the addict’s next religious high.
Addicts band together and get high by acting righteous and above all others. They inflate their feelings by imagining that they merit God’s acceptance. They continue their high by endeavoring to please others so that they look superior to anyone who observes their acts of sacrifice.
Everything must involve the practice of faith. Every trip to the grocery store is an act of faith and an opportunity to recruit others. A walk down the street can result in a scriptural shouting match that the addict believes will win others to God. Friends are in the group, or they are not friends. Family members are supportive, or they are avoided. Social events must involve people of the faith.
Anyone outside the group of believers is viewed as contaminated by the world and unfit for interaction. Nothing exists outside the realm of other faithful followers who have forsaken all earthly ties in their attempts to please God. They have become so focused on their concept of heavenly good, their world is so saturated with their toxic faith that they are of no use to anyone outside their group.
The toxic faith becomes a ritual of sacrifice that reaches into the pockets and the relationships of toxic believers. Religious addicts give sacrificially to merit the “blessings of God.” They sacrifice their time, their finances, and their intimate or significant relationships to please their God. They make whatever sacrifice is necessary to obtain their fix, like a cocaine addict who once used the drug out of desire but now is forced to spend money earmarked to meet the family’s basic needs. Religious addicts will spend vacation savings, retirement savings, Social Security checks, grocery money, or anything available to gain favor from the leader of the group. Nothing is so sacred that it cannot be devoured by the all-encompassing practice of toxic faith.
The emergence of special gifts may become the means by which the religious addict evaluates the quality of his or her relationship with God. When special talents are claimed, such as the ability to predict the future, the addict wins the approbation of other followers and gains prestige within the group. The addict becomes more and more dependent on exercising the gift in public to achieve the mood alteration necessary to feel loved and accepted.
All Christians have very real spiritual gifts to minister to others. Some have the gift of compassion, which is a supernatural ability to reach out to others, to make them feel accepted, and to meet their needs. Others might have the gift of teaching, making it easy for God’s Word to be absorbed into the hearts of students. These spiritual gifts differ from the counterfeits of self-manufactured talents used to exploit others and elevate self-importance. And even genuine spiritual gifts can be perverted and exploited. Some religious addicts become so focused on the gift that they forget about God, the Giver of all gifts. They use their gifts to rise to the top of the organization, claiming to be specially anointed by God. But true spiritual gifts are exercised in humility for the service of the body. They are never used for self-elevation.
With increased involvement in toxic religion comes the added pressure of responsibility. The honeymoon eventually ends, and the religious addict becomes aware of the demands of the leader. The greater the demands, the more compelled the addict is to perform. As the leader holds the follower accountable, the religious addict responds with more intense effort and the desire to please. The stakes rise; the addict is asked to sacrifice self-identity, family, and what is known to be right and wrong. The leader’s views are promoted in place of right and wrong. But the addict is so saturated with toxic faith, nothing seems unreasonable. The more that is asked, the more that is given. The goal is not to please God, but to please the leader.
What once brought relief from the pressures of life is now needed for survival. Without the group and its rules, the addict fears being set adrift. The religious addiction has become a trap not easily sprung. What once was an experience of liberation now enslaves.
Attendance and involvement used to bring a sense of belonging; now absence or lack of involvement bring tremendous feelings of guilt. The addict obsessively and compulsively defends against any sense of not measuring up. Hope becomes less of a prospect than ever imagined. The addiction provides less relief than before. The addict begins to act out; the behavior becomes more bizarre and ritualized to maintain the illusion of hope.
By the time religious addicts reach the middle stage of the progression, they have created their own world with their own rules and are unwilling to be with anyone who does not abide by those rules. They insulate themselves from those who challenge their toxic-faith system. Their denial of reality and their problems deepen as they hang on to their toxic faith. They lock into the system and their beliefs and go through the motions, waiting for a major spiritual breakthrough.
They want God to perform a miracle, just for them, to prove he is real. Their faith has died, and they cannot go on without some type of tangible evidence. In their denial, they claim that every coincidence is a miracle of God. They claim healing for problems that never existed. If these proofs do not come immediately, they wait. Some religious addicts have sat atop a hillside for months waiting for the Second Coming. The predicted date passes, but they stay put, denying that their date was wrong. Rather than come down the hill and rejoin society, they live in the protection of their denial and their false hopes. They become like compulsive gamblers waiting for the long shot to come in. Neither gamblers nor religious addicts see the price they are paying for their denial and magical thinking.
As the denial deepens, addicts eliminate all doubts about their faith and no longer question the validity of anything within the practice of their faith. They grow blind to the truth. Everything else is questioned in light of the toxic faith. Personal interpretation of Scripture becomes the standard, and all judgments are based on those self-conceived interpretations and standards. All problems are flatly denied. Denial prevents discussion on any issue that might crack the facade of perfection. Others’ problems are addressed with pat answers and little concern. The clock of despair ticks swiftly, bringing addicts closer each day to the point when financial problems, illness, or emotional distress can no longer be denied.
The middle stage of religious addiction is full of activity and diversions from God. The addict is still able to function, believing the toxic faith is the real thing. But God is lost, and there is little chance of finding him until the addict hits bottom in the last stage of religious addiction.
Characteristics of the Middle Stage of Religious Addiction
After Faye reached the last stage of her addiction, it did not take long for her to hit bottom. She gave all of her savings to the group and lived from paycheck to paycheck. She believed she was trusting in God to provide for her and her daughter. But problems came and destroyed her.
First, problems developed at work. No one at work could stand to be around her since all she did was rant and rave about her group. And when her employer got in a bind, she was unavailable because she was attending a group gathering. Finally she was fired after an argument with her supervisor about religion ended in a shouting match.
Faye felt good about being fired—the price she had to pay for her faith. She loved playing the martyr. She lived on her severance money for two weeks, then she was broke. That was when her daughter became ill with a kidney disease. With no money for a doctor, and her child’s fever raging, Faye called the leader of her group to ask for advice. The leader told her to bring her daughter to the gathering that night so they could pray for her. Faye took her daughter there and everyone prayed and touched her, but the little girl did not get better. They told her to have faith and God would take care of the girl.
As hope for a miracle passed, Faye watched her daughter drift in and out of consciousness. She questioned whether to trust the group. She questioned their motives. She realized she had no money because of the group. Her thoughts of doubt finally became strong enough to motivate her to take the girl to the county hospital. When she arrived, the girl was unconscious. The doctors hooked her up to a dialysis machine, but by noon the next day the girl was dead.
Faye became hysterical. God had failed her; the group had led her the wrong way; now her daughter was dead. Her family knew the reason for the tragedy was that she did not take the girl to the doctor in time. Faye felt humiliated, depressed, and ashamed. Her family tried to console her, but she did not want to be with them. She gathered enough strength to hold a funeral for her child. Each person in attendance was someone who had disappointed her in some way. She felt hopeless and alienated from the world. When the last shovel of dirt covered her daughter’s grave, she drove home, sobbing as she made her way back to where the memories of her little girl lived.
At the house, a calm came over her. She regained her poise and her tears dried up. She felt a new peace about what had happened. It didn’t matter what the others thought of her. It was irrelevant that the group had been a farce. She didn’t care that they took her money. All that mattered to her was her little girl and being near her.
Faye cleaned up the house, took a bath, and prepared for bed. Before entering the bedroom, she went to the medicine cabinet and took down a bottle of sleeping pills that had been stored there for over a year. Faye went to the kitchen, poured a glass of water, and swallowed all the pills. She calmly walked to the bedroom, wrote a note to those who would find her, said her prayers, lay down, and never woke up again.
And so Faye became another tragic victim of toxic faith and religious addiction.
Eventually toxic faith stops working for all religious addicts, just as it did for Faye. When religious addicts reach the last stage of the progression, the addiction consumes them and they feel isolated from anyone who is not part of the toxic-faith system. Anyone not buying into the delusions of the addicts is considered weak in faith or at times even the enemy. The enemy can include family members. No one is allowed into the private world of toxic believers; only those who are also consumed by the addiction are trusted. Addicts will not listen to reason, and they base all of their decisions on what the toxic-faith leader says or what they believe God has told them. Eventually the isolation and the false beliefs create a crisis that cannot be overcome by more denial.
Life does not feel good in the last stage of addiction. All is not fun and every religious experience is not enjoyable. The highs still come, but they are fewer and shorter. The less relief that comes from them, the more the addicts rely on other addictions. When the religious highs diminish, feelings of despair and distress replace them.
Addicts therefore try harder in hopes of working up relief. When relief does not come, they feel abandoned by God and the original guilt and pain they tried to cover begins to resurface. They feel lost and hopeless, abandoned by the group because the image of perfection is destroyed by their obvious despair. The religion in which they invested so much stops working, and they don’t know where to turn.
It is never easy to act like everything is working when it is so badly disintegrating. The weight and burden of continually acting as if all is well compound the stress and disappointment. Under the strain, the addict experiences suspiciousness, distrustfulness, confusion, and psychological and emotional deterioration. Feeling like a victim, feeling persecuted and hopeless, the addict works to prove that the blessings will come. When they do not, the addict is convinced that the role of martyr is a good one to replace the role of superior faith warrior.
Resentment and anger increase as nothing turns out as expected, and every day becomes a bigger disappointment than the day before. If the person has preached against a sin that continues to surface, the sermons fill up with bitterness and resentment. Growing feelings of inferiority produce anger toward others who appear to have their lives well ordered. No one is available to share these feelings with because the group rejects any toxic believer who doesn’t appear to have a strong faith. This intensifies the emotions. Rage often overpowers the rational thoughts of the addict, and everyone nearby is put on the defensive.
Anger and rage are the first signs that toxic beliefs are starting to fall apart. When anger emerges, the addict can no longer fool others with a look of false peace or serenity. There are problems and they are obvious. At the root of the anger is disappointment that the toxic-faith leaders, beliefs, and system did not deliver. Relief did not come. Addicts are enraged by how they look to the rest of the world and that now reality must be dealt with, unprotected by delusional thinking.
Addicts are angry with themselves but throw their anger at everyone else. Problems are attributed to the devil, unbelievers, sin, lack of faith, lust, greed, and anything else that can be preached against those outside the faith. Although the dogmatic beliefs start to falter, still they are preached to others more dogmatically than ever before.
The angry addicts become so miserable to be around that most choose not to associate with them. This increases the pain, heightens the isolation, and moves the individuals closer to despair. As long as the anger continues, hope for change continues with it.
With everything falling apart, someone must be blamed. The addict will not accept responsibility, so a scapegoat must be found. That scapegoat will bear all of the anger and disappointment. The pain will be projected onto that person or institution as if that entity were the cause of the addict’s problems. Every consequence of the compulsive religious behavior is depersonalized and considered to be the result of someone else’s actions. If a person didn’t cause the trauma, it must be sin, the spirit of lust, or the world. Anything other than self becomes a target of the rage and blame.
If addicts recognize a need for change, it will be in the area of behavior, not the heart. They will try to do things differently rather than change any thoughts or beliefs. By identifying the problem as a behavior, such as lack of prayer, addicts hold on to the toxic faith until the very end. They will try everything to produce the spectacular desired result. They become so grandiose about their faith that they see no need for a change in heart, maturity, or development of character. Since addicts believe they possess the truth, they are convinced that different behavior will isolate them from whatever is the source of their difficulties.
When the world starts to crumble around addicts, they respond with disappointment, anger, rage, and more determined effort. Troubles come from many sources, and each one affirms that the faith system will not come through for them. It could be financial collapse that begins the fast slide toward bottom. Some have contributed and pledged so much to the group that they bankrupt themselves. Some sign notes, use their homes as collateral, and then give up their homes when the truth is known about the shady dealings of the ministry.
As the toxic world becomes more confusing, the addict searches out ways to change behaviors to fix the problem. Often too much time is spent away from work. Needed overtime is turned down so that compulsive religious activity can be continued. Because work can be converted into a time of sharing his toxic beliefs, a car salesman will witness rather than sell cars, or a hairdresser will talk about the faith so much that no one returns for hair care. This, along with alienating other employees with irritating sermons, may cause job loss and financial disaster.
Home life starts to crumble as the finances do. The angry addict becomes so caught up in “God’s work” that all family responsibilities are neglected. Relaxing with the family or taking a child to Little League or ballet class stops so that the religious disaster can be worked out. This situation produces fertile soil for affairs and often leads to divorce. After living with an addict for years, the family finally becomes fed up and refuses to exist with the addict anymore.
Faith also starts to crumble. The addict, no longer able to maintain the denial, slips into brief moments of understanding. Glimpses of reality briefly enter the addict’s mind, but they are quickly brushed aside with a frenzy of activity. The thoughts produce tremendous feelings of guilt, confusion, and pain. Still, the addict starts to realize that rules have been abusively enforced and that the rigid doctrines of the group have hurt, not helped, people.
Thus disillusioned, addicts begin to doubt. For the first time since becoming involved with toxic faith, they doubt themselves, their beliefs, and the existence of God. They doubt the sincerity of the leaders they follow. Confusion overwhelms them. Unable to trust their perceptions and unwilling to trust anyone else, they lapse into deeper and deeper depression. They realize they are powerless to control their lives.
At the end of the progression lies desperation so intense that it forces change. Mental and emotional breakdowns are common among religious addicts. Some attempt to take their lives. Some take the lives of others and then their own. They do desperate things because their minds can’t handle the incongruity between their beliefs and what they know to be real. They feel betrayed by God and the world, and they don’t care who they hurt as long as they don’t have to suffer further humiliation. Many see the only way to guarantee this is to die or be admitted to an institution.
In the end, the presence of a false god denies the addicts what they desperately need: a loving relationship with a loving God. Unfortunately, when they finally put down their work, performance rituals, and need for perfection, there often remains no motivation to seek the true God who could heal their broken hearts.
The ultimate stage for religious addicts is recovery. People who have released themselves from the trap of addiction will find a loving God ready to receive them. They will also find loving people in traditional churches ready to forgive them and invite them back into the fold. The end of religious addiction does not have to be a disaster. It can mean returning to a relationship with a very patient God.
God allows us to become totally dependent on ourselves. He allows us to become totally dependent on other things, such as chemicals and rituals. He even allows us to be dependent on religion that leaves him out. He will let us exhaust all of our resources and explore every area of dependency outside his plan for each life. While we try to live every way except his way, he continues to wait.
No religious addict has wandered so far that there is no way back to this loving, patient God. One step toward a godly dependency is all it takes.
Characteristics of the Late Stage of Religious Addiction