Religious Addiction, Spiritual Abuse - What is it?

Hi. My name is Shaye and I'm a religious addict. I come from a family of religious addiction. Due to this addiction, I suffered spiritual abuse, and was guilty of perpetrating the same.

They say the first step toward getting help for an addiction is being able to admit you have it. It's mostly true. In my case, I first had to understand the terms "religious addiction" and "spiritual abuse". To someone with my background, these terms seem harsh and derogatory, like they were coined by someone with an angry prejudice against fundamentalism. They are off-putting and more than a little threatening.

Every now and then since I left the ifb church, I have stumbled across these terms, particularly "spiritual abuse". While I could eventually admit that, yes, I had been the recipient of spiritual abuse, I could not think of the people I had known and loved as deliberately abusive. About a month ago, I came into possession of a book written by Rober N. Minor called When Religion is an Addiction. I bought it, and then stuck it on my shelf, too intimidated to read it. It felt like, by reading the book, I would have to start thinking of my parents and other addicts in the ifb church as bad people, instead of the caring, sincere individuals I knew most of them to be.

On the contrary, now that I have finally found the courage to begin reading the book, I am finding a degree of self-understanding I didn't know was possible. And as for my parents and the other ifb addicts I know, I can think of them as sincere believers who have become caught up in an addictive process. The harmful choices they have made in the midst of their addiction come from a place of deep brokenness versus deliberate intention to harm.

Here are some quotes from the book:

Arguing that religious addiction is a process addiction, the same as workaholism and addiction to gambling… “A process becomes an addiction when the process becomes the center of life, the most important reason for living, when a person becomes dependent upon the process for mood-altering relief from the rest of life.” [pg. 34]

“The addictions cause us to think and do things that might otherwise be inconsistent with our deepest intuitions and humane feelings.”  [pg. 36]

“Like substance addictions, process addictions substitute the “message” of the addiction for the messages inside us.  In themselves, they keep us from being aware of and really feeling what is going on inside.  These addictions come with messages that tell us how we should feel instead of how we do feel.”  [pg. 37]

This next quote shows how easily the addiction can move into abuse: “As addicted ones lose contact with themselves, they lose contact with others.  Others become like objects useable for the addiction.  Addicts define others in terms of the addiction… They become out of touch with how what they are doing is affecting, even hurting those around them.”  [pg. 38]

As I relate stories from my journey out of the ifb denomination, I will sometime use the terms “religious addiction” and “spiritual abuse”. When I do so, I will have the above quotes in mind. Any commentary by me refers only to my life experiences and individuals I have known personally; it is not meant to imply that all ifb churches or members are the same.

I recommend Robert Minor’s book if you or someone you know needs help with religious addiction, or if you want to learn more about the topic. I’m still reading the book, however, so I can’t recommend what I have not read.