You're not addicted

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DancingCarrot
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Re: You're not addicted

Post by DancingCarrot »

Yes, great quote, Heber. In things regarding the mind, which inevitably involve the notion of thinking and choosing, we naturally want to treat everything as simple and easily resolvable. Untangling the parts of addiction that are genetic, physical, mental, emotional, and cultural is not something easily done, especially by so many people.

That, and I think as humans we tend to create the consequences that bring the most suffering in order to see a short-term dose of "justice" served, instead of letting actual consequences that result from our choices have more sway.
It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. -Dumbledore

Roll away your stone, I'll roll away mine. Together we can see what we will find. -Mumford & Sons
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SamBee
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Re: You're not addicted

Post by SamBee »

I've been censored for saying this before, but a lot of people start off with nudie pictures and often end up getting into worse and worse stuff, some of which is actually harmful to the performer.

Porn addiction falls somewhere between eating disorders (one has to eat to stay alive so dealing with it is unavoidable) and gambling which is not necessary at all, but which keeps leading you onto stronger stuff. It is related to a bodily need but one that doesn't actually have to be fulfilled half as much as the modern western world claims
DASH1730 "An Area Authority...[was] asked...who...would go to the Telestial kingdom. His answer: "murderers, adulterers and a lot of surprised Mormons!"'
1ST PRES 1978 "[LDS] believe...there is truth in many religions and philosophies...good and great religious leaders... have raised the spiritual, moral, and ethical awareness of their people. When we speak of The [LDS] as the only true church...it is...authorized to administer the ordinances...by Jesus Christ... we do not mean... it is the only teacher of truth."
Old-Timer
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Re: You're not addicted

Post by Old-Timer »

Good summary, Sam.
I see through my glass, darkly - as I play my saxophone in harmony with the other instruments in God's orchestra. (h/t Elder Joseph Wirthlin)

Even if people view many things differently, the core Gospel principles (LOVE; belief in the unseen but hoped; self-reflective change; symbolic cleansing; striving to recognize the will of the divine; never giving up) are universal.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
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mormonheretic
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Re: You're not addicted

Post by mormonheretic »

GAHHHH

About a week and a half ago, I was informed the stake president was holding a "secret meeting" with all adults in the ward and young women were going to take care of primary. Well stake president wasn't there, but missionaries from the LDS Addiction Recovery program were there. I was hoping it was about addiction, but it was about pornography! (There was a mention of eating disorders, and a head nod to drugs, but it was by far about pornography addiction.)

I wanted to get up and leave, but decided to do genealogy on my tablet instead. I wanted to ask the following questions, but of course there was no time for questions.
  • Have you seen the BYU study at the beginning of this thread?
    Are you aware what Elizabeth Smart has said regarding modesty shaming? (although Smart does believe in addiction, so she's a mixed bag there)
    How does one know if one is addicted? Is once-week addiction?
    Are you aware that some thing addiction is the wrong word to use in LDS culture?
    Are you aware that the biggest problems with addiction come from religious communities like the Wasatch Front and Bible Belt? Why is that?
    Do you talk to real sex therapists about whether the addiction model is the best approach?
Part of me wants to take my concerns to the stake president (although he wasn't there which makes me wonder if this was simply the bishop's idea with the stake president tacit approval), but I wonder if it will do any good.
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SamBee
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Re: You're not addicted

Post by SamBee »

In the Wasatch Front and Bible belt there are a lot of physically isolated people. Always worth bearing that in mind when talking about p.

A friend was in the oil industry and said that the guys on the rigs out at sea had A LOT of the stuff out there and on obvious display.
DASH1730 "An Area Authority...[was] asked...who...would go to the Telestial kingdom. His answer: "murderers, adulterers and a lot of surprised Mormons!"'
1ST PRES 1978 "[LDS] believe...there is truth in many religions and philosophies...good and great religious leaders... have raised the spiritual, moral, and ethical awareness of their people. When we speak of The [LDS] as the only true church...it is...authorized to administer the ordinances...by Jesus Christ... we do not mean... it is the only teacher of truth."
Roy
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Re: You're not addicted

Post by Roy »

I remember a missionary telling me about the amazing success rate of the quit smoking program that they were using. He told me that it was 100%. I was incredulous. He reiterated that 100% of the people that apply faith and really try with their whole heart are able to quit. I laughed. :lol:

He seemed bewildered. I had to explain to him that excluding everyone that was unsuccessful from his sample size is kinda like cheating. :mrgreen:
"It is not so much the pain and suffering of life which crushes the individual as it is its meaninglessness and hopelessness." C. A. Elwood

“It is not the function of religion to answer all the questions about God’s moral government of the universe, but to give one courage, through faith, to go on in the face of questions he never finds the answer to in his present status.” TPC: Harold B. Lee 223

"I struggle now with establishing my faith that God may always be there, but may not always need to intervene" Heber13
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SamBee
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Re: You're not addicted

Post by SamBee »

Roy wrote: 10 Oct 2017, 16:59 I remember a missionary telling me about the amazing success rate of the quit smoking program that they were using. He told me that it was 100%. I was incredulous. He reiterated that 100% of the people that apply faith and really try with their whole heart are able to quit. I laughed. :lol:

He seemed bewildered. I had to explain to him that excluding everyone that was unsuccessful from his sample size is kinda like cheating. :mrgreen:
His argument would be that they didn't apply enough faith. Ah the naïveté of youth!
DASH1730 "An Area Authority...[was] asked...who...would go to the Telestial kingdom. His answer: "murderers, adulterers and a lot of surprised Mormons!"'
1ST PRES 1978 "[LDS] believe...there is truth in many religions and philosophies...good and great religious leaders... have raised the spiritual, moral, and ethical awareness of their people. When we speak of The [LDS] as the only true church...it is...authorized to administer the ordinances...by Jesus Christ... we do not mean... it is the only teacher of truth."
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SilentDawning
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Re: You're not addicted

Post by SilentDawning »

gospeltangents wrote: 25 Sep 2017, 16:40 BYU study says the problem with porn use is the stigma, not the actual usage. Porn's bad for relationships because the church says it is, and labeling anyone who has looked at it as an addict is not helpful. Short 5 min story with transcript is at http://kuer.org/post/religious-communit ... n#stream/0
I read one article that indicated porn can help marriages stay together. You have a man who who won't be sexually active with his wife so she turns to porn to relieve the tension and can at least have the powerful, involuntary urges satisfied through MB. If you are a church member, and have the law of chastity to obey, you have no other place to turn when your spouse won't play ball.

This strikes me as grossly unfair, quite frankly. What does the church expect you to do? Live like a celibate nun or monk your whole life while assuming all the obligations of marriage and child rearing (if any)? Your other alternative is to go outside the relationship and of course, that means church discipline and much familial damage. You can get a divorce -- but what if the other non-physical parts of the relationship are still firing on enough cylinders to make the marriage otherwise feasible and stable and healthy for children? What are you supposed to do -- throw the baby out with the bathwater, get a divorce over the sex part and destroy the rest of the good things in the relationship??? Yeah -- that supports the goal of an eternal family, doesn't it :roll:

The problem is that church leaders CANNOT stand up and say "Pornography is acceptable under certain circumstances".

First, it would alienate all the people who don't "get" the unusual circumstances. Anyone who has a family member with a disability knows that people with normal lives have a very hard time understanding what life is like with a family member who has a disability, or say, a problem with sexual dysfunction. We ran into that with my son who has a medical condition (type 1 diabetes) -- the schools, friends, others would behave in ways that startled us, or that required significant education and sometimes, forcing on our part to get them to do the simplest things. For example, the school would refuse to listen to us on even the most basic, routine matters, saying we had get our doctor to call them and tell them. We finally had the doctor write a letter indicating the school should listen to us on a long list of issues, which cleared up that maddening problem.

In one situation, they were insisting I pick my son up at school when his blood sugars were high. A huge, repetitive disruption -- simply because they didn't understand the difference between high blood sugars and a more serious related condition that happens rarely involving ketones. This was even though this was written in his management plan with the approval of a doctor. Stuff like that -- which shows knee jerk misunderstand and subsequently, bad decision making on the part of the people outside the situation.

My point is that a) I don't think church leaders who have a normal sexual relationship with their spouse can readily empathize with heterosexual couples with sexual dysfunction b) even if they could empathize, I think politically it would alienate half the membership if they indicated porn use was Ok in certain circumstances. So they can't say it.

This reminds me a bit like the problems people with Same Sex attraction have. The church forbids a committed marriage among Same Sex individuals. But what alternatives do they present? There is therapy -- that doesn't work, there is marrying heterosexually, that doesn't work, and there is pursuing a SS marital and sexual relationship -- and that leads to excommunication. I suppose there is porn and MB, which I didn't see addressed in my fast glance at his research, but that could help ease the situation a bit. But they still don't get the intimate emotional connection with a loving spouse.

Check out John Dehlin's doctoral dissertation on the issue where he summarized the measures taken by people with SSA to deal with the issue. http://www.johndehlin.com/research/ It appears to be a dead end.

People in these situations are left with nowhere to turn and nothing but misery until this gets worked out in the eternities -- if it even does. And then I ask myself, how do conundrums like this make the LDS gospel a "gospel of happiness"? At what point do you say "forget it -- I am not going to live my life miserably for a gospel that offers no solutions. I am not going to embrace the only alternative -- divorce -- that will destroy one of the very things the church is here on earth for -- eternal family??"

Even Eve had to make a choice between two commandments, and chose the better part.

Part of my commitment crisis is that I have found the church can be a source of great misery. A source of great misery unless you take matters into your own hands, decide what is best, and live according to the dictates of your own conscience. When rabid, vindictive behavior from women in the church affected my mental and physical health a few years ago -- it was a major turning point in how I viewed the church's role in my life.

I am so thankful I've been able to mediate between all the rocks and hard places.
"It doesn't have to be about the Church (church) all the time!" -- SD

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

A man asked Jesus "do all roads lead to you?" Jesus responds,”most roads don’t lead anywhere, but I will travel any road to find you.” Adapted from The Shack, William Young

"The wise man has the power" -- adapted from What A Fool Believes -- The Doobie Brothers
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SilentDawning
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Re: You're not addicted

Post by SilentDawning »

mormonheretic wrote: 08 Oct 2017, 14:19 Part of me wants to take my concerns to the stake president (although he wasn't there which makes me wonder if this was simply the bishop's idea with the stake president tacit approval), but I wonder if it will do any good.
I am afraid that would put you on the radar as someone who uses pornography even if you don't use it. Plus it's so ingrained in our culture, that's not a hill to die on.

As StayLDSers, our greatest potential for effecting change is on the soft cultural issues or revealing little known parts of the handbook or conference talks that run counter to popular mormon culture. For me, it means -- attitudes toward volunteerism, softening stances on the Sabbath day, judgmentalism (Mormons seem to sit up when you tell them they are sinning :shh: ), allowable musical instruments in sacrament meeting, not immediately assuming less activity is due to sin -- issues like that where there is wiggle room. And preferably GA conference talks to back you up.
"It doesn't have to be about the Church (church) all the time!" -- SD

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

A man asked Jesus "do all roads lead to you?" Jesus responds,”most roads don’t lead anywhere, but I will travel any road to find you.” Adapted from The Shack, William Young

"The wise man has the power" -- adapted from What A Fool Believes -- The Doobie Brothers
Roy
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Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: You're not addicted

Post by Roy »

SilentDawning wrote: 11 Oct 2017, 06:39 Even Eve had to make a choice between two commandments, and chose the better part.
Interesting Thought. Adam had the choice to remain in a state of paradise alone or to enter the lone and dreary world with his spouse and companion. After the fall his fate would be to work hard daily, experience sickness, pain, and sorrow, and eventually to die. He chose Eve.
"It is not so much the pain and suffering of life which crushes the individual as it is its meaninglessness and hopelessness." C. A. Elwood

“It is not the function of religion to answer all the questions about God’s moral government of the universe, but to give one courage, through faith, to go on in the face of questions he never finds the answer to in his present status.” TPC: Harold B. Lee 223

"I struggle now with establishing my faith that God may always be there, but may not always need to intervene" Heber13
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