I’ve alluded in previous posts to problems I’ve dealt with as a result of issues from my early childhood. One of my most often read posts is the one I wrote last year about overcoming anxiety and depression. I’m grateful that God has been able to reach so many people through my experiences and I hope that the reference in this post will help as well.
Along with dealing with the depression that I previously wrote about, I was dealing with certain addictions (which, I feel were a trigger for depression I was having). I won’t go into detail about the addictions I had to overcome, but I will discuss the process I went through in overcoming them.
As a young child I had some traumatic events in my life that affected my views on various things in life. Unintentionally I formed addictions later in life as a result of these early experiences. The funny thing is that I knew what I was doing was wrong but I would seem to always revert back to my addictive behavior over and over again. It affected my self-esteem and the way I viewed the world and it went on for many years.
Overcoming the addictions I dealt with were a process. First, I was in denial and I would put the blame on others such as my parents or the people involved in my addictive habits. However, after a few years and a serious wake up call I realized I had a problem and needed to overcome it. The only problem was that I couldn’t stop myself from the habits that had been formed even when I knew they were wrong.
To make a long story short, God helped me through blessing me with determination, patience, and guidance from the Holy Ghost for a number of years. One day as I was driving the Holy Spirit told me in my mind to contact an old friend I hadn’t talked with in years. When I called her I thought I was going there to help her on an errand from God but soon found out that she had recently gone through an addiction recovery program. She became my sponsor for the program which was a major part in my addiction recovery.
Looking back on it, I am deeply grateful that God knew me personally and cared for me deeply enough to guide me to the right program. For me, it was very helpful and worked in the end. However, I did feel a bit of a void especially when talking with my church leaders. I would have loved to have been in a session with people who had similar views on God but I don’t think the leaders were properly trained or aware that the LDS church has an addiction recovery program.
The other day I came across this LDS reference and thought it would be very helpful for people to know about.
Here they have support groups, counseling services and publications for addictions dealing with the following issues:
I encourage those of you who are either dealing with any of these issues or are in a leadership or counseling role to help others with these issues to use this website as a reference. I think if I had known of this before-hand it could have saved me some time and I could have overcome the issues with much more support.
If anyone else has ideas of good references for those dealing with addictions please feel free to share.
All addictions can be stressful and tiresome. I commend you for writing such a passionate article that discusses the hardships that accompanies addiction. In your article you wrote the operative word “support” which I find is imperative. The ability to find a solution with a support is an important part of the recovery process.
Very nice article, it was greatly written and very informative.
[...] challenges); Purging Addiction (personal experience from a woman who overcame an eating disorder); LDS Addiction Recovery Program (personal experience overcoming [...]
You might be interested in the resources offered by Windhaven Publishing ( http://www.windhavenpublishing.com ) for addiction recovery in the LDS community. Colleen Harrison’s book, He Did Deliver Me From Bondage, was used by LDS Family Services for 10 years as their manual in the addiction recovery meetings. Another book published by Windhaven is my book, Clean Hands, Pure Heart, which deals with recovery from addiction to pornography through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is my testimony that Christ can deliver us from any addiction or habit if we will turn our lives over to Him and trust Him. He has changed my life and given me freedom from this awful addiction. I now enjoy the peace He has promised us.