Recovery Harder For Religious People

Is Recovery Harder For A Religious Person?      

Religion helps teach the power of surrender.

Religion, in some ways, can increase the shame that you feel. For instance, if you feel that you are not doing something that you should do or you’re doing something you feel you shouldn’t do, this can increase the shame.

If you view your struggle as something that is sinful or contrary to your value system, your religious beliefs, then this is likely to increase the shame that you may feel and can be a more difficult barrier to overcome.

Strength of Faith

On the other hand, if you’re religious, then your faith is also going to be a strength to you.

In addiction recovery, there’s an idea called surrendering and the idea of surrender is that you acknowledge an overwhelming ability for what we call ‘IT‘ (the addictive behavior); the limbic response to the situation.

You recognize that ‘IT” has a tremendous influence on you because you allowed it to, and you know that it does have tremendous power and you recognize that influence in your life.

Surrendering to Higher Power

Having faith in your religious belief of a higher power helps recovery.

However, by surrendering to that acknowledged force you also empower yourself. Ironically, you empower yourself, because of that surrender, you empower yourself  to say,

‘I know that ‘IT’ has the ability to have tremendous power over me but I know because of ‘IT’ I can also recognize ‘IT’ for what it is and find ways to overcome ‘IT’.

Those who are religious and turn to a higher power as a source of strength in their life, do seem to have additional strength and more power beyond their own.

You can find a lot of success as you lean on that extra help.  

Utah Family Therapy is located in American Fork, UT and specializes in pornography and sexual addictions 801.901.0279