Growing Up Mormon: Religious Addiction

When I was very young my parents drank, smoked and rarely went to any church.  My father had been raised Mormon, but had left the religion to sow wild oats or something. My mother was a Norwegian Lutheran from North Dakota.  She was the responsible one, never doing anything to the extreme.  My father, from stories I've gathered, had quite the alcohol problem – carousing and going on three-day binges.   He struggled with excess, characteristic of addictive personalities.

After his last Vietnam duty tour, he came home with a new addiction.  While over there he traded all the others in on religion.  Specifically Mormonism.  It superseded alcohol, tobacco, and sex (I'm speculating on that one, based on clues I've heard during family gatherings).

As with all addicts, it's only good if everyone around you approves, participates, aids and abets.  He came back from the war with demands.  My mother was required to receive the missionary discussions.  She was polite, as Norwegians are. She sat through them with the missionaries, read the Book of Mormon, and said, “No, thank you.”  I'd just turned six.  I really didn't understand all this stuff, but I knew that I was now going to church a lot.  I mean A LOT. 

Despite her refusal, my father required my mother to attend all the services, socialize and participate completely.

Meanwhile, he immersed himself.  He accepted callings and requested more.  He went to every ward function, he helped every member move, he worked at the building, printed the weekly bulletin, volunteered to drive elderly members on errands. Everything he volunteered for included his family.  Even when he'd be working in the office of the ward building and no one would be around, we'd have to sit in the foyer and wait for him to get done.  With every assignment, he'd be sure to tell everyone around us how I'd been eager to volunteer, regardless the threats or whippings it'd taken to get me to come.  It was important for him to have a good, righteous son.

What I really remember was that we were always in a hurry, rushing from one activity to another.  He'd get home from work and we'd have to be standing in the living room, ready to go wherever it might be.  Every day and all weekend. One memory dominates my childhood – I'm in a suit and tie watching all the neighbor kids play in their yards from the rear window of our station wagon as we drive away.

In all scheduling conflicts, church won out.  We never went to school activities, my parents weren't part of the PTA or anything else, we never attended neighborhood gatherings as a family – and there were a lot of them on military bases.  We were the family that never participated.

In this religious addiction, my father didn't notice that he lost something – his family.  He believes that the church is the source of all things that strengthen families, but the truth is that unhealthy addictions, no matter what the object of the addictive fervor, are destructive. 

I'll bring this up again in later posts, but I was really into sports.  I was good at them.  I played baseball, basketball, football.  I wrestled and I ran track.  In track I went to state two years in a row.  We went to state in basketball and I was all conference.  In baseball I was twice named to the American Legion all-star teams. 

Anyone with kids knows what kind of time commitments and expenditures sports require of families.  My father was an addict however, so he made his choice and his choice was his religion.  He never went to a single game in any sport that I played.  He never saw me wrestle.  He never attended an awards banquet.  He never asked me about my scholarship offers – he didn't care because it wasn't about the church. I was the kid who had to beg rides with other families to out of town tournaments.  I was the boy without any money for the stop at McDonald's or for the hotel at the state tournament.

But I digress.  My mother underwent the missionary discussions three times over a two year period, and after hundreds of arguments, after hour-long prayer after hour-long prayer, after begging, pleading, cajoling and bullying, she relented.  We were baptized together on my eighth birthday and she's been trying to get out of going to meetings ever since, but like the rest of us they dominated her life.  Sometimes I see a simpler desire in her eyes, a life without the pressure of expectations and without the punishment of eternal purgatory for the unrighteous.

It wasn't until twenty-eight years later, when her last child left the house that my mother got to join a bowling league – the one pre-LDS activity that she really enjoyed, that she really missed.  Now she bowls on Monday nights and I'm sure it's more enjoyable than any family home evening we ever had. 

Hi, I'm Rick and my father is an addict.

Comments

[mark]

hmmm, makes me kinda wonder what happend to him in 'Nam to make him go after religion...I've met quite a few 'Nam vets and a lot of them are pretty screwed up

[Cherise]

Powerful stuff, Rick. You were right, this was a sad one. :(

[Sister Mary Lisa]

God, Rick. You made me cry with this one, as I recognized my own addicted dad in this story yet again.

Now, he's alone with his church, doing geneology like his life depends on it until late into the night, working in a temple two hours away once a week, but failing to reply to his apostate daughter's emails asking him how he's doing, and would he like to talk about why I left the church.

I shouldn't have read this first thing today. I need to go fix my makeup.

[Sideon]

It's rare (for me at least) to see discussions of religion in terms of addiction. Who steps in to help when people focus so much on the religious structures that they lose their own families? Is there a "Religious Anonymous" line? The sad thing is that those who are addicted don't even realize the damage they're creating and pervading.

My birth father also served a tour in Vietnam (sniper), but he didn't come back to religion - it was to the other addictions of drugs, alcohol and sex. Of my father (who raised me), I'm glad that he was not addictive. He is very laid back, calm, and enjoys his daily 2-3 bottles of Budweiser while still considering himself a good Mormon. My bias is that he is a good man, Mormon or not.

Snark alert. I've said this in various incarnations in the blogosphere, but...

What good are families if can't sell them on Ebay?

[CV Rick]

I'm going to be known as the blogger who makes all the girls cry.

I wish there was a Religious Anonymous line. Unfortunately the only ones out there willing to rescue people from a religion are just trying to immerse them in another one, as equally destructive.

[Success Warrior]

Ricky Picky Puddin' Pie.

Lucky for you Puddin', I'm not the type of person to take this kind of nickname thing and propogate it on the net.

How come you didn't tell me you were Mormon before? That explains a lot. I'm glad I read this blog.

Have you sent your dad the link to this blog yet? What was his email address again? godsannointed@imamormonandbetterthanyouandyourgoingtohellhahabuticansaveyoufortenpercent.ut.gov

[Graeme]

Great stuff Rick. Religion is one of the worst drugs there is.

[a rose is a rose]

i was raised a catholic. i went to catholic school in grades 1 through 3. on sundays we had to sit with our class at mass (that was very odd indeed i think). anyway, my mom went to church too but my father really never did. they both considered themselves to be catholics though. at some point my mom stopped going too. i stopped 'believing' some time in junior high. i never looked back.

funny thing is, i made the decision to pull the plug on my mother (my father and sisters entrusted this to me because they couldn't handle it). i didn't want to but i knew i had to call a priest in for extreme unction (i feel one NEVER gets to say extreme unction often enough). the hospital arranged that for us and within minutes there was a priest at my mother's bedside. he was african with an accent SO thick none of us could understand him. HOWEVER, there was just something in that man's eyes. i knew my sisters and my father were comforted by just his presence. he gave my mother the sacrament of extreme unction, hugged all of us and went on his way.

from that day forward my father has been attending mass every sunday and every holy day. he is NOT a fanatic and to the best of my knowledge doesn't care if i go to church (again, i DO NOT) or not. i think he found some sort of comfort in the church and for that, i thank the church. any way, i'm going to say extreme unction one more time, then sign off
-the rose without her bud

[Amy]

Take heart, Rick. You didn't make this girl cry. You pissed her off. Well, you didn't, per se, but the subject matter did.

[CV Rick]

Thanks Amy. It's actually a tough subject for me to write about.

[Hellmut]

Thanks for sharing that, Rick. My father was an alcoholic. He had a pretty hard life and made life hard for us. And yet I think that Mormonism messed more with me than my dad.

Anyways, it's important to keep in mind that one can never know if another person really has a choice. I am pretty sure that my father did not have much choice. May be, your father did not have that much choice either.

[CV Rick]

Thank you, Hellmut.

The thing is my father believed he had complete choice in everything. Free Agency is king and all that.

It's hard growing up with an addict.

[frustrated and overwhelmed]

Rick, that was an amazing story. I'm not Mormon but I've watched my husband replace me with his reading, studying to quickly looking like an addict. I'd never in a million years thought of religion as a possible addiction until I googled it. Is there any way to get him to see that he really does have a part in the destruction of our marriage and that he has become virtually obsessed? I have two kids, one of them sees his behavior but is choosing to enable it because he is now talking to her again so she is happy. And my son is just oblivious. PLEASE HELP ME!

[CVRick]

Frustrated and Overwhelmed, I'm going to address your request in a new blog post.