When God Interferes with Recovery – Religion & Codependency
What do all the sentences below have in common?
· “I must say a decade of the rosary before I get well.”
· “I must go to church every Sunday or else I’ll roast in Hell.”
· “I’m only worthy because of what God did for me or who he is.”
· “I’m not worthy of love because of my sins.”
· “If it is not written in our holy book, it’s not the truth.”
· “Other people are pagans.”
· “I must hate pagans.”
· “I can’t choose how I eat because of my religion.”
· “God only loves me if I pray at a certain time and he keeps track how many times I do so in a day.”
· “I can’t cut my hair or donate blood because of my faith.”
· “The pastor/priest/imam/rabbi is never at fault. Everything he says is truth, even if it insults me.”
They are negative messages, that are lived out by many who practice religions to the point of self-sacrifice. If religion were harmless to recovery, why is it that the
sicker one gets, the more religious they become? What is in fact at the core of the problem? It is possible that there is something that has not been resolved and that is religious codependence.
This is indeed when god interferes with recovery, especially when the notion of god is dependent on certain abusive sentiments rather than as a loving and
caring personal power.
Factors for religious codependence:
Below are a number of reasons why people become codependent on their religions, which has the potential of endangering their recoveries:
Religious addiction is a phenomenon when people use their connection with God as a drug to wipe out the reality of their own lives. Many hide in prayer, fasting, mortification, excessive scriptural reading, and obsession. Such people would be bestowed with virtuous conduct by their respective religious communities. Yet, such virtue at the expense of one’s well-being is the cause of this illness of religious codependence. For when the religion is threatened, it seems as though they are threatened, for these people are the religions they practice rather than someone who so happens to practice a particular faith. Following such a person or being that person yourself can be the reason for religious codependence because it’s about undermining one’s own vitality for the vitality of the religion.
This is a belief that God’s very nature, whether he is happy or not, can be swayed by personal behavior. For instance, “God is very angry should you sin;” or “God is very happy when you did that good thing for a friend.” The reality that every action is watched and dictated by a divine spy who has the power of annihilation and is ever-watchful at every minute activity would stress anyone out. It is a magnification of trying to please one’s boss at all times whilst having him/her watch over you 24/7. Hence, this belief leads to the insanity of religious codependence as life would be taken over by the fear of “not being good enough,” which evidently will make life not worth living.
It’s about time that religion works for you rather than the other way around. Most people usually inherit religion rather than choose it for themselves. This leaves them with no personal voice in the very thing that should be most vocalized. As robots of an unwanted inheritance, most people would cowardly follow the religion and fear repercussions for criticizing or questioning it, leading to religious codependence.
