This book has some very interesting thoughts on religion as addiction. For instance, becoming addicted to self-induced emotional highs during worship services, or becoming addicted to church works because that's what keeps you on-track with God (or is some sort of appeasement for sin). There's heaps more info than what's below, but it provides some idea of what the book is talking about.


Excerpt from:

Toxic Faith
by Stephen Arterburn & Jack Felton


Religion as Addiction

A person with toxic faith can worship a false god just as easily as an alcoholic can worship a bottle of booze. The person with toxic faith is just as likely to be willing to die out of devotion to that false god as a drug addict is willing to die out of devotion to drugs.
The toxic faithful adhere to a toxic religion in order to dodge the emotional turmoil that comes with facing the reality of their circumstances. Their lives focus on the religion and not on God. The religion engulfs them, and they lose themselves in its practice.

Just as alcoholics drink to find relief, religious addicts find relief in work. What is labelled as peace, however, is actually avoidance. Hard work is the enabler for avoidance. Essentially, they work hard in an attempt to outrun the pain. Real people are lost and replaced with those who will assist in the charade. Busyness becomes the goal, and religious compulsivity provides a false presence of God. The compulsive working out of their religion gives the mood alteration necessary for the illusion of being okay. Though those feelings of being okay may be fleeting, it is still better than living without a moment of rest or relief from the conflicts of life.

Alcoholics and drug addicts are not the only ones who reach a point where the personality organizes itself around the addiction and every other mode of life becomes subservient to it. Religious addicts do exactly the same thing. Rather than become more filled with the Spirit of God, they become filled with the activities of the church. Rather than become more like Christ, the individuals become more like the church wants them to be or more like they want to be perceived. The personality changes as it revolves around the compulsive behaviours of religiosity. Nothing is more important than the distorted practice of faith, and nothing must deter the addicts from practicing faith in this driven manner. It becomes everything; God and others come in second.


Churchaholics have embraced a counterfeit religion. God is not honoured, and the relationship with Him is not furthered. Work is the focus of everything. It - and not God – allows the individuals to feel safe. Rather than retreat to the loving arms of God, they literally bury themselves in their compulsive acts. The harder they work, the better they feel because they convince one another that God applauds their efforts. They have grown so entangled in the world of the church that they no longer have time for the family. They are trying to work their way to heaven or pay the price for their guilt. Without intervention, they lose all sense of reality and rarely come to understand God as He really is.

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The churchaholic obsessed with Scripture stops communicating because he or she fills every conversation with verses and sermonettes. No one wants to listen to or even be around the person. Such pseudo-speech becomes a form of religious intellectualism; someone becomes so immersed in an aspect of faith that real faith gets lost. The comfort of God is pushed aside b the self-induced comfort of superiority that comes from being able to rattle off a verse rather than connect with another human being as Christ did.
A family member abuses Scripture in this way. Every relationship turns into a student-teacher dynamic. She holds herself above the others, ready to set them on course with a helpful scripture. She has alienated everyone in the process. If her faith were pure, it would attract others. Instead it repulses them and drives people from her and from wanting to pursue a relationship with God. As she builds up her image with this “admirable” form of communication, she puts God down in the eyes of those who see her faith. Her position as “teacher” brings her a sense of power, prestige, and control, while it alienates all others. She uses her sermons of superiority to gratify her need for security. She feels safe because people don’t dare come too close, lest they be chewed up by her Scripture-quoting tongue. The Word of God has become her god.

p.92-100