Since everybody seems really interested in addiction, I wanted to mention that old bromide: the first step to kicking the addiction is recognizing that you have a problem. Hi, I’m such-and-such, and I’m an alcoholic. Your sin won’t be forgiven until you confess and repent.
Big yawn.
It only “works” in the sense that being addicted to endless masochistic rituals around the addiction “works.”
If people want to go to church, why don’t they just go and do it? Why turn everything – medicine, education, workplace – into a pseudo-church?
Clarissa's Blog 
I know a number of people who were serious about church but needed AA to get off alcohol. The much worse problem is than turning things into pseudo-church is turning church into therapy. The point of church is to blow ourselves up. The point of therapy is to allow us to sleep soundly and be good concentration camp guards.
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Slap me silly and call me cynical but…my experience with church is that many of them are glorified clubs. There are cliques and factions and bias. It often takes years or decades to decode what’s really going on. My last bad experience with church (after 3 or 4 disappointments) led me to this conclusion. Everything was fine as long as I agreed with the perceived narrative. But once I stepped outside of their way of thinking, I was rebuked and ridiculed.
That being the case… God helped me break free from addiction to food as a self-soothing mechanism. I read my bible and prayed and have a real relationship with Him. I did not go to OA (Overeaters Anonymous), but I read a lot about addiction and how to overcome it. But God gave me the strength to break free from sugar, soda, fast food and other unhealthy behaviors (binge-eating, blaming others for my addiction, narcissism and self-pity).
“It only “works” in the sense that being addicted to endless masochistic rituals around the addiction “works.” We all need support systems to encourage us in good behavior. What is the old adage? Bad company corrupts good character. If we want to be better, we MUST surround ourselves with people who embody the behaviors we want to emulate. I wish I could be really noble and say I was trying to be Christ-like. But the beginning, I just wanted to “not be addicted to sugar and unhealthy foods” and I really wanted to be more slender, But had I never gone on the journey to trust God to deliver me from addiction, I would not be who I am today. I have not “arrived”, but I am more patient, more empathetic to those with addiction, more willing to extend kindness and mercy to those who are angry or unkind.
“If people want to go to church, why don’t they just go and do it? Why turn everything – medicine, education, workplace – into a pseudo-church?” I think you are really just stating the obvious – that like-minded people congregate. People join the “club” to which they most relate to. And we end up with factions of people who “egg each other on” in those preferred mindsets. Or were you making another point entirely and I’m hung up on the word “church”?
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“If people want to go to church, why don’t they just go and do it?”
I would gladly go to church if I could, but I’m not welcome there. I refuse to take the Fauci Ouchie and I refuse to wear a mask in church, so they don’t want me.
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I was forced out of church because I refused to wear a mask. I found a new church, thankfully. I know everyone doesn’t have that option. 😦 It’s not right!
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I used to be a smoker. I quit when smoking was banned from bars and restaurants and some towns decided that you can’t even smoke on the streets, only in designated spaces or you would be fined.
There was a science study that showed that not lazy but diligent people are more addiction prone. That’s because addiction is a hard work. You have to be committed to organizing the logistics of getting and using the drug all the time. And I’m a proof. It seemed like too much work to figure out the ins and outs of smoking in the new anti-smokers world, so I just stopped out of laziness.
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“Why turn everything – medicine, education, workplace – into a pseudo-church?”
Because people are alone and they feel lonely, and all those things you mention involve responsibilities that are too heavy for them to deal with on their own.
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