Desensitized

[DevtheWind]

I won't go into much detail, but I am currently trying to overcome a sinful addiction (not drugs, mind you) and I used to feel bad/guilty about doing it, which would help motivate me to stop, but now I feel nothing. I just need advice on what I should do to "regain" those feelings, because I am feeling worse than I am now then I did.

P.S. I did go to the Bishop about this, and after I talked to him and resumed the addiction, I began to felt nothing

[Martain]

In our skin are nerve endings that grant us the sense of touch. Remove those nerve endings and you loose that sense as well. What happens if you hold a lit match head up to your skin? Well it's going to hurt and burn you and it takes time for your body to heal from the damage.

Yet what would happen if you didn't let your body heal from the damage but kept burning yourself in the same spot over and over again over a long period of time? You might possibly kill off those nerve endings. Even if you didn't, the cumulative damage total would be much greater than the original burn and would take a significantly longer time to heal right?

Guilt is like that. If you keep committing the same sin over and over again you can eventually so sear your conscience as to destroy your capacity to feel guilt. Yet such has a high cost for the deadening affects not only your capacity to feel guilt but also your capacity to feel many other desirable emotions and feelings as well.

While those who are unrepentant often do not want to give up our sins, they nevertheless do not want to feel the pain their sins cause them. They allow their hearts to become more and more hardened so that they feel less and less. This is what is happening to you Dev, you're heart is growing more and more hard as you continue to commit these sins and now you're noticing how much less you're feeling now than you used to before.

I know this because I too was once was held bound by such an addiction. Having once been at the point where you are now I know what you're experiencing and how it feels. I feel for you.

I also know what occurred in my life that finally woke me up. It was pain. Though it wasn't the pain from guilt, something else manifested in my life that was so painful as to lead me to a overwhelming need to know what was truth of what was happening to me and how I was to deal with it.

It lead me to repentance and it was only through repentance that I regained the feelings I had lost. Only through repentance that the chains of my addiction were broken. I know Christ lives Dev and I have seen the miraculous power of his Atonement in my own life. What he did for me he now waits for you to come to him so he can do the same for you.

Yet how much is this worth to you? How much do you want it?

You don't have to take the following advice but I promise you it's worth it if you do.

Pray.

Pray and ask that if guilt will not be enough to lead you to repentance that he will allow something into your life painful enough that will. Pray that if you're attempts to humble yourself unto repentance won't be enough that he will allow events into your life which will.

Do you want him to do everything within his power no matter how much it hurts, no matter how long it takes and no matter what cost you'll pay to get there? If so, tell him.

If you don't feel that way but want to, tell him.

Jesus Christ is your redeemer and he has the power you seek. Freedom is waiting for you but it can only be found on his terms. A new heart is a gift given to those who sincerely repent and seek forgiveness. What are you willing to offer in return for the new heart you seek? Tell him.

Do you really want to be able to feel guilt again? Do you really want to repent and be freed from this addiction? If so, pray. Pray for it with all the energy of your soul.

I'll pray for you Dev and if there's anything I can do to help please let me know. There's a book that helped me that would help you too and if you want it, simply let me know.

Edited May 22, 2012 by Martain

[HEthePrimate]

I won't go into much detail, but I am currently trying to overcome a sinful addiction (not drugs, mind you) and I used to feel bad/guilty about doing it, which would help motivate me to stop, but now I feel nothing. I just need advice on what I should do to "regain" those feelings, because I am feeling worse than I am now then I did.

P.S. I did go to the Bishop about this, and after I talked to him and resumed the addiction, I began to felt nothing

Guilt is only useful if it inspires repentance. If guilt didn't work to make you repent, then it's not useful.

Fortunately, there are other motivators, things like love, hope for a better life, and so on. If your addiction, whatever it is, is hurting somebody else, you may want to focus on your love for that person, and how you can serve them. If you don't already love them, then maybe you can try to befriend them.

If your addiction does not hurt anybody else, but gets in the way of your personal happiness and a fulfilling life, then you may want to focus on building a better life for yourself, and think about how learning to deal with your addiction could help you be happier.

One thing about sin is that if your mind is focused too much on the sin, it will be harder for you to avoid it. Obviously, if you are always thinking about how much you want to do the sin, it will be hard not to do it. Likewise, if you are always thinking about how to stop the sin, your mind is still focused on it, and it will still be hard to avoid falling back into sin. A curious double bind. So what you need to do is find something else to think about, like how much God loves you, how you can help other people and make them happy, and what kinds of things (other than the sin!) you can do that make you happy. In other words, distract yourself from the sin so that it's no longer the center of your mental universe.

Also, if whatever you're dealing with does not hurt anybody else, and it doesn't hurt you, then maybe it's not a sin. People get all kinds of funny ideas in their heads about sin, but sometimes it's just their opinion, and you can safely ignore them. But if you are involved in bona fide sin, then by all means, repent. But like I said, rather than focusing on the sin--whether it be how tempting it is, or how to avoid it--focus instead on Jesus, how much he loves you, and what you can do to serve him and your fellow beings.

Peace,

HEP

Edited May 22, 2012 by HEthePrimate

[ClickyClack]

Do you *need* the feelings that something is wrong?

Personally, when I've beat myself up over feeling that something is wrong, it's always made it HARDER to change. Changing as a rational decision has worked far better for me.

After sitting down and making some strong realizations about what I REALLY wanted in life, I could then say to myself "Even though behavior (xyz) that I want to do right now seems really important, fun, or even necessary, it's not going to get me to what I truly want in life. What are some things I could do instead to achieve my goals?

I've heard a talk from an addiction counselor who also says that the feelings of guilt and shame are counter-productive. Let me see if I can find where I heard that, it was a pretty darn good talk for changing ANY behavior, not just addictions...

Here you go. Good stuff for everybody to listen to.

Edited May 22, 2012 by ClickyClack

[DevtheWind]

Do you *need* the feelings that something is wrong?

For me personally, I usually base my decisions on emotions (and on the teachings of the church), so having guilt when I sin is actually a good thing, and it helps me stop.

[FunkyTown]

For me personally, I usually base my decisions on emotions (and on the teachings of the church), so having guilt when I sin is actually a good thing, and it helps me stop.

When you felt guilt before, you didn't stop.

There are two types of guilt: Godly guilt, which brings us to repentance, and what I term 'The sorrow of the Damned' - That is, the sorrow one gets when one realizes one is trapped in sin. The second doesn't call to repentance, but simply makes one feel inadequate and like a failure. It makes one think, "I'm just going to fail again."

If you're not feeling guilty, then just stop whatever you think you should. If you fail, then just try again. If you fail again, then just try again. Repeat as often as you need to.

As an aside: You might also try to find out what your trigger situations are and avoid those situations.

All of this is easier said than done, however, because sometimes we frankly don't want to repent. We want to sin, because it's just so much fun/pleasure/whatever. In that case, it takes a strong man to simply walk away. Be that strong man.

[Misshalfway]

Don't know if anyone is following this thread anymore.... but I'll add this idea.

It could be that the "dead" feelings are a result of an addiction cycle. Perhaps the OP could study a little about how the guilt that follows acting out is actually a destructive kind that leads to more acting out.

It helps to think differently about ones behavior and ones self. Compassion and self love produce more change support than shame and self punishment. And sometimes we get confused about what repentance is when stuck in these types of self defeating cycles. Unwinding that confusion is liberating and healing.

Best wishes to the OP.

[prisonchaplain]

I am pleased to belong to a church which, like yours, still understands that it does not have to directly hurt others to be a sin. Yet, rather than yell at sinners from a pulpit and tell them they are spiritual slime, brothers are starting to help brothers to overcome. BTW, quite often deliverance from the addiction is not enough. Sometimes healing is needed--because a deep wound created the opening where the addiction could be born and grow.

This site is not LDS--but it is not anti either. You may find some ideas or approaches that could work within an LDS context. puredesire.org :: Home

[Blocky]

I was inactive for a few years and during that time I developed a few additions, bad habits, and other things that I needed to work past to be able to have the Holy Ghost back in my life. I knew what I wanted in my life, and I knew how the things I had been doing didn't fit into what I wanted for myself.

For a long time my prayers were primarily prayers asking for the desire to repent. I didn't feel sorrow and it was hard to want to go through the repentance process even though I knew logically what I needed to do to get where I wanted to be.

Pray for the desire to change. Pray to understand the severity of the sins. It might take quite a bit of time. It will come. It's a process.

[HEthePrimate]

I am pleased to belong to a church which, like yours, still understands that it does not have to directly hurt others to be a sin.

While I agree that something does not have to directly hurt others to be a sin, I am interested in knowing why you think some things are sins, but others are not. In other words, what makes a sin a sin?

To flip it to the positive, is something right because God commands it, or does God command it because it's right?

My opinion is that the second proposition is true, that God commands us to do things because they are right. The other option seems too arbitrary.

In any case, that still leaves unanswered the question of what makes something right (or wrong) so that God would make commandments about it?