Addiction

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DanteAlighieri

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I’m curious as to your thoughts on the relationship between morality and addiction. My thoughts:
  1. The moral neutrality of a potentially addictive action can be diminished but not always eliminated by its addictive character.
  2. It is difficult to determine culpability if one becomes addicted to this morally neutral act. To wit: there may not be a definable moment at which the matter of the action became grave, nor one in which the actor freely chose it despite its gravity.
  3. The immorality of an action is independent of its addictive nature.
  4. Thus, a person is culpable for committing the sin of the action itself, and the addiction that stems from it is a consequence that diminishes the culpability of continuing the action, notwithstanding the spiritual, psychological, and/or physical harm it entails.
Examples that leap to mind:

Drinking (morally neutral) can become morally wrong if one does it irresponsibly, or does it knowing one is prone to alcoholism or violent behavior. An alcoholic, however, may not be committing mortal sin every time he takes a drink, however, because his addiction diminishes his culpability.

Masturbation (morally wrong) is a mortal sin (given the three prerequisites) every time, but one who is addicted to it may not be sinning mortally each time for the same reason.

Thoughts?

Peace,
Dante
 
Sheesh…20 views and no replies? Am I not being controversial enough?

Peace,
Dante
 
I can tell you that this is a little too much for me.

I believe (as an RN) that all people have some type of addiction.

That addiction could be one that society considers “terrible” like drugs, alcohol, sex…etc or it could be as simple as caffine or cigarettes.

Now lets look at the defination of “Addiction”:

**ad·dic·tion /əˈdɪkʃən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[uh-dik-shuhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma. **

Addiction is present in so many people, yet we continue to call it “habit”.

Do you doodle when you talk on the phone? Do you strum your fingers? Do you eat your hamburger the same way everytime?
Do you “um” between words when giving a speech? Do you sleep on the same side of the bed everynight?

See, all of us have “addictions or habits” that we have a hard time breaking. Problem is that when people get addicted to things that not only hurt them, but can hurt others as well, then we call them “addicts”. Truly we are all addicts.

Thank God if you are not addicted to drugs, alcohol, nicotine, caffine, etc…

We should pray for those who are.
 
From my time attending AA as a concerned person, I learned that there is a thought process, rationalizing, that gets a recovering sober addict using again.

Would engaging in the rationalization count as consent of the will?

Especially if you had been through treatment or AA and you knew about this process?
 
Very interesting topic. I have heard both sides: That a mortal sin is a mortal sin and engaging in any such action is wrong and one must seek forgiveness and confess it each time, even if the action is done when the person feels out of control and is addicted.

Or if someone is addicted then it isn’t a mortal sin in those times.

I am really confused about this. Those who are addicted and know the action is wrong, is the action still a mortal sin? With the addiction present, does this place the individual in a different mindset and understanding where it does diminish the sinfulness? I really don’t know.

For me personally, I think it depends on the person’s mindset. Before they engage in the action, does it come to their conscious that this is wrong and they shouldn’t do it? Do they believe it to be a mortal sin? Does mindset and thought patterns effect the sinfulness of such actions?

I have several addictions. I would say my worst being self harm. I believe this is a mortal sin, because I am causing damage to myself not only physically when I do this, but psychologically and spiritually as well. Now, when I act on this temptation it is normally out of impulse and/or habit. Sometimes I have even been fighting the urge and blacked out only to come to and find I have done it unwillingly. Is this a mortal sin on my part? Since I know it to be a sin, is this something I should confess? Or, because of my addiction to it and my brain’s obsession with doing it, am I morally neutral? Does the fact that my state of mind is not stable and clear during these times take away any grave danger to my soul at these times?

I am also addicted to nicotine. I, personally, don’t feel it is wrong and sinful so does that mean it isn’t? Of course not. I can see how it could be since again, it is causing harm to myself and as a Christian my body is supposed to be my temple. Is this an addiction I would need to confess?

Sorry, all this thread has done has opened up a lot of questions in my mind. Mortal sin is a whole new thing to me, I had never heard the term until a little over a year ago. Before then I had committed many mortal sins in my life. Since I did not know nor understand all of them to be particularly harmful to my soul, should I confess them? I’m sure I will when I have my first confession, but at the time if the three prerequisites were not there does that really mean it wasn’t a mortal sin? Isn’t it enough if I knew at the time they were wrong to do that it was a mortal sin?

Sorry for my rambling and if this wasn’t the type of repsonse you wanted OP. Like I said mortal sin is a whole new thing for me. I was raised with the thinking “Sin is sin and none of it is any worse than the other” so this is one area I am still hazy on.😊
 
DanteAlighieri said:
I’m curious as to your thoughts on the relationship between morality and addiction. My thoughts:
  1. The moral neutrality of a potentially addictive action can be diminished but not always eliminated by its addictive character.
  2. It is difficult to determine culpability if one becomes addicted to this morally neutral act. To wit: there may not be a definable moment at which the matter of the action became grave, nor one in which the actor freely chose it despite its gravity.
  3. The immorality of an action is independent of its addictive nature.
  4. Thus, a person is culpable for committing the sin of the action itself, and the addiction that stems from it is a consequence that diminishes the culpability of continuing the action, notwithstanding the spiritual, psychological, and/or physical harm it entails.
Peace,
Dante
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Great Post 👍
  1. Can one **diminish **the neutrality of a moral act? Only if the act was not completely morally neutral to begin with, right?
Would it be more appropriately asked if the moral culpability of a potentially addictive act could be diminished but not always eliminated by it’s addictive character?
  1. If the act itself is morally neutral, how would it become grave? Example, drinking then drinking to excess? The act itself is morally neutral (unless for an alchoholic) unless the frequency is taken to excess.
Yes…hmmmm…excellent point (#2)j, DA. Does the person becomming an alcoholic have a moment where the drinking to excess becomes a habit, can that person recognize it, and is he or she more or less culpable if they cannot recognize it?
  1. Agreed; objectively, the immorality of an act is independant of it’s addictive nature. Nice segue from point #2.
  2. Yes. Nicely put.
The tendency, though, is to assign less culpability to the action itself, in order to excuse it due to an “addiction”, isn’t it?

GREAT THREAD!!! 👍 👍

Got the old gray matter going this morning. 😃
 
I was told that because my wife had had a horrendous childhood, believed she was not wanted, but was only a “change of life baby”, had parents who fought, a father who drank, and came home raising hell, a loving older brother who was killed on an electric pole, and was taken away from her, she turned to “self love” at a very early age of around 6. By the time I met her at 17, she was already a full blown addict, and an excellent “con artist” as well. The latter being necessary in order to keep the addiction hidden.

Because of all of this, her actions regarding incessant masturbation, and fantasizing was no longer a sin, as with her mindset, it was no longer whether to commit the act, or not, it had turned into a “when is the next opportunity”

The end result to our marriage of 50, never being able to establish any level of intimacy. That would have been too dangerous for the addiction. It might get found out.

My wife told me many times in our 50 years of marriage, “You are going to find somebody better than me, and leave me”. I find out that was the addiction trying to see if it would be challenged…

In such a case, is the information correct? No sin?

.
 
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