Drugs and Alcohol Ruin Your Life

by campaign of hate 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  campaign of hate

  This point was raised in another thread vaguely, and wanted to try and expand on it.

  The WT has said (and rightly so in my opinion) "that excessive use of drugs and alcohol can ruin your life"

  In my eyes this is a fact.

  This is where it starts to get a little suspicious, as they also say (or subtly hint at) "that if you leave the WT you will becoming addicted to Drugs and Alcohol and will ruin your life".

  Its almost like a self fulfilling prophecy. As there are a LOT who leave the Borg and they do start drinking heavy or smoking, or taking drugs...or whatever.

  The WT capitalizes on the fact that people want more freedom, and they subtly ingrain the thought that. drugs+alcohol=Freedom. But display it in a negative light. Albeit in the WT light.

  Then these same people leave, they overindulge in these vices, and inevitably end up in a pretty crappy situation. I'm not talking homeless, but next to no disposable income, no career direction, and pretty bad health.

  Then they remember. "The JWs were right all along, i am ruining my life..They warned me this would happen". They then return to the "Fold" and those aspects of their life get better. Better health as a result of taking better care of their bodies.

  This process can sometimes take 20 years to complete. And then they say. "The JWS saved my life"

  The result? These people, even though DFd, are still owned and controlled by the WTS, even though they do not associate with them.

  It's pretty damn clever, and it's mind control on an Industrial level

  There is a reason why the WT never highlights people who leave who start to eat healthier, exercise regularly, choose better life style choices, and get a good education. It's because these people would never return.
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  OneEyedJoe

  To use an illustration that I've heard about a thousand times in KHs on the topic of raising a child:

  Think of it like holding a spring between your fingers, if you hold it tightly then release it all at once, it's going to fly off and you'll never find it. If you release it slowly, you'll be able to hang on to it.

  The application is to slowly give your kids more freedom so that they don't fly off the handle when they turn 18 and leave the house. It applies just as well (if not better) to the WT's system of control - keep people so completely repressed and make sure to fill their lives with lies so that if/when they can't stand the control or become aware of the lies they're going to throw away all the good things they've learned and fly completely off the handle.

  Add in the constant indoctrination that you can't trust yourself, and that you're not good enough no matter how much you're doing and it's a recipe for someone to wind up completely lost, depressed, and without direction - which can often lead to substance abuse if someone doesn't have proper coping mechanisms. Of course JWs are also prevented from developing coping mechanisms because the answer to every problem is "the new system" or "wait on Jehovah" or similar.

  The result is someone with a deep longing to control their life, but doesn't trust themselves to do it. They feel like everything in the cult was a lie, so they throw the good out with the bad. This leaves them with no direction, and no trust in themselves to provide their own direction, and no coping mechanisms for the stress this causes (not to mention the stress of losing their family and support system). If you put someone in a place like that, it's no surprise if they end up turning to drugs to cope.
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  Finkelstein

  I guess you can call it the rebound effect, I've seen it myself and may have mirrored that persona when I left the JWs at a young age of 20 . I instinctively knew though that what I was doing was testing and exploring, never once did I assumed that what the WTS/JWs was real or valuable other than some people perhaps do need some behavior correction because they were living a wild destructive lifestyle.

  Unfortunately the WTS's mental indoctrination directs people to perhaps a better lifestyle than what they were living before , but it also creates many other socialized dependent problems, from being a highly controlling religious cult.
  
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  James Mixon

  So true; alcohol had me in a down spiral after leaving the borg. Only

  after I researched the borg my life changed for the better.

  The borg have a lot of over the counter drug users and tons of alcoholics.
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  Ignoranceisbliss

  Along the same line of thought I think that seeing people's lives going to shambles after they leave the Borg as being one of the strongest indoctrination tactics that the Borg has.

  Recently a 50ish year old dub from a large family told me that the two brothers of his who left the "truth" lives are in shambles. And he is right. Their lives are a wreck. The rest of the family whom are witnesses have pretty good family lives. This is solid evidence to the rest of the family that being a witness is the best way of life.
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  LoveUniHateExams

  @campaign of hate, they threaten teenagers thinking of leaving in a similar manner - 'if you leave, you'll become addicted to X, or you'll sleep around and get STD/unwanted pregnancy, or get in trouble with the law or ... etc.'

  As you've pointed out, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially to teenagers.

  It's almost as if the WTS wants leavers to fail so that they return to the religion.
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  jhine

  Well of course finding out that you have been lied to and manipulated for most of life , being shunned by family and friends and possible guilt from shunning someone else for no good reason doesn' t help someone to have a good life does it ?.

  Jan
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  Finkelstein

  It's almost as if the WTS wants leavers to fail so that they return to the religion.

  But its more about wanting these individuals to fail so that can say with self righteous vindication that this was inevitable for venturing into Satan's system of things and leaving god's earthly arrangement. .
  
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  ShirleyW

  They've got it backwards, a lot of faithful servants of Jah do drink and/or take prescription pills just to put up with the meetings and the other drivel that's required for being a part of the happiest people on earth
  
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  JeffT

  What Shirley said. I went into rehab almost twenty years after I left the Borg, but looking back the downward spiral began shortly after I became a JW. It was then that I started drinking every night, and at every social function. I drank more (a LOT more) as a JW than I did in college.