Addiction and Anxiety: Like (Addictive) Family, Like (Addictive) Church?

By more than coincidence, the fusion and enmeshment that happen in anxious congregational systems between anxious individuals mimic what happens in addictive family units.

For example, an abusive, alcoholic husband may be in abusive control of his family. In spite of all the pain, fear, hurt, and abuse, the wife stays with the husband. The children are told to keep quiet. Fearing the father’s wrath, they stay in the family. They refuse to rebel. They do not follow common sense and do what is right to deal with this addictive, abusive father. Why? Because they believe that even though it is frightening to be in the family, it is even more frightening to go out alone from the family. This is the power of separation anxiety.

When people believe their survival is at stake, they will do anything—as irrational as it appears—to survive. Unfortunately, much "survival" behavior in anxious systems can encourage self-sabotage. Janet Geringer Woititz describes how this self-sabotage takes hold in such individuals in her book The Self-Sabotage Syndrome. Those leaders affected by self-sabotage can experience a wide variety of manifestations of pain ranging from workaholism, indecision, entrapping perfectionism, burnout, poor management of employees, and, among other things, inept or inadequate responses to crises.

In churches where an anxious "survival" dynamic is dominant, turning it around is extremely difficult and often hazardous. Adding to the difficulty is trying to avoid triggering any tendencies toward self-sabotage that may exist. Some anxious congregations may heal and experience increased health and renewed vitality. However, most congregational systems will almost always tend to feel threatened by any intervention.

When high levels of anxiety are triggered, so are the unhealthy organizational system’s mechanisms designed to return it to its original unhealthy, anxious equilibrium.