Opioid addiction in the heart of Mormon country
Perfection is still our goal. It is reached by climbing steadily up, controlling all our desires, impulses and urges.- Spencer W. Kimball, former president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Geoff Turner, host of the CBC Original Podcast On Drugs, recently visited Utah to try to understand how church life might impact addiction.
He was surprised to discover that Utah has the seventh highest overdose rate in the United States — a state where much of the population is Mormon.
Addiction brought on by shame
Mindy Vincent grew up in the Mormon church. She says the high moral standards the church places on its members leads to a huge amount of stress among the devout.
Within the Mormon faith, sexual relations are only considered proper between a man and a woman who are legally and lawfully wedded as husband and wife. Same sex sexual activity is forbidden, as are masturbation and pornography. Modest dress - high necklines and low hems - is encouraged for women.
"There is so much burden placed upon each gender ... that you know you're always struggling for this unattainable perfection," says Vincent. "The shame that comes with it is just crippling."
Vincent is the founder of the Utah Harm Reduction Coalition, which hands out needles and condoms throughout the state.
Prior to founding the organization, Vincent struggled with a crystal meth addiction for 15 years, and had a hard time untangling her family's faith from their desire to help her recover.
"The only way I could get my family's love back was through church, through reading the scriptures, and if I just loved God enough everything would be OK," says Vincent. "When you reject that and you're like, 'you know that's just not part of my belief system,' then your family cuts you off… I mean now you've broken your parents' heart."
The Mormon church bans alcohol, tobacco and hard drugs like crystal meth. However, some members consider opioids to be a loophole as they're prescribed by a doctor.
The opioid loophole
"Opioids have become a means of escape for [Mormons] because they can rationalize that 'Hey, I'm not drinking but something is relieving the stress and the pain and the feelings of guilt that are engaging my soul every day,'" says Daniel Snarr, a Mormon and the former mayor of Murray, Utah.
According to the Utah Department of Health, 32 per cent of adult Utahns were prescribed an opioid for pain in 2014. The state had a five-fold increase in deaths that involved the misuse or abuse of prescription medication between 2000 to 2015.
Snarr lost his son, Denver, to a drug overdose ten years ago.
Before his son died, Snarr says that Denver had a hard time facing the Mormon church's expectations of perfection.
"He said that, 'I just I couldn't keep up with all of the things that I was supposed to be doing to make my life the best life possible and I'd made too many mistakes,'" Snarr says.
A correlation between faith and addiction?
Tempting as it may be to connect the dots between these moral expectations and drug use, Turner admits it is difficult to establish any exact link between religious faith and addiction.
David Anisman, a public health specialist with the University of Utah Medical Centre, says every community should reflect on whether they're adding stress to their members' lives.
Turner adds that Mormons focus a lot on family and community support, factors which can mitigate issues of addiction.
Click LISTEN to hear Geoff Turner's full report on opioid addiction in the heart of Mormon country.