Addicted To Spiritual Seeking with Clive, Dom & MattAddicted To Spiritual Seeking with Clive, Dom & Matt
My Sober Addiction
Matt, Clive and Dom talk about how religion, spirituality and addiction intersect, questioning whether spiritual seeking can truly support sobriety. Their conversation touches on guilt, shame, near-death experiences and the search for belonging and peace beyond rigid beliefs.
39:12•14 Aug 2026
Is Spiritual Seeking Your New Addiction?
Episode Overview
- Religion and spirituality can support recovery or deepen confusion, depending on how they handle guilt, shame and control.
- Addictive behaviours often chase a brief sense of peace or bliss that feels almost spiritual, especially when life feels unsafe or divided.
- Shame-heavy religious environments can increase the risk of severe mental distress, particularly for those who don’t fit strict norms.
- Spiritual seeking can become a healthier "addiction" when it focuses on inner values, kindness and acceptance rather than fear of punishment.
- The serenity prayer highlights a practical way to live sober: accept what can’t be changed, change what can, and learn the difference.
“Religion is for people who are afraid of hell. Spirituality is for those who have already lived through it.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This conversation between Matt Stevens, Clive and Dom gets into how religion, spirituality and addiction can all tangle together in ways that shape recovery. You’ll hear Matt share the line that’s guided his own sober life: "Religion is for people who are afraid of hell.
Spirituality is for those who have already lived through it." From there, the trio chat about how different faiths and belief systems can either support healing or pile on shame, guilt and confusion. Dom talks about travelling, sleeping on Shiva temple floors, trying Vipassana meditation and growing up around Irish Catholic and Hasidic Jewish communities.
He reflects on how guilt-heavy traditions can push people towards booze, drugs, food, sex or gambling as a way to grab a brief "spiritual moment" of peace or bliss. Matt describes heroin becoming his "religion" during addiction, then a near-death experience that felt deeply spiritual but completely outside the religious stories he’d been taught.
The group question whether religion itself can become an addiction, especially when it’s used as a control system that makes people feel broken, dirty or terrified of being themselves. They touch on AA, the serenity prayer, Buddhist ideas, Gnostic views, and how shame-based teachings can be especially brutal for people who don’t fit strict rules, such as LGBT people in rigid faiths.
Underneath all the theology and philosophy, the message is simple: people are usually searching for belonging, meaning and a moment of peace, and addiction is often a misguided attempt to get there. Spiritual seeking, handled kindly and without dogma, might help turn that search into something that actually supports sobriety and self-acceptance. If you’ve ever wondered whether your own "spiritual seeking" is helping your recovery or just another addiction in disguise, this chat might give you plenty to mull over.
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