I found this account moving. I did not know that Joseph F. Smith struggled with substance addictions. It is an inspiring story of hope, grace, accountability, overcoming shame, and the redemption of God. It is copied from a post from the Faith Forward Facebook page. She listed the following as her sources.
“Chapter 6: Joseph F. Smith: Sixth President of the Church,” Presidents of the Church Student Manual (2004), 93–109
"Before The Beard: Trials of the Young Joseph F. Smith", By Scott G. Kenney, Sunstone Magazine, Nov 2001, 20-43
When he was a infant intruders broke into his home. They threw a mattress over him while they ransacked the place and he nearly suffocated.
He was still a baby when his family was forced from their homes. His mother was sick, his father in jail, and his aunt cared for him.
He was five when his mother lifted him to see his father's body, a cotton ball placed where a bullet had entered his father's face. Then whenever he saw strangers in the street he would hide, thinking they'd take him next.
Seven when he looked back across a frozen river to what had been his home and heard cannon fire, the beginning of another forced exodus.
Thirteen when his mother died after an eight week quarantine. When he was told he passed out. She had held him together, kept him in check, and now he said, "I was almost like a comet or a fiery meteor without attraction or gravitation to keep me balanced or guide me within reasonable bounds."
He fell into bad company. Maybe he was the bad company. Drinking and tobacco.
He loved his family. He lost his family. He had a sister left. The schoolmaster called her up on some infraction, had a leather strap. He cried out, "Don't you touch her with that!" The teacher invited him up to take the punishment in her place. Instead he strode to the front and decked the teacher. As I told this story to a group of teens they cheered. I told them no, we all get it. He lost so much of what he loved, but what he did was inappropriate. He let it get him. He hugely overreacted to what was then culturally acceptable.
He was expelled from school.
Fifteen when he was called to serve a mission to the Sandwich Islands. Some speculate it was because no one knew what to do with him; fiery, passionate, and broken. Oh, but the Lord knew. No one forced him to go, but he went. The teacher was there to wish him well.
The Sandwich Islands where he was placed was then a place of poverty and disease. STDs, Small Pox, and others. It was humbling. He threw himself to work. He learned the language quickly and after six months became the lead over some 1200 church members in forty-one branches. He loathed the living conditions. Loved the people and hated their vices. Sixteen years old. Determined.
The addictions acquired hadn't yet left him. They don't leave, do they? Addictions don't walk out.
He and all other missionaries were called home to Utah due to rumors of an impending military invasion. He enrolled in the militia. The forseen war fortunately petered out.
There, though he "went into the president’s office. He whispered to me, I was obliged to whisper back. He smelt my breath, and started in surprise. “Do you
chew tobacco?” I could have shrunk out of existence, or anihilated myself from very shame, and he saw I was ashamed of myself, and pitying me said, "Keep it to yourself”!"
He hated the hypocrisy he saw in himself. He hated himself. He determined to quit. The alcohol was easy as it never had much hold on him, but the tobacco took twenty years. Nicotine is more addictive. Many substance abuse centers put it in the top five most addictive substances. It held him. He hated it. He tried and failed, tried again. Withdrawals made him,"cross and crabbed", more apt to be harsh with his wife and children. He succumbed. And tried again.
Twenty years. Twenty years and then, "I conquered—and now, when I think of it, I feel ashamed that I was so weak, and strange to say the appetite, though still with me and perhaps as strong as ever, it is at my command. It is no longer the master, but a subdued, conquered enemy ever on the alert to revolt, but daily
growing weaker and more faint."
He urged others to conquer. He spoke harshly of addictions, praised clean living, put himself up as a standard and enjoined others to try. He did so with empathy. And when, as president of the church, he charged the people to give up their addictions as a prerequisite to temple attendance, he told the bishops that if there were those elderly and set in their ways for whom the new enforcement was difficult that they still ought to allow them their temple worship. He was determined and passionate. Fiery, but kind. His youthful wildness yolked to keen understandings and a determination to do justly, to lead as God would have him do, made him formidable: a champion for good.
I told this story to a room full of teens. About the broken boy whose temper raged, who self medicated his grief with addiction, and how he became a worthy, powerful leader. And after I wondered if it were right to show these struggles in a man we revere, and the member of the bishopric I lamented to said, "Well yes, of course! Of course you tell them. Our is a gospel of redemption!"
Redemption. The boy was redeemed. Brought back. Cleansed. Loved, held, blessed, healed- by God. By Jesus. And he became a leader for Christ.
As the president of the church he was attacked and vilified. His character was maligned. For a six year period one newspaper almost daily cartooned him as wicked. "He endured persecution, the revilings and ravings of the wicked, false accusations coming from the most contemptible and vilest creatures of the human family, and endured it all without a word of retaliation. … He took the stand that if Joseph Smith could endure the abuse and vilification which was heaped upon him; if the Son of God could endure it and not return in kind, then he, too, as the humble servant of the Master, could endure in silence, for his fear was not in the arm of flesh but in the Lord, and the time must come when truth would triumph and the falsifier would sink into oblivion and be forgotten.” The boy who decked his school teacher now turned the other cheek. He insisted on forgiveness.
There is more. So much more. He testified before congress in such a way the detractors became defenders. The church, considered extreme, became more mainstream.
He was compassionate. He led the church during World War I. He encouraged patriotism, supported soldiers, and urged those at home to practice thrift.
Section 138 of the Doctrine and Covenants was a revelation given by God to him. It teaches about heaven.
He was Joseph F Smith, son of Hyrum Smith, nephew to the first modern prophet Joseph Smith, and I think he was magnificent. The more I learn the more I respect him. I think that for me, seeing the struggles makes me admire him more, not less. It makes him relatable. It gives me a glimpse of how God molds people. Troubled teen to Prophet. Self-loathing addict to advocate for Christ.
How do I treat people who are trapped? I, who never struggled a day with addictions, have a lot to thank my ancestors for. They broke the chains. I grew up with no alcohol, no addictive substances, in my home. Never saw them there. Was taught not to touch them anywhere. It an easy commandment for me. How do I treat those for whom it's hard? Do I consider myself superior for never having struggled? If I do, I'm wrong to. It was never hard for me, but I owe that to those for whom it was. Children of addicts are far more likely to develop addictions. It is often a familial disease. I owe a lot to the chain breakers. Struggled and conquered so I never had to. That's a beautiful gift.
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