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Hello everyone and welcome back to part two of my Mormon Stories podcast interview with Dr. Dan Lonergan, it's October 10, 2017, 420pm mountain time.

We had a wonderful first hour and a half talking to Dr. Dan about his upbringing in the church, his mission, his time at BYU, his faith crisis as he was in men's school and as a seminary teacher leading to his departure from the church after the November 2015 policy and after struggling with teaching Mormonism to his seminary students.

He also gave us a lot of great tips and experiences on navigating a mixed faith marriage, his wife is a progressive nuanced Mormon, but he no longer describes as sort of a Mormon believer.

We've talked about how they've made that work, how they've always put family first and how they've navigated some of the most difficult common challenges for people in a faith crisis.

It's been a wonderful first part for those who haven't listened to it. It's definitely worth listening to.

Dan even talks about how he's reclaimed some of his own spirituality after identifying as an agnostic. So it's cool.

Check out that interview. Now we're going to do part two where we talk about addiction and we're going to be talking about it from the standpoint of an expert because this is what you do for a living.

So if it's okay, as we begin, where should we start in terms of our discussion about addiction?

I think I have for the first part just to ask you about the most common ways that people get addicted.

So you're going to be talking about a biological component, the brain and how it works. Maybe if there's any genetic components or situational components to the development of addiction, etc.

So why don't you just talk about the model for how people oftentimes get addicted?

Sure. So 50% of your tendency to become addicted is genetic. So if your parents are alcoholics, then you have significantly more risk to developing an addiction.

So 50% of your tendency, you can't even control. And now you can control your exposure and you can control your environment, but the genetic aspect you're stuck with.

That's about 50%.

That makes that makes that makes taking any drug almost like Russian roulette because there are things you can control, but there are some things that are out of your control.

And oftentimes I'll have 99 people tell me, oh, now I just drink an occasional beer, an occasional glass of wine or occasionally smokes a marijuana.

And it's never been a problem. I've never become addicted. It's become this healthy, normal thing.

And that's the experience for the majority of post-mormons or liberal Mormons that I talk to. And then there's sort of one out of what?

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