Thanks for sharing that Jonathan, and congratulations.

I think the major similarity between cult and addiction is the denial of the obvious.  So an alcoholic will say he isn't one because he doesn't drink in the morning, or he is still able to hold a job, or he can fly a plane, or be the Perfect Master or whatever.  Same thing in a cult.  The cult member rationalizes that he or she isn't in a cult becuase....and then, like with addiction there are all these rationales that really have nothing to do with what a cult is. 

An alcoholic might never get falling-down drunk, or be homeless lying on skid row, and a cult member might not be forced to sell flowers on the street , be involved in a mass marriage,  or ritualistic abuse, but none of that is proof of either the lack of addiction, or cult.

A difference between addiction and cults, I think, is that if somebody leaves a cult, and begins to see that for what it is, they are very unlikely to ever go back, even when it might be hard to adjust to looking at the cult the way it really was, to face the shame that you believed something so stupid and destructive, and you lose a bunch of your "friends."   That's because there isn't any physical dependency on cults, and although there is psychological dependency, that requires constant mind control for that to have any effect, so it isn't like you can just go back and get a dose of cult after you are questioning the ideology, like you could have another drink or something. A cult has no hold you if you actually question it openly and honestly.   All that is fear-inducing, though.

It's not like you need support not to go back to the cult, you need support to work all the pent-up emotions and thoughts that were repressed while you were in the cult, and deal with the emotional fall out from questioning cherished beliefs, and the fear that underpins them.

Another similarity is that, from what I have read, addiction numbs people to their real feelings and emotions, and when people stop the addictive behavior, they have to face them and that's scary.

I think being in a cult does the same thing.  It creates a distance between yourself and your own feelings/thoughts/emotions, and creates a sort of numbness in that regard.  When you don't have the cult anymore, you have to some degree face them, and that can be difficult and people need support for that.  There are a lot of emotions that happen.  Fear, anger, sadness, etc.  But I think they work themselves out if you just address them, look at them and not be afraid of them.  They kind of just "die in the sunlight."  They live in the dank corners of our psyche, put in there over the years of being in the cult.  Everytime you repressed your real self and the way you really felt -- your own individualism, it got filed away in some cabinet that said "do not consider."  It takes awhile to open all the drawers and let them all out. 

 That's not always easy and I think premies know this on a subconscious level.  The fear is so great that it's easier to just be a premie and not face it, if you can.

People leave cults when they are getting stronger in themselves as people.  I think Kerry was a good example of that.  People leave, mostly, I think, not because they are miserable as premies, but because they catch a glimpse of a possible life outside the cult that isn't hell, they want to grow and they realize that whatever it is they are doing isn't working for them. 

That's one of the reasons that a lot of people left the Rawat cult during the "lightening-up" periods in 1976 and again in the early 80s.  People started to feel a little freer to see things differently and so there was a mass exodus.