|
Spirituality increases
as alcoholics recover
Newswise — For decades, recovering alcoholics
and those who treat them have incorporated spirituality into the
recovery process — whether or not it’s religious in nature. But few
research studies have documented if and how spirituality changes
during recovery, nor how those changes might influence a person’s
chance of succeeding in the quest for sobriety.
Now, a new study from researchers at the
University of Michigan Addiction Research Center sheds light on this
phenomenon. In the March issue of the Journal of Studies on
Alcohol and Drugs, they show that many measures of spirituality
tend to increase during alcohol recovery.
They also demonstrate that those who experience
increases in day-to-day spiritual experiences and their sense of
purpose in life are most likely to be free of heavy drinking
episodes six months later.
“While people’s actual beliefs don’t seem to
change during recovery, the extent they have spiritual experiences,
and are open to spirituality in their lives, does change,” says lead
researcher Elizabeth A.R. Robinson, Ph.D., a research assistant
professor in the U-M Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry and
member of UMARC.. “This effect was also independent of their
participation in Alcoholics Anonymous which has a strong spiritual
aspect.”
The researchers report data
from 154 adults with a diagnosis of alcohol
dependence or alcohol abuse who entered an
outpatient treatment program.
At the beginning of the study, and again six
months later, the researchers assessed 10 different measures of the
participants’ spirituality and religiousness using standard research
questionnaires. These included their views of God, religious
practices such as prayer or church attendance, forgiveness,
spiritual experiences, using religion or spirituality to cope, and
existential meaning.
The researchers also assessed participants’
alcohol use, and problems related to their alcohol use, before the
study began and after six months. All of these responses were
combined with information about gender and AA participation, and
analyzed using statistical techniques.
In all, the study shows, half of the measures
of spirituality changed significantly in the six month period,
including daily spiritual experiences, the use of religious
practices, forgiveness, positive use of religion for coping, and
feelings of purpose in life.
But the measures that assessed individuals’
core beliefs and values about God or religion didn’t change. At the
same time, use of alcohol decreased significantly, and 72 percent of
participants did not relapse to heavy drinking.
The researchers then looked at how changes in
spirituality related to the likelihood that a person had relapsed to
heavy drinking. Those who had experienced an increase in their daily
spiritual experiences were less likely to participate in any heavy
drinking, as were those who had experienced an increase in their
feeling that there was a purpose to their lives.
Changes in the other measures of spirituality
were not statistically associated with the likelihood of sobriety.
Robinson and her colleagues write that their
results suggest that “proactive and experiential” dimensions of
spirituality, rather than cognitive ones, were contributing to the
recovery and decrease in drinking in the first six months.
They note that this pattern is consistent with
two AA slogans: “Bring your body, your mind will follow,” and “Fake
it ‘til you make it.”
In other words, changes in core beliefs and
values don’t have to occur in order for someone to be more open to
spiritual experiences or to take part in more spiritual activities.
These findings suggest that including
spirituality of all kinds into the delivery of recovery services for
alcoholism may indeed help. Many individual faiths or religious
institutions have offered recovery services, and some advocates have
suggested that faith-based recovery is most effective for all.
But Robinson notes that the spirituality seen
in the study was not necessarily a matter of believing in one
interpretation of God, or even belief in a God of any kind.
Each individual’s own spirituality, and the
ability to experience growth in that spirituality, appears to be
paramount, the authors suggest. So, each individual alcoholic might
do best by searching for a recovery program that best matches his or
her existing belief system.
One program that has been shown conclusively to
aid alcoholics in achieving and maintaining sobriety is AA, which
has spiritual components including invocation of a higher power.
The new study, however, shows that the
relationship between spirituality and likelihood of recovery was
unrelated to whether a person took part in AA or not.
Some alcoholics may derive help from the
spiritual aspects of AA, but others may not, says Robinson. “There’s
more than one way to feed your spiritual self,” she notes.
The U-M research team has begun a new phase of
research involving people who are taking part in three different
alcohol treatment programs, and alcoholics not currently in
treatment. This study will follow more than 360 people over three
years.
They are also analyzing the data from this
154-person group more in-depth, including looking at how the
individuals defined and described their own religious and spiritual
preferences and practices.
The study was funded by the Fetzer Institute,
which sponsored the initial workshop on spirituality and alcoholism
that led to the current study, and by the National Institute on
Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. In addition to Robinson, the study’s
authors are Kirk Brower, M.D., an associate professor of psychiatry
and executive director of U-M Addiction Treatment Services; James
Cranford, Ph.D., of UMARC and the U-M Substance Abuse Research
Center; and Jon Webb, Ph.D., formerly of UMARC and now of East
Tennessee State University. |