Faith-Based Treatment

Using faith-based Addiction treatment

Spirituality is the innermost relationship we have with ourselves and all else. Everyone has some form of spirituality. Religion is an organized system of faith and worship. Many patients see a higher power as punitive. They see a higher power through the window of their father or mother. These transferences, attitudes, and beliefs are all part of treatment. The goal of Alcoholics Anonymous’ first step is to have patients accept that they are powerless over alcohol. The second step is to come to believe that a power greater than themselves can restore them to sanity. All addiction treatment is faith-based treatment. In step three, we turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand him. The word “God” is first used in the third step and some patients don’t like it. Your job is to encourage them to seek the God of their own understanding. Many people who do not believe in God recover. Alcoholics Anonymous encourages members to seek a higher power of their own understanding.

Alcoholics Anonymous says that alcoholism is a spiritual problem with a spiritual solution. Alcohol has always said to the patient, “Good choice!” It has done this with such power and force that the patient has become addicted to this feeling. Now you need to help the patient find something that feels better than alcohol. You need some experience that more powerfully says, “Good choice.” There is nothing that can do this more powerfully than God. I guarantee you that if the patient walks into the presence of God; they will feel so much better they will follow that feeling anywhere. God’s presence is better than any experience you can imagine. Addicts need something better than alcohol to deal with stress. They need to find greater peace, greater love, and greater power or they will go back to alcohol. There are those of you who know this already and there are those of you who are suspicious of spiritual beliefs. I would encourage you to take a look around you. There is a national trend to seek God. Most national magazines and television shows talk about God. After the tragedy of 9-11, people were praying on every television channel. All across America there is a new growth in spirituality (Gallup & Jones, 2000).

Even science is becoming interested in religion and spirituality because studies consistently show that patients who use religion and spirituality get better quicker and live longer. In the 1990s, the research on religion and spiritually began to mature. Research studies were launched within the National Institutes of Health, including the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Special issues and sections focusing on research on spirituality and health have appeared in scientific journals, including the American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (Underwood-Gordon, Peters, Bijur, & Fuhrer, 1997), the Annals of Behavioral Medicine (Mills, 2002), the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice (Lucken, 2000), the Journal of Health Psychology (Thoresen & Harris, 1999), the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy (“Spirituality and Family Therapy,” 2000), Psycho-Oncology (Russak, Lederberg, & Fitchett, 1999), Twin Research (Kirk & Martin, 1999), and American Psychologist (Miller & Thoresen, 2003).

Professional Principles for Dealing with Spirituality

	Maintain respect for the patient’s belief system.
	Obtain information about the patient’s religious and spiritual beliefs.
	Develop empathy for the patient’s belief system.
	Do not impose one’s own religious or spiritual beliefs.
	Educate the patient about the 12-step concept of a higher power.

Benefits of spirituality

	Humility.
	Inner strength.
	A sense of meaning and purpose to life.
	A feeling of acceptance, love, and tolerance.
	Peace
	Harmony.

Those who work with alcoholics and addicts have a distinct advantage over colleagues in other professions. The 12 steps offer a template that can be recommended to patients and used personally. There is evidence that working a 12-step program is not participating in a religion:

	All the modern religions that have examined the 12 steps have come to the conclusion that the steps do not conflict with their beliefs.
	AA. has spread around the world and is working well in many non-Christian countries.
	Joining AA does not require learning any theology, creed, or catechism. Atheists are welcome and do well in the program. Atheists and agnostics are advised to use the group as their higher power because most in the A.A. group are sober.
	In over 60 years, not one documented or reported fight or act of violence based on arguments over spirituality has occurred between AA members (Chappel, 2003).

This is going to be easy for many of you, but difficult for others. You don’t have to believe in God yourself to encourage the patient to seek God. You can still encourage patients to work a program of recovery that has kept millions of alcoholics sober. If you will look at the 12 steps of AA, the word “alcohol” is used one time, the word “God” or “higher power” is used seven times. Recovery is seen as a spiritual journey and without God recovery is more difficult. Some patients will want to use the AA group as their higher power. This is fine and there are many agnostics in the program that do not believe in God at all. Chapter 4 of Alcoholics Anonymous (2001) is the chapter to the agnostics. Here are a few quotes from that chapter:

We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1976, p. 46).

We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. Do I now believe, or am I willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself? As soon as a man can say that he does believe, or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him that he is on his way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1976, p. 47).

As the professional, you must be willing to accept how other people experience religion and spirituality. Be as open-minded and willing as the patient is to search for a higher power. Alcoholics Anonymous calls it the God of the person’s own understanding. This is a personal matter between God and the patient. You will see a wide variety of individual spiritual and religious beliefs. In an atmosphere of unconditional acceptance, patients can freely explore their own belief system. They must see that a higher power is not going to be shoved down their throats. Conscious contact with God is a principle of recovery.

It is a mistake to allow formal religious doctrine to enter into your treatment unless the patient has the same religious beliefs as you do. Alcoholics Anonymous has no religious affiliation. People can talk about their religious preferences but, for the most part, they should discuss spirituality rather than religion. They need to talk about their own spiritual journey.

Start by taking a spiritual history, where you discuss patients’ relationships with God. When were they introduced to spiritual and religious concepts? What is his or her belief system now? How does the patient currently understand God? How does God communicate with them? Was there ever a time when they felt particularly close to God? The patient needs to process how God communicates with them. The relationship with God needs to be presented as a relationship between two people. Patients can be taught to contact God in a variety of ways. God can speak in nature, scripture, prayer, meditation, church, and through other people. Each of these ways needs to be discussed, and you should have patients give examples of times when they felt close to or far away from God.

To improve conscious contact with God, Alcoholics Anonymous suggests Step Eleven. “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for the knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 2001, p. 59 ). Prayer and meditation are defined and discussed with the patient. Prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening for God to talk back. Patients are encouraged to pray and meditate. The best way to show patients God is to have them walk into the presence of God. It is best to do this in a group but you can do it individually as well. Have patients close their eyes and mentally ask God a question, “God, what is the next step in my relationship with you?” Then tell the patients to wait for one word or phrase to come into their mind. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred a word or phrase will enter the patients’ thoughts. It will be something like, “Believe, trust me, love, honesty, stay sober, get help, keep going, faith, or hope.” It will be some simple word or phrase like that. Then ask the patients if the word or phrase was accompanied with a feeling. They will say yes. Then you say, “That’s a complicated set of feelings so, let me describe them for you and you tell me if this was a part of what you experienced.”

	“Was it a feeling of peace?”
	“Was it a feeling of love?”
	“Was it a feeling that there is a God?”
	“Was it a feeling that God loves you?”
	“Was it a feeling that you are worthy?”
	“Was it a feeling that God will help you?”
	“Was it a feeling that God has a plan for you?”
	“Was it a feeling that God will tell you the plan?”

Most or all of these questions will be answered yes by the patient. Then you say, “These feelings are what AA calls serenity and this is why you were drinking. Drinking made you feel more at peace, but now you know another way to feel a better peace.” Alcoholics need to replace the normal feeling they got from alcohol with something else that works better or they will be back to drinking.

Patients can listen to my meditation tape, A Communication from God, (www.cdbaby.com or 1-800-448-6369). This is a two-sided meditation tape where God speaks to the listener very clearly. This will be the first time that patients get their first long communication from God. My book, God Talks To You (www.1stbooks.com or 1-800-839-8640) can also be helpful in this process. The book teaches the reader how to make conscious contact with God’s voice and then leads them along a new spiritual journey.

Patients need to discuss various methods of prayer and meditation. They are encouraged to look for God in themselves and in each other. What do they see in themselves that is loving and good? Patients explore the moral law. We all know what is right and wrong. Why do we all have the same laws? Is it possible that some life force gives us this law? If that is possible, who might that force be? Patients are asked to explore several philosophical questions: If there is a God, why didn’t God make God more knowable? If there is a God, and God is all good, why do bad things happen?

Each patient does an exercise to contact God directly. The patients are told that God may communicate with them in many different ways: thoughts, feelings, images, other people, scripture, music, nature, etc. God often communicates with patients inside their own mind. God may contact them in words or in images inside their own thinking. They are told that they will try to establish a conscious contact with God and receive a direct communication from God. It is explained that God may communicate with them in one of the following ways:

	In words inside their thinking.
	In images inside their thinking.
	No words or images but they will know the full communication.

An easy way to get all of your patients to experience the presence of God is to take them through my website http://www.godtalkstoyou.com. Once an alcoholic experiences the presence of God, they will follow that feeling into recovery. There is nothing more powerful than practicing the presence of God.