Styles of Secular Recovery

Addiction

to take advantage of what Kelly refers to as 'the closest thing we have to a free lunch in public health'. Providing strong scientific evidence of the mechanisms of action based on consistent evidence about effect sizes and variability in effectiveness across populations will go some way towards addressing the concerns of the scientific and policy communities, but translating that credibility to front-line workers is a much more complex task that must involve changes in the way mutual aid is presented in professional training and development. It must also involve greater actual exposure. In both the Australian and UK studies mentioned at the start of this commentary [2,3], levels of personal attendance at 12-Step meetings by addiction professionals were low, and poor attendance was associated with poorer knowledge and more negative attitudes. This represents a form of stigmatization that can only be addressed through exposure. The evidence presented by Kelly is clear, and workers who continue to discourage their clients from attending AA groups and who eschew the philosophy need not only a better understanding of how and why AA (and other mutual aid groups) work, but also a recognition that there are common mechanisms of effective behaviour change that can be tackled through the simultaneous engagement in specialist treatment and community-based mutual aid. Further, there remains an opportunity to enter a debate with which many addiction scientists are reluctant to engage-which is what do we mean by spirituality? As Kelly acknowledges, our definitions have typically been narrow, and there may well be components of basic human connection (in mutual aid groups, group therapy and individual counselling) which have a fundamentally 'spiritual' component that is nothing to do with God.

Alcohol abuse and dependence are major problems in Australia. Current approaches to understanding and managing these issues are not curbing increasing costs and harms to society; while research across multiple disciplines shows that the predominant biomedical model of treatment is outdated and reflects limited understandings. Research postulates that the incorporation of spiritual practice into treatment significantly improves outcomes for the heavy drinker. The ‘disease model of addiction’, however, continues to predominate as a treatment model. The twelve step programme developed by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) incorporates spiritual practice, is widely acclaimed as the most successful treatment programme for alcoholism in the world and is often utilised in support of biomedical treatment. Critiques of AA, however, indicate that the Judeo-Christian foundations of the programme may limit its appeal, and gaps have been identified in addiction literature exploring alternative spiritual and religious approaches. In this research, semi-structured interviews were conducted with spiritual leaders from the Catholic, Jewish, Islamic, Pentecostal, Krishna Consciousness and Buddhist faiths. Generally, the heavy drinker was represented in terms of constriction and isolation, tightly bounded and separated from both their communities and their spirituality. Treatment and support options were presented with a focus on ‘softening’ the boundaries of the heavy drinker, encouraging them to reconnect with their community and with God or their Higher Understanding. The Catholic and Jewish interviewees represented alcohol dependence in terms akin to the disease model, requiring ongoing support from the spiritual and secular communities. The Islamic representation incorporated anomie, reflecting the belief that appropriate cultural and communal support would allow the heavy drinker to reintegrate the practice of abstinence which is integral to their faith. The remaining three prioritised a lived, embodied experience of God or Higher Understanding by the heavy drinker, positing that the eradication of boundaries between them can lead to cure for alcohol dependence. A focus on boundaries opens possibilities for future research on tailored individual programmes which may include induced spiritual experiences and incorporation of secular activities which encourage the experience of ‘flow’.

2009

"This paper will attempt to examine the interface between the contribution made by medical treatment of addiction and recovery ministries by various Churches and Christian agencies. Four contemporary models will be examined. Alcoholics Anonymous grew out of the Oxford Movement and Rev. Sam Shoemaker’s Calvary Episcopal Church about seventy years ago. Over the years, churches and clergymen such as Dr. Calvin Chambers and Dr. Robert Claytor have endeavored to work cooperatively with this program. However, as the program has grown, it has drifted from some of its earlier Biblical roots, as described by Dick. B., making this cooperation increasingly challenging. Secondly, the Book the Cross and the Switchblade told the inspiring story of how a simple country preacher established Teen Challenge as a rehabilitative program for drug addicts 51 years ago. This has now grown to a worldwide network of over 1000 Teen Challenge treatment centers. Thirdly, Alistair Jappy, an experienced and licensed drug and alcohol counselor compared the results of a Christian group and a spiritually eclectic group in a publicly funded alcohol and drug community clinic. Finally, I will examine Celebrate Recovery: Kevin Nieman conducted a unique “hermeneutic interpretation” of cohesiveness and its effects on a large Celebrate Recovery program in a large Church of Christ in Louisiana. Although each program is unique, it adds to and improves on the A.A. 12 Step model. Insights from each of these programs will be used along with models presented by Drs. Earley and Roberts from the Talbott Recovery campus in Atlanta Georgia to suggest how medical and spiritual modes of treatment can work collaboratively to address the needs of a person suffering from addiction. "

One of the most pervasive psycho-spiritual worldviews in our time is embodied in the ‘Twelve Steps’ of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). From the very beginning of AA, we find a distinction being made between religion and spirituality that follows that made by William James between “personal religion” and “institutional religion” in The Varieties of Religious Experience. This article looks at the influence of James upon the Twelve Steps of AA; and notes how the AA distinction between religion and spirituality fails to separate a Christian expression of religion from a non-Christian one and a biblical sense of spirituality from a nonbiblical one. The influence of the Jamesean notions of conversion and surrender on the first three Steps of AA is discussed. The concepts of true religion versus mere religion and true spirituality versus mere spirituality are introduced to understand the spiritual, not religious claims of Twelve Step spirituality from a biblical perspective.

Southern Medical Journal, 2006

Alcoholics Anonymous, with its steady but nonspecific promotion of belief in a higher power and its emphasis on the group process, long held a near-monopoly in the outpatient alcohol recovery field, but its hegemony has now been challenged by two very different perspectives. The first is a nonspiritual approach that emphasizes the individual's capability to find a personal pathway to sobriety, exemplified by Rational Recovery. The second is a faithbased method, built on a religious understanding of alcoholism, of which Celebrate Recovery is a prominent example, based upon Christianity. Most communities offer a variety of approaches, so clinicians who are aware of these differences are in a good position to help patients make intelligent choices among the competing recovery philosophies.

Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 2006

2014

Addiction is a very complex and challenging issue, being one of the most difficult to manage disease. This illness results as an interplay between genetic background, psychological profile of the individual and environmental risk factors, and can virtually affect anyone. The neurobiological consequences are dramatic, impairing major brain processes, such as reward circuitry, learning and memory, motivation and decision making. To date, there is no medical treatment for curing this complex disorder, medicine only addressing withdrawal symptoms, medical complications and comorbidities. The path of spirituality was often overlooked by medicine professionals but several stories brought it into light. In the early 20 th century, The Oxford Group, founded by Franck Buchman, was the forerunner of Alcoholics Anonymous, the most successful fellowship based on the twelve-step program. These steps were originally designed to treat alcoholism but today represent the foundation for all modern re...

Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 1985

The purpose of this paper is to describe some of the main themes which highlighted the work of the Society for the Study of Addiction (SSA) in Britain through the years 1930-1961. The major focus of this paper is on alcoholism with special reference to alcoholism treatment. After presenting some general background during this historical period of the Society, three themes will be discussed: (1) visible changes within the treatment framework, (2) sobriety and the argument of strain, and (3) the rise of the alcoholism treatment unit.

Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 2018

This article challenges Bevacqua and Hoffman's (2010) seminal article in this journal on the degree to which Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) falls short in its attempt to download the complete spirituality of William James into the AA canon. Results of the analysis of this question reveal that AA has fully incorporated the depth of The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902/1985). When application of James's pragmatic method is applied to AA, the organization emerges as complete, with the abundant fruit of almost 2 million members worldwide. AA practices are not exclusivist, and do not offer a "one size fits all" restrictive paradigm. Rather, inspired by James, AA consistently gives explicit permission to members to find a path of their own construction that develops into an inclusive paradigm that has a lifelong trajectory. Let us be saints, then, if we can, whether or not we succeed visibly and temporally. But in our Father's house are many mansions, and each of us must discover for himself the kind of religion, and the amount of saint ship, which best comports with what he believes to be his powers and feels to be his truest mission and vocation. There are no successes to be guaranteed and no set orders to be given to individuals, so long as we follow the methods of empirical philosophy.