Substance Abuse and Spirituality
Spirituality has been a part of the 12 steps since their inception and has always had a place in the treatment of substance abuse. Spirituality is, at its core, about living for something greater than one's self and something greater than that which is in the world. Abusing substances, whether done in an attempt to cope with pain or simply for pleasure's sake, is fundamentally focused on the self. If spirituality can assist someone in recovery then it may be possible for it to prevent someone from needing recovery in the first place. By cultivating spirituality we can, perhaps, help prevent people from ever abusing substances at all.
Experience has taught me that many, if not most, people who abuse substances begin to do so in their adolescent or even pre-teen years. These are the years in which people begin to establish their sense of identity, worth and values. When such times are coupled with stress the results can be quite toxic, both literally and figureatively and culminate in substance abuse. Someone who has little to no idea of who he or she is, what is worthwhile, and what one ought to do, is ripe for stumbling into very unhealthy behavior very quickly. There is often only a weak, or nearly nonexistent, compass for the adolescent to turn to when confronted with stress factors such as peer pressure, the felt need for a social lubricant, bullying, awkwardness between genders, and conflict in the home. Now, if there is also substance abuse in the home, any such compass that an adolescent has is likely to be malformed at best, already guiding the adolescent towards unhealthy or dangerous coping skills. Possessing an utter lack of direction, the adolescent is essentially turning to peer groups, who themselves could be maladjusted and can lead to a much greater likelihood of substance abuse.
There is a relevant joke I heard that illustrates the problem well. Once upon a time there were two sailors who, after getting drunk in a London tavern, wandered out into the streets to go back to their homes. However, a fog had rolled in and soon the two sailors were quite lost. They happened to stumble across another man, an Admiral, and asked, "Say mate, can you tell us where we are?" Indignant, the Admiral responded, "Do you know who I am?" At which point the sailors looked at each other and quipped, "We're in real trouble now. We don't know where we are and he doesn't know who he is."
It can be easy to forget for an adolescent that pain, conflict and stress are all much newer things. It is easy for them to become lost in such things, all the while effectively asking, "Do you know who I am? Do you know where we are?" Without a guiding force, adolescents may very well come up with no answers to these questions at all, or opt to take what appears to be ane asy way out by "dulling" the pain with alcohol or drugs. However, these are exactly the sort of questions that spirituality answers: questions pertaining to the self and self-worth, the community, the world, morality and truth. A new study suggests that adolescents who claim to have a "connection with the divine" are half as likely to abuse substances. Spirituality, Dr. Miller reports, "Cannot be ignored by parents, or the adolescent will go 'shopping' for meaning, communion and transcendence." Interestingly, the study also showed that "religion" had little to no effect upon dissuading adolescent drug and alcohol abuse. The key difference is between merely outward or nominal adherence to a creed or belief and someone who might be called a "true believer," who has internalized the belief in question regardless of involvement with a religious institution.
This would seem to indicate that spirituality cannot merely be taught to adolescents, but it should be seen in the life of the teacher. If it is not, then it may become a form of religion, an external creed or idea that the adolescent has no real, inward allegiance to. Someone who is not interested in following rules is simply not going to follow them, whether said rules are religious or secular. Therefore, the spiritual instructor would need to have these answers before being able to instruct others to avoid the trap of "religion" or, for the sake of this paper, "do as I say and not as I do." Such attitudes are likely to be seen through which will then convey a message of contradiction and hypocrisy and lead to the spiritual instruction being summarily rejected.
Furthermore, while it may be unpopular in the present day, it is worth noting that not all spiritual paths are created equal. Any conclusions regarding which spirituality would prove worthwhile as a substance abuse preventative would require a given spirituality to be logically coherent and correspond with reality. Any view that is in itself logically contradictory would prove to be impossible to follow and therefore useless. By the same token, unless a spiritual view corresponds to reality in our experience as we can know and test it, it would be equally useless as having no basis for its foundations. Spirituality that cannot abide by these criteria run the risk of the earlier example of the moral compass, with adherents asking such questions as, "Where are we?" and "Do you know who I am?" The conclusion reached when such questions remain unanswered is undoubtedly some form of, "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we all may die."
In many circles, particularly those influenced by secular thinkers, any "progress" that has moved us beyond the need for religion or spirituality has been hailed as epoch-making. In the field of substance abuse we do not deal with mathematical abstractions or industrial widgets, but rather whole people. That spirituality should play a role in recovery would seem to be intuitive as it is a vital part of the human experience that, for the good of the patient, should not be ignored.
Experience has taught me that many, if not most, people who abuse substances begin to do so in their adolescent or even pre-teen years. These are the years in which people begin to establish their sense of identity, worth and values. When such times are coupled with stress the results can be quite toxic, both literally and figureatively and culminate in substance abuse. Someone who has little to no idea of who he or she is, what is worthwhile, and what one ought to do, is ripe for stumbling into very unhealthy behavior very quickly. There is often only a weak, or nearly nonexistent, compass for the adolescent to turn to when confronted with stress factors such as peer pressure, the felt need for a social lubricant, bullying, awkwardness between genders, and conflict in the home. Now, if there is also substance abuse in the home, any such compass that an adolescent has is likely to be malformed at best, already guiding the adolescent towards unhealthy or dangerous coping skills. Possessing an utter lack of direction, the adolescent is essentially turning to peer groups, who themselves could be maladjusted and can lead to a much greater likelihood of substance abuse.
There is a relevant joke I heard that illustrates the problem well. Once upon a time there were two sailors who, after getting drunk in a London tavern, wandered out into the streets to go back to their homes. However, a fog had rolled in and soon the two sailors were quite lost. They happened to stumble across another man, an Admiral, and asked, "Say mate, can you tell us where we are?" Indignant, the Admiral responded, "Do you know who I am?" At which point the sailors looked at each other and quipped, "We're in real trouble now. We don't know where we are and he doesn't know who he is."
It can be easy to forget for an adolescent that pain, conflict and stress are all much newer things. It is easy for them to become lost in such things, all the while effectively asking, "Do you know who I am? Do you know where we are?" Without a guiding force, adolescents may very well come up with no answers to these questions at all, or opt to take what appears to be ane asy way out by "dulling" the pain with alcohol or drugs. However, these are exactly the sort of questions that spirituality answers: questions pertaining to the self and self-worth, the community, the world, morality and truth. A new study suggests that adolescents who claim to have a "connection with the divine" are half as likely to abuse substances. Spirituality, Dr. Miller reports, "Cannot be ignored by parents, or the adolescent will go 'shopping' for meaning, communion and transcendence." Interestingly, the study also showed that "religion" had little to no effect upon dissuading adolescent drug and alcohol abuse. The key difference is between merely outward or nominal adherence to a creed or belief and someone who might be called a "true believer," who has internalized the belief in question regardless of involvement with a religious institution.
This would seem to indicate that spirituality cannot merely be taught to adolescents, but it should be seen in the life of the teacher. If it is not, then it may become a form of religion, an external creed or idea that the adolescent has no real, inward allegiance to. Someone who is not interested in following rules is simply not going to follow them, whether said rules are religious or secular. Therefore, the spiritual instructor would need to have these answers before being able to instruct others to avoid the trap of "religion" or, for the sake of this paper, "do as I say and not as I do." Such attitudes are likely to be seen through which will then convey a message of contradiction and hypocrisy and lead to the spiritual instruction being summarily rejected.
Furthermore, while it may be unpopular in the present day, it is worth noting that not all spiritual paths are created equal. Any conclusions regarding which spirituality would prove worthwhile as a substance abuse preventative would require a given spirituality to be logically coherent and correspond with reality. Any view that is in itself logically contradictory would prove to be impossible to follow and therefore useless. By the same token, unless a spiritual view corresponds to reality in our experience as we can know and test it, it would be equally useless as having no basis for its foundations. Spirituality that cannot abide by these criteria run the risk of the earlier example of the moral compass, with adherents asking such questions as, "Where are we?" and "Do you know who I am?" The conclusion reached when such questions remain unanswered is undoubtedly some form of, "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we all may die."
In many circles, particularly those influenced by secular thinkers, any "progress" that has moved us beyond the need for religion or spirituality has been hailed as epoch-making. In the field of substance abuse we do not deal with mathematical abstractions or industrial widgets, but rather whole people. That spirituality should play a role in recovery would seem to be intuitive as it is a vital part of the human experience that, for the good of the patient, should not be ignored.
posted by Brian at 6:52 AM
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