Spirituality is the innermost relationship we have with ourselves and all else.

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).