Six-Month Changes in Spirituality, Religiousness, And Heavy Drinking in a Treatment-Seeking Sample * (Report‪)‬

MANY ADDICTION CLINICIANS, recovering persons, and clergy have experienced, observed, and promoted changes in spirituality and/or religiousness (S/R) as important, if not crucial, components of successful recovery. However, there are few empirical studies of S/R changes among patients with alcohol use disorders, particularly studies that investigate multiple dimensions of S/R and their possible contributions to recovery. In this naturalistic study, we examined 6-month changes in 10 S/R dimensions in a sample of alcoholics entering treatment and whether changes in S/R dimensions would be associated with absence of heavy drinking. Empirically studying S/R inevitably raises definitional and operational issues. Our conceptual definitions of S/R are based on current psychology of religion literature (Fetzer Institute/National Institute on Aging [NIA], 1999; Larson et al., 1998; Pargament, 1999; Zinnbauer et al., 1997), cultural perspectives (e.g., Fuller, 2001; Lesser, 1999), and pilot work with clinicians and recovering persons (Robinson et al., 2003). Spirituality is defined as a person's feelings, thoughts, experiences, and behaviors that arise from a search for and connection to the sacred, defined broadly to include not only a divine being but also ultimate reality, transcendent truth, or existential meaning. This definition encompasses both theistic and nontheistic perspectives (Webb, 2003). Religiousness is defined as a person's participation in a specific social context related to that search and connection (i.e., social institutions, rituals, and prescribed behaviors), usually tied to a particular belief system and cultural context. Miller and Thoresen (1999) distinguished these concepts by emphasizing the individual and personal nature of spirituality versus the collective and institutional quality of religion. S/R is generally considered to be multidimensional in nature (e.g., Fetzer Institute/NIA, 1999), comprising behaviors (e.g., prayer, church attendance, and religious affiliation), beliefs (e.g., in a personal God and an afterlife), and experiences (e.g., feeling close to God, having a sense of peace, joy, and connection to nature and to others). Although formal religious participation and affiliation are easier to define and measure than spiritual experiences, there are a growing number of psychometrically sound measures of spirituality (e.g., Fetzer Institute/NIA, 1999; Hill and Hood, 1999; Hood, 1975; Hood et al., 2001; Knoblauch and Falconer, 1986), including some that have been assessed in a national sample (Fetzer Institute/NIA, 1999).