Spirituality has been a central theme to recovery since the very first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), and since the very first treatment center opened its doors.

From the Editor: Many professionals in the addiction and mental health fields and recovering people alike will tell you that spirituality played an important role in their recovery from addictive disease. Treatment centers and addiction professionals take great care to explain to their clients that spirituality does not have to include a religious component or belief in a higher power — for some, this is the embodiment of spirituality, whereas others have adopted a more secular approach toward spirituality.

This article focuses on a unique approach taken by a treatment center that has trained its staff to embrace spiritual and cultural diversity while using the 12-Step approach toward treatment and recovery. Behavioral Health of the Palm Beaches hosted a one-day conference entitled Spirituality Around the World: A Day of Spirituality and Cultural Diversity, which included a variety of approaches to the 12-Step model, including: Western Judeo-Christian; Buddhism; Judaism; and Islam. The presenters at the conferences have graciously offered to share their thoughts with the readers of Counselor Magazine.

On the surface, the trends would seem to be contradictory: a surging science-to-practice movement and rising interest in the role of spirituality in addiction, treatment and recovery. A growing number of researchers (including the authors) are responding to these confluent trends by using scientific methods to operationally define spirituality and measure its influence on the course of addiction and recovery. The purpose of this article is to highlight some of this research and explore the implications of research findings to the practice of addiction counseling.

The only cure for dipsomania is religiomania. —William James, 1902

The last essay in this column noted the growing diversity in religious, spiritual and secular frameworks of recovery and sketched the history of religious approaches to addiction recovery. This essay reviews the history and growing varieties of secular recovery and the implications of such diversity for the addictions professional.

“When one in four children under 18 — across all economic, social, religious and cultural groups — lives in a family with alcohol abuse and alcoholism, and countless others suffer because of parental drug use, it is crucial that clergy and other pastoral ministers have a clear understanding of addiction’s effect on the physical, emotional and spiritual well-being of their parish families.” (Latcovich and Wenger(2003)

Addiction counselors and clergy operate on parallel tracks as they work to help their clients or congregants achieve a fuller life by helping them overcome addiction and stay in recovery. Yet many addiction counselors and clergy may not understand how a collaboration of both professions could prove valuable as they work together toward the same goal. This article describes the Clergy Training Project, a joint venture between the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACoA) and the Johnson Institute (JI), and the development of core competencies for clergy and other pastoral ministers. It also illustrates collaborative efforts between addiction treatment centers and faith institutions and outlines specific strategies counselors can take to engage with their local faith community.

Editor’s Note: Don Miguel Ruiz was born into a family of healers and raised in rural Mexico by a curandera (healer) mother and nagual (shaman) grandfather. The family anticipated Don Miguel would embrace their centuries-old legacy of healing and teaching and as a nagual, carry forward the esoteric Toltec knowledge. Instead, distracted by modern life, Don Miguel chose to attend medical school and later teach and practice as a surgeon. A near-death experience in a car accident one night in the late 1970’s brought his wake-up call. “I saw that I existed separate from my body. So I asked myself, if I am not this body, what am I?” Don Miguel’s survival allowed him the opportunity to begin an intensive practice of self-inquiry. He devoted himself to the mastery of the ancestral wisdom and, in 1987, began teaching in the United States.

Editor’s note: Jacquelyn Small, LCSW, is the Founding Director of the Eupsychia Institute, a national not-for-profit service organization that offers a wellness and training program in Soul-based Psychology and psychospiritual methods of healing. Small has been developing and testing transformational theory and methods for addiction recovery since 1974, both as the Director of Clinical Training for the Texas Commission on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, and later, as an external faculty member at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California. The author of seven books on recovery and personal transformation, she is pioneering the implementation of psychospiritual methods of healing in mainstream addiction treatment.