Non Drug Use- and Drug Use-Specific Spirituality as One-Year Predictors of Drug Use Among High-Risk Youth

Abstract

The present article explored two different dimensions of spirituality that might tap negative and positive relations with adolescent drug use over a 1-year period. Non-drug-use-specific spirituality measured how spiritual the person believes he or she is, participation in spiritual groups, and engagement in spiritual practices such as prayer, whereas drug-use-specific spirituality measured using drugs as a spiritual practice. Self-report questionnaire data were collected during 1997-1999 from a sample of 501 adolescents in 18 continuation high schools across southern California. Participants ranged in age from 14 to 19 and were 57% male, with an ethnic distribution of 34% White, 49% Latino, 5% African American, 7% Asian, and 5% other. A series of general linear model analyses were conducted to identify whether or not two different spirituality variables predict drug use (cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, hallucinogens, and stimulants) at 1-year follow-up. After controlling for baseline drug use, non-drug-use-specific spirituality was negatively predictive of alcohol, marijuana, and stimulant use, whereas drug-use-specific spirituality failed to be found predictive of these variables one year later. Conversely, drug-use-specific spirituality was positively predictive of cigarette smoking and hallucinogen use, whereas non-drug-use spirituality failed to be found predictive of these variables. Our results provide new evidence that suggests that spirituality may have an effect on drug use among adolescents. The drug-use-specific measure of spirituality showed "risk effects" on drug use, whereas the other measure resulted in "protective effects," as found in previous research. Knowledge of the risk and protective patterns and mechanisms of spirituality may be translated into future drug use prevention intervention programs.

Psychoactive Substance Use Among Nigerian Students; Patterns and Sociodemographic Correlates

“…This result is in consonance with findings from other studies [18,19]. These gateway substances have very high prevalence rates and eventually usher the user to experiment and abuse other more dangerous ones such as cocaine and heroine [20].…”

Spirituality and Hallucinogen Use: Results from a Pilot Study among College Students

“…Discussion T his pilot study provided evidence that college students such as the study participants were using hallucinogens for spiritual purposes. Two recent studies using surveys with predominantly Hispanic participants support the current study findings and suggest that hallucinogen use and not use of alcohol, marijuana, and stimulants may be associated with spiritual and religious purposes (Resor & Cooper, 2010;Sussman et al, 2006). Half of the current study participants were middleclass Caucasians, a demographic profile similar to the findings reported by Hunt (1997) as the population that was most likely to use hallucinogens.…”

“…In fact, Arria et al (2008) found that exposure to hallucinogens during the first two years of college increased the possibility of lifelong hallucinogen use. Sussman, Skara, Rodriguez, and Pokhrel (2006) explored the relationship between two different dimensions of spirituality in an ethnically diverse population of adolescents reporting drug use (cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, hallucinogens, and stimulants) over a one-year period. Interestingly, the authors found that drug-use-specific spirituality was positively predictive of cigarette smoking and hallucinogen use, providing Keywords: hallucinogens, spirituality, college students, non-indigenous, recreational use…”

Do Spirituality and Religiosity Help in the Management of Cravings in Substance Abuse Treatment?

“…This NUSI is a 7-item questionnaire that aims to measure an individual's perceived level of spirituality, participation in spiritual groups, and engagement in spiritual practices (Sussman, Skara, De Calice, Hoffman, & Dent, 2005). The NUSI has satisfactory internal reliability with an alpha coefficient of 0.80 (Sussman, Skara, Rodriguez & Pokhrel, 2006). In the present study the Cronbach alpha was 0.86.…”