Spirituality, Religion, and Addiction: A Possible Epilogue

Abstract

WHY THIS SPECIAL ISSUE ON RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY, AND "ADDICTION"?As editors, authors, and reviewers, we had noticed that over the last several months a fair number of articles addressing the relevance of spirituality and/or religious practice-religiosity-to substance misuser treatment had been published as well as submitted to several journals, including Substance Use & Misuse. We had been struck by the fact that these articles generally lack clarity about what spirituality, religiosity, or religiousness are, how they relate to one another, and the specific roles they might play in the prevention of, the treatment of, and the recovery from substance use disorders. Without conceptual precision, it is not surprising that attempts to develop quantitative measures of spirituality and religiousness produce results that are less than satisfying or convincing. It is noteworthy that none of these articles utilized the large and rich literature, coming from many traditions, that has explored spiritual and religious matters. It is as if behavioral scientists insist that religion and spirituality fit neatly into constructs with which they are already familiar and comfortable, e.g., that religion is purely a social phenomenon while spirituality is a relational one. To be sure, there are some behavioral scientists that have confined themselves to examining the effects of very specific spiritual and religious practices or beliefs on the ability of individuals to cope with and adapt to life's daily challenges and problems. These efforts have yielded valuable information. But when efforts are mounted to go beyond specific and discrete practices and beliefs, the enterprise does not fare nearly as well.So we decided to create a special edition of Substance Use & Misuse dedicated to the exploration of the nature of spirituality and religiousness and the relevance of these human activities to substance use and misuse. We invited behavioral scientists from various parts of the world who have worked in this area together with religious scholars and spiritual teachers to address a few simple, challenging, and difficult questions: Address correspondence to Allaman Allamani,

Impact of Spiritual Meditation on Drug Addiction Recovery and Wellbeing: A Systematic Review

“…One of the issues that emerged from spiritual meditation was the spirituality connection with human body were ambiguous and sacred due to the element of soul and spirit. [81][82]9 Thus, this issue came up with disagreement with the etiology of spiritual elements in medicinal field. 83 Critics have argued whether to accept it as a therapeutic agent due to the lack of proof and understanding on the spiritual effect on mental and physical health.…”

Spontaneous Spiritual Awakenings: Phenomenology, Altered States, Individual Differences, and Well-Being

“…Both psilocybin-occasioned mystical experiences and spiritual or kundalini awakenings attained without the use of drugs have been linked to persisting positive effects in the treatment of treatment-resistant alcohol and tobacco addiction (Green et al, 1998 ; Galanter et al, 2007 ; Strobbe et al, 2013 ; Garcia-Romeu et al, 2014 ), with several studies indicating a 3 to 4-fold increase in abstinence from addiction following spiritual awakening (Green et al, 1998 ; Kaskutas et al, 2003 ; Galanter et al, 2013 ). The very basis of the Alcoholics Anonymous programme lies in spiritual attainment, or awakening (Khouzam and Kissmeyer, 1997 ; Galanter, 2008 ; Strobbe et al, 2013 )—even Jung proposed that spiritual awakening may enable healing from addiction (Allamani et al, 2013 ). Furthermore, these experiences may lead to an increased interest in spiritual based lifestyles associated with improved positive identity, positive coping, problem solving, and integrity (Taylor, 2012 , Woollacott et al, 2020 ), which in turn have been linked to a decrease of psychopathological tendencies (McClintock et al, 2016 ).…”

Spontaneous Spiritual Awakenings: Phenomenology, Altered States, Individual Differences, and Wellbeing

“…Both psilocybin-occasioned mystical experiences and spiritual or kundalini awakenings attained without the use of drugs have been linked to persisting positive effects in the treatment of treatment-resistant alcohol and tobacco addiction (Galanter et al, 2007;Garcia-Romeu et al, 2014;Green et al, 1998;Strobbe et al, 2013), with several studies indicating a 3-4 fold increase in abstinence from addiction following spiritual awakening (Galanter et al, 2013;Green et al, 1998;Kaskutas et al, 2003). The very basis of the Alcoholics Anonymous programme lies in spiritual attainment, or awakening (Galanter, 2008;Khouzam and Kissmeyer, 1997;Strobbe et al, 2013) -even Jung proposed that spiritual awakening may enable healing from addiction (Allamani et al, 2013). Furthermore, these experiences may lead to an increased interest in spiritual based lifestyles associated with improved positive identity, positive coping, problem solving and integrity (Taylor 2012, Woollacott et al, 2020, which in turn have been linked to a decrease of psychopathological tendencies (McClintock et al, 2016).…”