Substance Abuse Treatment & Faith
FBO’s or Faith-Based Organizations as Models for Treatment
The present article discusses the landscape of faith and faith-based organizations. It focuses attention on substance abuse treatment and evaluation of FBOs.
Substance abuse has particular importance regarding the stability of our society. It is not a question of whether or not society should aid substance abusers on their problematic journey. As a nation, our culture has relied upon the assumption that the individual should take care of themselves and that problems such as substance abuse are pathologies located within the individual. In fact, since the 19th Century sociologists argued that society is the pathology and the individual is constrained within the limitations of social structure [Durkheim, 1951]. The landscape of substance abuse programs includes faith-based initiatives. Further evaluation of faith-based treatment programs is required if a the goal of better understanding of successful regimens is to come to fruition. This article focuses on a evaluating faith-based treatment programs.
Substance Abuse Programs
The “old guard” of substance abuse treatment has focused on the individual and a view of disease as an individual‘s pathology. More recent research and practice into treatment has leaned toward alternative approaches. “Faith-Based” treatment organizations are one of these alternatives.
Gender and faith do play a role in successful treatment if we assume success is equivalent to abstinence. Women tend to be more likely to achieve abstinence than men. However, when controlling for gender and pre-treatment consumption, only regular practice of one’s religious faith significantly predicts abstinence [Stewart, et al. 2008]. Regardless of the particular program it is well-accepted that multiple regimens are needed for an individual to successfully complete treatment and abstain from drug use. The effects of inserting faith into treatment programs requires further evaluation.
The Landscape of Faith-Based Drug Treatment
Faith-based recovery in America began with Native American abstinence-based programs in the 18th and 19th centuries. This missionary-like movement was inherently political in nature with a dual purpose of assimilation and conversion.
Today, faith-based programs have legitimately moved beyond assimilation and conversion. However, funding is an issue. Until recently, the principle of separation of Church and State in America has prevented official State sanction of these organizations. Yet, there is a large pool of private funding being provided to FBOs in the magnitude of $2.5 billion. A 2003 survey revealed that the average philanthropic grant to FBOs was merely $75,000 [Scott, J.D., 2003]. With a Presidential election on the horizon, evaluation of faith-based programs is essential if FBOs intend to survive any policy shifts in the coming years.
Faith-Based Initiatives: A Need for Further Evaluation?
Much of the recent fervor over faith-based organizations was grounded in President Bush’s 2001 Faith and Community-Based Initiative. Although religion, per se, is not necessarily an important variable in successful treatment, there is ample evidence that spirituality, faith and/or religious belief have advantageous effects on the treatment of substance abuse [Stewart, C. et al., 2008]. The suggestion here is that what happens in “faith-based” programs may not be so different from processes taking place in good social work practice [Neff, J. et al., 2005]. This latter research indicates that any organization may be able to take the positive results of successful treatment regimens and implement them in a myriad of treatment environments.
FBOs come in a variety of packages. Regardless of FBO-type, a key variable in understanding the influence of faith on substance abuse is a reliable measure of "faith" integration. A critical evaluation of faith-based organizations would help us better understand the successes and failures of substance abuse treatment programs. This in turn, could help policy makers re-structure social services treatment programs, eliminating some and constructing new ones, locally and nationally.
References
Durkeim, Emile. [1951]. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Translated by John A. Spaulding and George Simpson. New York: The Free Press.
Neff, James A; MacMaster, Samuel A. [2005]. Spiritual Mechanisms Underlying Substance Abuse Behavior Change in Faith-Based Substance Abuse Treatment. Journal of Social Work Practices in the Addictions, Volume 5, Number 3, 14 September 2005 , pp. 33-54(22).
Scott, J.D. [2003]. Private-Sector Contributions to Faith-Based Social Service: The Policies and Giving Patterns of Private Foundations. The Roundtable on Religion & Social Welfare Policy, June 2003.
Stewart, Chris; Koeske, Gary; Pringle, Janice L. [2008]. Religiosity as a Predictor of Successful Post-Treatment Abstinence for African-American Clients. Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions, Volume 7, Number 4, 23 January 2008., pp. 75-92(18).
The Roundtable on Religion & Social Welfare Policy
In an earlier suite101article the connections between drug abuse, crime and poverty were briefly discussed.
