Spiritual Thinking in Addiction-Treatment Providers

Abstract

This study investigated spiritual thinking in addiction treatment providers. A survey was mailed to members of three national treatment-provider organizations (n = 295). An eight-item Spiritual Belief Scale assessing spiritual thinking based on Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) philosophy (a = .92) was developed and used as the criterion. Spiritual thinking addiction-treatment providers believe in the disease- model of addiction, are in Alcoholics Anonymous, are Catholic and Protestant. Those not inclined to believe in a metaphysical power that can influence personal experience view addiction as a willful behavior, are not in AA, and tend to be Jewish, agnostic, or atheistic. Factor analysis of the SBS revealed two dimensions to spiritual thinking based on AA philosophy: One is characterized by a release-gratitude- humility dimension (subscale a = .95, n = 281) and the other is characterized by a tolerance dimension (subscale a = 53, n = 290).