(Press-News.org) Contact: John F. Kelly, Ph.D.
jkelly11@partners.org
617-643-1980
Center for Addiction Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital
Keith Humphreys, Ph.D.
knh@stanford.edu
650-617-2746
Stanford University
Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research
The effects of spirituality in Alcoholics Anonymous on alcohol dependence
New research shows that attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings may increase spirituality and help decrease frequency and intensity of alcohol use
Alcoholics Anonymous is a widely known 12-step program that can help individuals control their dependence on alcohol, and spirituality is a large part
A new study shows that spirituality does increase over time, which can lead to better alcohol outcomes and an improved rate of recovery
These results indicate that spirituality is an important factor in the multi-faceted recovery from an alcohol-use disorder
Addictions, whether it is to drugs or alcohol, are a very difficult hurdle for individuals to overcome. But, there are ways to help people with their recovery through 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Many of these organizations, including AA, highlight spirituality as a very important factor, but the data surrounding its effectiveness have often been contested.
However, new research shows that as attendance of AA meetings increase, so do the participants spiritual beliefs, especially in those individuals who had low spirituality at the beginning of the study.
The results will be published in the March 2011 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.
John F. Kelly, lead author of the study, Associate Professor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Associate Director of the Center for Addiction Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, said that while spirituality is an important aspect of AA recovery, it is not the only way they can help individuals.
"I've heard it said that AA is too spiritual, and I've also heard it said that AA is not spiritual enough for some people. Although this is not the only way that AA helps individuals recover, I think these findings support the notion that AA works in part by enhancing spiritual practices," Kelly said.
The researchers assessed more than 1,500 adults throughout their recovery process, with data being gathered at three, six, nine, 12, and 15 months. The study utilized data on their attendance to AA meetings, their individual spirituality/religiosity practices and overall alcohol-use outcomes to determine if spirituality is indeed a mechanism of behavior change.
The results indicated that there was a robust association between an increase in attendance to AA meetings with increased spirituality and a decrease in the frequency and intensity of alcohol use over time. One of the most interesting aspects of the research was that the same amount of recovery was seen in both agnostics and atheists, which indicates that while spirituality is an important mechanism of behavioral change for AA, it is not the only method used.
"Many people will be surprised that alcoholic patients with little or no interest in spirituality attended AA and seemed to change even more than did those who had a pre-existing, strong sense of spirituality," said Keith Humphreys, a Career Research Scientist with the Veterans Health Administration and Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University. "AA is thus much more broad in its appeal than is commonly recognized."
The researchers also noted that while spirituality is an important aspect of recovery, it is still not known how these beliefs work in complement or competition with other recovery methods, as there are multiple.
"We have also found that AA participation leads to recovery by helping members change their social network and by enhancing individuals' recovery coping skills, motivation for continued abstinence, and by reducing depression and increasing psychological well-being," said Kelly.
"Down the road it will be important to conduct more qualitative research as well as further quantitative replication of our findings in order to understand more about how exactly spiritual practices and beliefs influence coping and behavioral change in recovery from addiction"
INFORMATION:
Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research (ACER) is the official journal of the Research Society on Alcoholism and the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism. Co-authors of the ACER paper, "Spirituality in Recovery: A Lagged Mediational Analysis of Alcoholics Anonymous' Principal Theoretical Mechanism of Behavior Change" were Robert L. Stout of the Decision Sciences Institute/PIRE, Molly Magill from the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University, J. Scott Tonigan of the Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse and Addiction (CASAA) at the University of New Mexico, and Maria E. Pagano of the Department of Psychiatry from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The study was supported by a grant from the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. This release is supported by the Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network at http://www.ATTCnetwork.org.
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Contact: Craig R. Rush, Ph.D.
crush2@uky.edu
859-257-5388
Department of Behavioral Science, University of Kentucky Medical Center
Mark T. Fillmore, Ph.D.
fillmore@uky.edu
859-257-4728
Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky
Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research
Alcohol consumption may increase amphetamine abuse
New research indicates that ingesting moderate amounts of alcohol may increase an individual's risk of amphetamine abuse
Amphetamines are part of a large group of drugs known as stimulants, which are commonly misused in the United ...
Contact: Joseph L. Jacobson, Ph.D.
joseph.jacobson@wayne.edu
248-701-2159
Wayne State University School of Medicine
Julie A. Kable, Ph.D.
Julie.Kable@choa.org
404-712-9833
Department of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine
Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research
Deficits in number processing in children with ADHD and alcohol exposure: Similar but different
New research shows that ADHD and alcohol exposure in children while similar have different causes
On the surface, children with fetal alcohol exposure and attention deficit hyperactivity ...
CHICAGO --- People will gain significantly less weight by middle age – especially women – if they engage in moderate to vigorous activity nearly every day of the week starting as young adults, according to new Northwestern Medicine research.
Women particularly benefitted from high activity over 20 years, gaining an average of 13 pounds less than those with low activity; while men with high activity gained about 6 pounds less than their low-activity peers. High activity included recreational exercise such as basketball, running, brisk walking or an exercise class or ...
Young adults, particularly women, who maintained high levels of moderate and vigorous activity over a period of 20 years experienced smaller gains in weight and waist circumference during the transition from young adulthood to middle age, compared to individuals with lower activity levels, according a study in the December 15 issue of JAMA.
The prevalence of obesity has increased markedly since 1976, now exceeding 30 percent among U.S. adults, and has well-known associations with illness and disability. Although many studies have examined treatments for obesity, data ...
Use of certain measures for lung preservation after brain death in potential organ donors resulted in a nearly doubling of lungs eligible for donation, compared to a conventional strategy that is used, according to preliminary research published in the December 15 issue of JAMA.
Of patients with relatively normal pulmonary function at the time of brain death, only 15 percent to 20 percent of these patients' lungs are subsequently suitable for transplantation, which may be the result in part from the ventilatory strategy used after brain death. There is controversy as ...
Analysis has identified variations of a gene that are associated with a type of tumor that forms within the adrenal gland, according a study in the December 15 issue of JAMA. The age group in which these variations were found are frequently excluded from genetic screening models for this type of tumor.
Pheochromocytomas and paragangliomas are types of tumors. Pheochromocytomas form in the adrenal gland (gland located above the kidney) causing it to make too much adrenaline. Pheochromocytomas can cause high blood pressure, pounding headaches, heart palpitations, flushing ...
The imaging of tumour growth in zebrafish has revealed for the first time how newly formed cancer cells have the capacity to co-opt the immune system into spreading the disease, leading the way for investigations into potential therapies for eliminating early-stage cancer in humans. Using different coloured fluorescent tags, scientists at the University of Bristol labelled immune cells and tumour-forming cells in the translucent zebrafish in order to track their behaviour and interactions by live cell imaging. These dramatic findings, which are the result of a collaboration ...
Using automated screening techniques developed by pharmaceutical companies to find new drugs, researchers from UC San Diego and three other research institutions have discovered a molecule with the most potent effects ever seen on the biological clock. Dubbed "longdaysin," for its ability to dramatically slow down the biological clock, the new compound could pave the way for a host of new drugs to treat severe sleep disorders or quickly reset the biological clocks of jet-lagged travelers who regularly travel across multiple time zones. The researchers demonstrated the dramatic ...
Neonatal intensive care provides substantial population health benefits in Mexico relative to its costs, even for very premature babies, and as such offers exceptional value for money within the country's Popular Health Insurance (Seguro Popular) program, which offers free access to a specific set of health care interventions. Furthermore, neonatal intensive care could also be cost effective in other middle-income countries. These are the findings of a study by Jochen Profit from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA, Joshua Salomon from the Harvard School of Public ...
Jeremy Keenan and colleagues report that during a cluster-randomized clinical trial in Ethiopia, nasopharyngeal pneumococcal resistance to macrolides was significantly higher in communities randomized to receive azithromycin compared with untreated control communities.
Funding: The National Institutes of Health (NEI U10 EY016214) was the main supporter of this trial. This project was also supported by the Bernard Osher Foundation, That Man May See, the Harper Inglis Trust, the Bodri Foundation, the South Asia Research Fund, Research to Prevent Blindness, NIH/NCRR/OD UCSF-CTSI ...
