As with the treatment of all illness, there is a role for spiritual and faith-based approaches. When properly integrated with proven treatment methods, faith-based approaches can enhance treatment and improve recovery rates. Spiritual counseling alone, in isolation from proven multimodality addiction treatment methods, will be insufficient to produce and sustain recovery.
Most experts agree that faith based drug rehabs play an important role for addiction recovery in the United States. Studies show that faith based treatment centers show improved recovery rates for patients who attend their programs. According to these studies, performed by the Federal Government, a combination of faith based drug rehab and traditional multimodality addiction treatment methods show the best results for recovering addicts and alcoholics.
Many people misinterpret the faith based drug rehab intiative, by viewing the concept as positioning with people who believe addiction is a moral issue. However, during the Bush administration an executive order was instituted that not only provided funding for some faith based treatment centers, but also defined their role as part of the overall public health issue of addiction. This alignment with the public health sector clearly
It is easy to misinterpret an initiative to provide faith-based treatment for addiction as an endorsement for the position that addiction is moral problem and not a public health issue. This is not the intent of the executive order nor is it proper to interpret it this way. The intent is to make treatment and social services more available to suffering addicts and their families. The intent is to preserve high standards for program licensure and staff credentialing while assuring that faith-based components can be readily available for clients who want them and can benefit from them.
I strongly believe that if faith-based addiction treatment programs are to succeed, they need to be held to the same standard as all other addiction programs. Being a faith-based organization should not exempt an organization from meeting building codes, facility requirements, clinical programs standards, and staff credentialing requirements. To do so would pose a real danger to the addicts and their families who participate in treatment.
I am not alone in this belief. The three leading faith-based providers of addiction are the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, and Lutheran Social Services. All three of these organizations provide addiction treatment within the constraints of current professional licensing and program accreditation
