Does Age Moderate the Effect of Spirituality/Religiousness in Accounting for Alcoholics Anonymous Benefit?

ABSTRACT

Gains in spiritual/religious (S/R) practices among Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) members are associated with reductions in drinking. This study had the following aims: (1) examine spirituality/religiousness as a mediator of the relationship between AA attendance and reductions in drinking behavior to replicate past research findings and to (2) examine age cohort as a moderator of the mediational analyses given that empirical evidence (e.g., generational differences in spirituality) suggests that age may influence the acquisition of gains in spirituality/religiousness during AA as well as the expression of these gains on drinking behavior. Measures were administered to 253 participants recruited from community-based AA and outpatient treatment programs at baseline, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, and 210 (83%) participants provided complete data to test study aims. Gains in S/R practices mediated the relationship between AA attendance and increased abstinence but not drinking intensity. Simple slopes analyses indicated a positive association between AA attendance and gains in S/R practices among younger AA affiliates but not older AA affiliates in the moderated-mediational analyses. However, age was not found to moderate the global mediational effect. The results from the current study inform efforts to increase positive change in AA affiliates’ drinking behavior by highlighting specific aspects of S/R practices that should be targeted based on the age of an AA affiliate.

KEYWORDS:

• Spirituality/religiousness
• change mechanisms
• moderated mediation
• Alcoholics Anonymous

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under award number R01-AA014197, K24-AA021157 and T32-AA018108 (Montes; PI McCrady). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism or the National Institutes of Health.

Notes

1. We also controlled for alcohol treatment that participants reported receiving outside of AA during the study as this could potentially explain reductions in drinking outcomes not attributable to AA attendance. The results with treatment added as a covariate in the model did not substantively differ from the results presented in the current study where treatment was not controlled; thus, treatment outside of AA was not included as a covariate in the final analyses.

2. Generational cutoffs have little empirical basis but have been used to label those born in different decades. In Twenge et al.’s (2015) study, millennials were identified as those born between 1982 and 1999 whereas others suggest that the millennial generation begins at 1980 (Rosen, 2010). Millennials in the current study were identified as those participants who were born between 1980 and 1999.

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under award number R01-AA014197, K24-AA021157 and T32-AA018108 (Montes; PI McCrady). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism or the National Institutes of Health.