Indicators of Spiritual Development in Recovery from Alcohol and Other Drug Problems

Abstract

Participants (183 male, 69 female) from a variety of treatment settings completed the Spiritual Health Inventory (internal and external spiritual well being; Chappell, 1995), the Surrender Scale (Reinert et al., 1995); and the Life Orientation Test (a measure of optimism; Scheier & Carver, 1985). Although all three measures were significant predictors of perceived quality of recovery and the total number of 12 Steps completed, surrender, optimism, and internal spiritual well being (not external spiritual well being) differed significantly by (1) length of recovery (< 1 year vs. 1 year or more), (2) level of recovery behaviors (high vs. low), and (3) whether Steps 1-3 had been completed. The results indicate that spirituality is an important element in recovery and support the concept of including the practice of spirituality as part of recovery programs.

Key Words:

• Alcohol problems
• recovery
• spiritual development
• surrender
• optimism