title: NIDA-Drug Addiction Treatment Outcome Study (DATOS) Relapse as a Function of Spirituality/Religiosity.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The connection between religion/spirituality and deviance, like substance abuse, was first made by Durkheim who defined socially expected behaviors as norms. He explained that deviance is due in large part to their absence (called anomie), and concluded that spirituality lowers deviance by preserving norms and social bonds. Impairments in brain reward circuitry, as observed in Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS), may also result in deviance and as such we wondered if stronger belief in spirituality practice and religious belief could lower relapse from drugs of abuse.
  
  
  METHODS
  The NIDA Drug Addiction Treatment Outcome Study data set was used to examine post hoc relapse rates among 2,947 clients who were interviewed at 12 months after intake broken down by five spirituality measures.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our main findings strongly indicate, that those with low spirituality have higher relapse rates and those with high spirituality have higher remission rates with crack use being the sole exception. We found significant differences in terms of cocaine, heroin, alcohol, and marijuana relapse as a function of strength of religious beliefs (x2= 15.18, p = 0.028; logistic regression = 10.65, p = 0.006); frequency of attending religious services (x2= 40.78, p < 0.0005; logistic regression = 30.45, p < 0.0005); frequency of reading religious books (x2= 27.190, p < 0.0005; logistic regression = 17.31, p < 0.0005); frequency of watching religious programs (x2= 19.02, p = 0.002; logistic regression = ns); and frequency of meditation/prayer (x2= 11.33, p = 0.045; logistic regression = 9.650, p = 0.002). Across the five measures of spirituality, the spiritual participants reported between 7% and 21% less alcohol, cocaine, heroin, and marijuana use than the non-spiritual subjects. However, the crack users who reported that religion was not important reported significantly less crack use than the spiritual participants. The strongest association between remission and spirituality involves attending religious services weekly, the one marker of the five that involves the highest social interaction/social bonding consistent with Durkheim's social bond theory.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Stronger spiritual/religious beliefs and practices are directly associated with remission from abused drugs except crack. Much like the value of having a sponsor, for clients who abuse drugs, regular spiritual practice, particularly weekly attendance at the religious services of their choice is associated with significantly higher remission. These results demonstrate the clinically significant role of spirituality and the social bonds it creates in drug treatment programs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, California State University, Turlock, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Schoenthaler
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry & McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL, USA ; Department of Neurology, PATH Foundation NY, New York, NY, USA ; Department of Clinical Research, National Institute for Holistic Addiction Studies, North Miami Beach, FL, USA ; Department of Psychiatry, Human Integrated Services Unit, University of Vermont Center for Clinical & Translational Science, University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT, USA ; Department of Nutrigenomics, Igene, Inc., Austin, TX, USA ; Department of Addiction Research & Therapy, Malibu Beach Recovery Center, Malibu, CA, USA ; Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingston, RI, USA.
authors.forename: Kenneth
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Blum
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry & McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL, USA ; Department of Neurology, PATH Foundation NY, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Eric R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Braverman
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Research, National Institute for Holistic Addiction Studies, North Miami Beach, FL, USA.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Giordano
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry, Anatomy, & Neurobiology, Boston VA and Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Ben
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry, Anatomy, & Neurobiology, Boston VA and Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Marlene
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oscar-Berman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Minnesota College of Medicine, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
authors.forename: Rajendra D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Badgaiyan
authors.affiliation: Department of Nutrigenomics, Igene, Inc., Austin, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Margaret A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Madigan
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, PATH Foundation NY, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Kristina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Dushaj
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, PATH Foundation NY, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Mona
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Eotvos Lorand University, Institute of Psychology, Department of Clinical Psychology and Addiction, Izabella utca 46, H-1064, Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: Zsolt
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Demotrovics
authors.affiliation: Department of Nutrigenomics, RDSolutions, Inc., Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
authors.forename: Roger L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Waite
authors.affiliation: Director of Research, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Educational Foundation, Washington, D.C, USA ; Departments of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at the Keck, University of Southern California, School of Medicine, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Mark S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Gold
keywords: Anomie; Genospirituality; Neurogentics; Relapse; Religion; Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS); Social Bonds; Spirituality