Daily Spiritual Experiences and Adolescent Treatment Response

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore changes in belief orientation during treatment and the impact of increased daily spiritual experiences (DSE) on adolescent treatment response. One-hundred ninety-five adolescents court-referred to a 2-month residential treatment program were assessed at intake and discharge. Forty percent of youth who entered treatment as agnostic or atheist identified themselves as spiritual or religious at discharge. Increased DSE was associated with greater likelihood of abstinence, increased prosocial behaviors, and reduced narcissistic behaviors. Results indicate a shift in DSE that improves youth self-care and care for others that may inform intervention approaches for adolescents with addiction.

Love and Service in Adolescent Addiction Recovery

“…Our study proposes a complimentary pathway: character development. Previous work established that youth spiritual development in AA was associated with reduced narcissism and AOD use and increased service to others (Lee at al., 2014). The strong link between service and leadership/humility in the current study confirms that we would be well-served by further understanding the role of character in pathways to sobriety.…”

“…Our results also confirm the value of attending to specific spiritual experiences, such as divine love, rather than relying on aggregated scales that might mask particularly important active ingredients (cf., Lee et al, 2014). Reviews of the literature involving both cross-sectional and prospective studies, as well as clinical and non-clinical samples, routinely find that spirituality and religiosity are associated with reduced AOD use (Kelly and Greene 2014).…”

“…Random effect regressions examined main effects of High H and High L, and a High H X High L interaction term on continuous outcomes (character, PDA); subjects were modeled as random effects with an unstructured covariance design. Intake covariates (background, AOD severity) associated with outcomes in prior work (Pagano et al, 2013b; Lee et al, 2014) and pre-treatment levels of High H and High L and the outcome variable were included in regression models. Preliminary analyses suggested that linear modeling was adequate.…”

“…A decade of research has emerged in the 21st century demonstrating the benefits of AA helping on adolescent outcomes. These include enhanced sobriety (Pagano et al, 2015; Lee et al, 2014), reduced negative self-appraisal and symptoms of depression (Pagano, Phillips, Stout, Menard, and Piliavin, 2007; Pagano, Zemore, Onder, and Stout, 2009), decreased incarceration (Pagano et al, 2015), and higher levels of social involvement (Pagano et al, 2013b). AA's focus on service has been found to help addicts get “out of self” through the mechanism of helping fellow sufferers and in the process help themselves reduce the likelihood of relapse (Pagano et al, 2013b; Johnson et al, 2015).…”

“…A large and growing body of research has supported the positive effects of spiritual and religious variables on a host of physical and emotional health outcomes and quality of life indicators (Koenig, King, and Carson, 2012). This has also been associated with reduced AOD use in multiple studies, although the precise operationalization has varied, including formal religious practices and beliefs, spiritual experience, or God consciousness, (Kelly, Pagano, Stout, and Johnson, 2011; Lee, Veta, Johnson, and Pagano, 2014; Pagano et al, 2013a; Pagano, Post, and Johnson 2011; Pagano, Zeltner, Post, Jaber, Zywiak, and Stout, 2009; Pagano, Zemore, Onder, Stout, 2009). AA argues that a spiritual awakening works hand in hand with service to others and results in character development, which includes the “adoption of new attitudes and behaviors that are incompatible with an intoxicated [and criminal] lifestyle and that facilitate attributing new meaning to life stress” (Kelly et al, 2011, p. 1001; Lee et al, 2014).…”