ABSTRACT
“Religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell, spirituality is for people who have been there”. Reflecting a deeply held belief that there is a strong spiritual and/or religious component to addiction recovery, this statement is often quoted by members of the widely known self-help recovery groups Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA). Spiritual transformation is a common theme threaded throughout the hellish stories heard at AA or NA meetings of the destruction that drug or alcohol use brought to someone’s life and their arduous path to recovery. As a clinical social worker in the addiction treatment field, the author have witnessed how spiritual growth was sometimes an unexpected and valued outcome of the personal introspection and behavior changes that occurred in individuals seeking to overcome their addiction. Spirituality has been considered an important aspect of recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction since the origin of AA.
