Faith healing: Spirituality offers help on addictions

The purpose of any organ in the body is to keep you functioning on an even keel, Hanson says. For example, if you get too hot, you sweat; if you eat too much salt you get thirsty. If you continually alter the chemistry of the brain, you also alter its ability to right itself.

"And soon you won't feel normal without whatever chemical you're using — coffee and cola drinkers know something about that," he says. "For hard drugs, using to get high turns into using to feel normal, and that turns into using to not get violently ill."

Experts in addiction treatment agree that kicking the habit rests in large part with an acceptance on the part of addicts that they cannot do it alone. The supportive role of family cannot be minimized. Neither can the importance of spirituality be ignored.

Virtually every treatment program involves some level of spirituality in its treatment approach. Some are heavily focused on traditional religions and faith in God. For others, it is the spirituality found while hiking or running, anything they do that allows them to search their souls.

"Anyone in a good treatment program will say they have gotten right with a higher spiritual power," said Pat Fleming director of the state Division of Substance Abuse, the agency that distributes state and federal funding to qualified treatment programs. "These are some of the most religious people you will ever meet."

It is one reason why the state has worked closely with faith-based organizations for the past two decades. In fact, such organizations are an indispensable part of the state's approach to addiction treatment.

"People say they have beat it, and it could be done with enough will power," said Andrew Kalinen, director of Discovery House, a Salt Lake methadone clinic. "But for most people, particularly those on opiate-based drugs, they get so sick they cannot handle it on their own. The pain is overwhelming."

For rehab to take hold, addicts need the unconditional support of family in all of its various configurations. They need daily and constant reinforcement for the small steps toward recovery and understanding when they fail. And often they need a higher power.

It is, Kalinen said, a fundamental lifestyle change that involves leaving behind everyone they know who uses drugs, sometimes even family members and spouses still involved in the drug scene.

Many times, husbands and wives come in for treatment together, and invariably they fail because one or the other starts backsliding and drags the other along.

"In many cases, they have been high the entire time they were together, and they don't know how to relate to each other being clean," he said.

Churches are a fundamental part of Utah's approach to treatment, and they have been for the past 20 years. Commonly referred to as "faith-based organizations," churches provide everything from counseling to actual medical treatment.