Development of a bibliography on religion, spirituality and addictions.

The aim of this study was to develop a comprehensive annotated public-domain bibliography of the literature on spirituality and addictions to facilitate future research and scholarship. This initiative built on a previous annotated bibliography on spirituality and substance use, developed at the University of New Mexico Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse and Addictions (CASAA). In 2003 and 2004, a subcommittee of the Spirituality Research Interest Group of the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN) conducted a systematic and comprehensive search of the literature published in English on spirituality, religion, and addiction. A search was conducted of all citations listed in the MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and ALTA Religion databases from 1941-2004. Interest Group members then classified each citation according to empirically derived categories. A total of 1353 papers met the search parameters and were classified into 10 non-exclusive categories: 1) attitudes toward spirituality and substance use, 2) commentaries, 3) spiritual practices and development in recovery, 4) spiritual and religion variables in the epidemiology of substance abuse, 5) psychoactive substances and spiritual experiences, 6) religious and spiritual interventions, 7) literature reviews, 8) measurement of spirituality and addictions, 9) 12-Step spirituality, and 10) youth and development. The literature is voluminous but has focused primarily in a few areas. Common findings include an inverse relationship between religiosity and substance use/abuse, reduced use among those practicing medication, and protective effects of 12-Step group involvement during recovery. Although sound instruments are available for measuring spirituality, studies have tended to use simplistic, often single-item measures. The widespread belief that spirituality is important in recovery is consistent with findings to date, but the literature has only begun to explore ways in which spiritual processes or interventions may help to alleviate addiction and related suffering.