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Adolescents with strong religious beliefs are less
likely to engage in substance use and abuse, according to a new study.
"Alcoholism, in addition to being a biological
disorder, is a spiritual disorder," says author Dr. Lisa Miller in
comments to Reuters Health. "Adolescents who claim to have a personal
relationship with the Divine are only half as likely to become alcoholics
or drug addicts, or for that matter even to try contraband drugs (marijuana
and cocaine)," she explained.
"This is particularly important because onset
of alcoholism and drug addiction usually occurs in adolescents,"
Miller stressed.
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Dr. Miller and colleagues at Columbia University
in New York conducted a study using survey data from 676 youth aged
15 to 19, to determine the relationship between their religious practices
and feelings and substance use.
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The authors were specifically concerned with
personal devotion, personal conservatism, and institutional conservatism.
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Study results show that individuals with a higher
degree of personal devotion, personal conservatism, and institutional
conservatism were less likely to engage in alcohol consumption.
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"This is the first study to show that personal
spirituality strongly protects against ever developing alcoholism
or drug abuse," Miller pointed out.
Teenagers who had an active, personal relationship
with a 'Higher Power' and were of a fundamentalist denomination were found
to be less likely to engage in marijuana or cocaine use, the investigators
found.
"The findings show that a personal sense of
spirituality helps adolescents avoid alcohol and drug use and abuse,"
Miller stated. "Unlike adults in (Alcoholics Anonymous), adolescents
in this study were shown not to be helped by a rigid or forced adherence
to religion (termed 'personal conservatism')," she explained.
"Spirituality (defined by hunger for meaning,
communion and transcendence), whether within or without of religion, is
the most central baring in an adolescent's life," Miller emphasized.
"It cannot be ignored by parents, or the adolescent will go 'shopping'
for meaning, communion and transcendence," she advised.
"Ideally the adolescent will find a constructive
form of affiliation or system of meaning. However, often this is not the
case and the search ends in drugs, alcohol or other forms of destruction,"
she said.
Journal of the American
Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry September, 2000;39:1190-1197.
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