"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.

• 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.

• The authors were specifically concerned with personal devotion, personal conservatism, and institutional conservatism.

• 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.

• "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.