Christianity serves as the guiding line for millions of people in America, but when you suffer from addiction, your faith may be impacted in severe ways. Addiction can rot out the support beams of your love of Christ and leave you close to collapse. Without Christ, Christians often feel empty, lose their purpose, and continue to pursue negative patterns of behavior.
If you or someone you love has fallen victim to the demon of addiction, a Christian drug rehab center might be your best hope of recovery. It will help rebuild your personal faith and give you the self-belief you need to recover. Walking hand-in-hand with Jesus through recovery is an important aspect of life for any Christian or anyone who wants to maintain a spiritual center.
The Impact Addiction Has On Faith
When substance use turns to abuse and addiction, faith is often devastated in unpredictable ways. In a study entitled “Focus-Group Study On Spirituality And Substance-Abuse Treatment,” various Christians who suffered from addiction were asked to discuss the way that addiction impacted their faith. Some people, feeling a desperate need for help, continued to go to church and pray while under the influence, with one admitting: “I used to go to church high.”
In other cases, people lost their sense of spirituality and replaced it with the “worship” of their drug of choice. Of course, they didn’t literally worship it, but they let acquiring and using it replace their faith in God as the most important aspect of their life. Without realizing it, they put their daily strength in their drug use and became dependent on it physically, psychologically, and spiritually.
Even those who actively pursued a relationship with God described it as “bankrupt” or manipulative, such as praying to God when they ran out of drugs or were in trouble with the law. Others tried to justify their actions as moral, in spite of feeling guilt and shame for their addiction.
Unfortunately, that guilt and shame only compelled them to feel more spiritually weak and to turn to drugs even more to calm their angst. Anger and bitterness towards God often fueled many of the addicted Christians, though interestingly, very few actually quit actively believing in God.
That last fact is worth dwelling on because it helps explain why so many addicted Christians in the study viewed spirituality with a sense of “hope” and considered it a positive way to recover. Their faith in God still existed and was fighting to come out in a positive and constructive manner. Unfortunately, the haze of drugs made it difficult for them to focus on and use their Christian beliefs to overcome.
So if you or a loved one are an addicted Christian, it’s worth stepping back and asking yourself about the state and nature of your faith. Are you bitter towards God and feel rejected by His healing touch? Do you look to Him as a sign of hope that can pull you through difficult times? Most importantly, do you still believe in God and Jesus as your saviors? If you relate to these questions and have answered with yeses, then you need to reach out to a Christian drug rehab center as soon as possible.
The Effectiveness Of Christian Rehab
Faith has been studied multiple times as a method for treating addiction, and just about every time, it has been found to be a powerful tool. Naturally, you can’t use faith to replace medical treatments, but faith gives a person a way to identify with something larger than them and use that belief to propel themselves toward greatness.
For example, Rhonda G. Burnett, a student of Southern Illinois University, wrote an intensive research paper entitled “Faith-Based Programs For Treatment Of Substance Abuse.” In it, she broke apart how faith is used to treat addiction and studied its effectiveness. Burnett—herself a woman of faith—studied multiple treatments and came to the following conclusion: “There is obviously a need for people to be able to live out their faith as they are walking out their recovery. These programs will remain an important place in the treatment of substance abuse and educators, counselors and clients should have knowledge of and access to them.”
Her conclusion was based on the various ways that faith (in her study, Christianity specifically) helped people master their recovery. Some of the ways that Christian drug rehab centers can help promote recovery includes the ways that it:
- Gives people something bigger to believe in
- Creates a community of like-minded people
- Generates hope and inspiration
- Clears the mind and opens the heart to the powers of self-healing
- Opens people up to prayer and other spiritually-healing treatments
Interestingly, many scientific studies have been taken to study the healing power of prayer, with most having positive results. Though the people who undertook these studies stressed that positive results didn’t necessarily indicate the existence of a God, they couldn’t deny that people who prayed for recovery, who were prayed for, or who prayed with others often had higher rates of recovery success.
The Structure Of Christian Rehab
Christian drug rehab centers follow the typical treatment pattern found in any good rehabilitation clinic. For example, you will receive treatment for your withdrawal symptoms, as well as for malnutrition and other health problems addiction caused in your life. However, Christian drug rehab centers have a heavy focus on spirituality, which often includes adherence to a 12-step program.
Developed in 1935 as a way of helping people beat alcohol addiction, AA, the traditional 12-step program, has an obvious spiritual component that makes it adaptable to a wide range of religions. Although the twelve steps aren’t necessarily used in every Christian drug rehab center, they still form a basis for a majority of them. The principles you learn and the activities you perform in 12-step recovery include:
- Admitting you are powerless over your drug or alcohol use
- Believing in a higher power (God) that will restore your life
- Turning your life over to God and trusting in His healing abilities
- Taking a serious moral inventory of your behaviors
- Admitting your wrongs to God and a sponsor
- Asking God for forgiveness and to remove your personality defects and shortcomings
- Making amends with people you have wronged due to your addiction
- Continually taking responsibility for your wrongs and accepting them
- Praying to God and meditating to increase your contact with Him
- Feeling a spiritual awakening after moving through this process and spreading this awakening to others in need of similar help
As you can see, 12-step programs are designed to help you create a strong and intimate bond with God. The great thing about it is that it can be adapted to any religion or denomination, giving just about anybody the ability to use it successfully. It also lacks judgmental characteristics and is designed as a way to help promote positiveness and healing in your life, rather than negativity.
Finding A Christian Rehab Near You
Christian drug rehabs are becoming a popular way to recover. This fact is emphasized by the reality of the genesis of drug addiction: the earliest treatments were entirely faith-based and promoted by concerned Christians trying to help their fellow man heal their body and reaffirm their faith in God.
As a result, it shouldn’t be too hard for you to find a Christian drug rehab near you. Most will accept multiple denominations, though it is possible to find unique ones that focus specifically on your personal beliefs. They often accept people of other religions, too, such as Jewish people. The idea isn’t to exclude anyone, but to welcome them into the healing arms of rehab and to promote a healthier life.
It is also possible to find Christian rehab through your church or other religious authorities in your area. Often, these church-based rehabs operate on a donation-only basis or even offer services for free. Unfortunately, they sometimes lack access to important aspects of recovery, such as withdrawal medicines or other medical treatments. They work best for a person who has already gone through the full rigors of medical detox and who need friendly faces during the early stages of mental recovery.
Help Is Available
For anyone suffering from addiction, Christian drug rehab centers can be a powerful way to regain sobriety. Even if you aren’t necessarily Christian, the structure of a faith-based program (often including the twelve steps of recovery) can give you the kind of strength, support, and accountability that you need to beat addiction and live a healthy and happy life.
To learn more about Christian drug rehab centers or to find one near you, please don’t hesitate to contact us today at DrugRehab.org today. We can help you better understand your options, educate you on the ways rehab can help you, and get you back on your feet. Please don’t wait to make this important change in your life.
For More Information Related to “Christian Drug Rehab Centers” Be Sure To Check Out These Additional Resources From DrugRehab.org:
- Christian Vs Secular Addiction Counseling
- The Benefits of Faith-Based Recovery Programs
- Is A Higher Power Necessary To Recover From Addiction
- Pros and Cons of 12 Step Recovery Programs for Addiction Treatment
- Non-Religious Drug and Alcohol Rehab Centers
Sources
US National Library Of Medicine National Institutes Of Health – A Focus-Group Study On Spirituality And Substance-Abuse Treatment
Southern Illinois University – Faith-Based Programs For Treatment Of Substance Abuse
State Of Georgia Courts – Understanding and Implementing the 12 Steps into Your Program: Court Accountability and Spiritual Development
US National Library Of Medicine National Institutes Of Health – Prayer And Healing: A Medical And Scientific Perspective On Randomized Controlled Trials
