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Faith Based Heroin Addiction Help
For people with a devout faith, a heroin addiction can feel like a personal failing, as well as a moral one. Many people stop going to church entirely. Others go to church high and have to cope with the feelings that brings up. It's not easy for anyone.
When the time comes for treatment, that devotion can actually be a powerful tool in your treatment program. What better way is there to utilize it than by seeking out a faith based heroin addiction treatment program?
The following should cover the main ideas behind faith based rehab. Ideally, it leaves the reader feeling more confident about making a decision.
What is Faith Based Addiction Help?
Rehabs tend to have the same major components:
- Exercise
- Nutrition
- Counselling (Group, Individual, Family)
- Recreational Therapy
- Classes
- Support Groups
- Involvement of family and loved ones.
Faith based rehab will use the same components as secular centers, but it will approach their use from a spiritual perspective.
These programs view heroin use as an attempt to compensate for a spiritual void. People with addictions often feel empty and without purpose. Faith based rehab believes that strengthening your relationship with a belief system that helps you to understand the meaning of life will enable the establishment and continuation of your recovery.
Do You Have to Be a Christian to Attend Faith Based Heroin Treatment?
Faith based is actually a pretty broad designation. Yes, in some instances the faith will be Christianity; it may be so specific that is a particular sect of Christianity.
In these types of treatment, it helps if you identify as Christian or are open to a religion that follows their belief system. For example, a person who already believes in a single, higher power might feel comfortable in a Christian center, while a person who believes in a broader higher meaning may feel constrained.
However, not all faith based treatment is Christian. There are other models that follow Judaism, Buddhism, Catholicism, and general spirituality. These programs may prove to be a better fit than a Christian program would be.
Why Might I Choose Faith Based Rehab?
For people whose faith is currently quite important or who are trying to reaffirm their commitment to it, faith based heroin addiction treatment provides them with the chance to both work on sobriety and spirituality. If the program has a core doctrine that falls in line with the substance user's values, they can take comfort in knowing they share the same values as every other person around them. This can make connecting to others socially much easier.
The staff will also share these values and that means that patients have an outlet to explore recovery from addiction and commitment to faith. For people who still carry a lot of guilt associated with their substance use, seeking forgiveness from God may be something they need to do during rehab. A faith based program can help with this.
Does Faith Based Rehab Work?
A lot of research has been dedicated to exploring the role of faith in drug addiction rehabilitation.
A strong relationship between religion and abstaining from substance abuse has been shown. That might seem like it's immaterial for users who are both religious and have an addiction, but that isn't the case. Researchers believe that the mechanism that functions to keep people from starting drug use can be utilized to keep people from continuing it.
One way that faith based rehab helps is that religion buffers the impact of life stress. So, faith based care helps develop a practice that can replace drug use as a coping mechanism and can also help users deal with substance use triggers and cues.
One needs to only look to groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous to see the popularity and efficacy of faith based addiction treatment. These programs revolve around the idea of a higher power (which can take many forms to suit different faiths). The fact that so many people are drawn to these programs demonstrates the importance of faith to people recovering from substance abuse disorders.
Because faith based can mean many things, people seeking out this type of care should be sure to ask exactly what the center's approach is, so it agrees with the way that they practice faith.
