Medical versus Spiritual Orientations: Differential Patient Views toward Recovery

Background: Relapse among patients in substance abuse treatment has generated interest in identifying attitudinal factors that sustain recovery. Objective: To assess the relationship of attitudes toward approaches to motivation for treatment and Twelve Step beliefs. Methods: Dually diagnosed patients (N = 100) completed a survey assessing treatment attitudes, motivation, and Twelve Step beliefs. Results: Endorsement of medical services was positively correlated with motivation but unrelated to Twelve Step beliefs. Endorsement of religious services was unrelated to motivation but was associated with Twelve Step beliefs. Conclusions: Patients may have differing perceptions regarding routes to recovery based on preferences for professional services or spiritual resources

Music therapy: a novel motivational approach for dually diagnosed patients

Co-occurring mental illness and addiction is very common and results in worse treatment outcomes compared to singly diagnosed addicted individuals. Integrated treatment for co-occurring disorders is associated with better treatment outcomes; however there is a wide range of what is included in integrated treatment. Due to patient and staff interests, integrated treatment often includes complementary and alternative therapies, including music and art therapy. There is a need to study how these approaches effect treatment engagement, retention, and outcome. This study was a prospective naturalistic non-randomized pilot study without a control group that sought to evaluate how participation in a music therapy program affected treatment outcomes for individuals with co-occurring mental illness and addiction. In summary, music therapy appears to be a novel motivational tool in a severely impaired inpatient sample of patients with co-occurring disorders. Future studies of music therapy in integrated co-occurring disorder setting should include a control group

An initial fMRI study on neural correlates of prayer in members of Alcoholics Anonymous

<p><i>Background</i>: Many individuals with alcohol-use disorders who had experienced alcohol craving before joining Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) report little or no craving after becoming long-term members. Their use of AA prayers may contribute to this. Neural mechanisms underlying this process have not been delineated. <i>Objective</i>: To define experiential and neural correlates of diminished alcohol craving following AA prayers among members with long-term abstinence. <i>Methods</i>: Twenty AA members with long-term abstinence participated. Self-report measures and functional magnetic resonance imaging of differential neural response to alcohol-craving-inducing images were obtained in three conditions: after reading of AA prayers, after reading irrelevant news, and with passive viewing. Random-effects robust regressions were computed for the main effect (prayer > passive + news) and for estimating the correlations between the main effect and the self-report measures. <i>Results</i>: Compared to the other two conditions, the prayer condition was characterized by: less self-reported craving; increased activation in left-anterior middle frontal gyrus, left superior parietal lobule, bilateral precuneus, and bilateral posterior middle temporal gyrus. Craving following prayer was inversely correlated with activation in brain areas associated with self-referential processing and the default mode network, and with characteristics reflecting AA program involvement. <i>Conclusion</i>: AA members’ prayer was associated with a relative reduction in self-reported craving and with concomitant engagement of neural mechanisms that reflect control of attention and emotion. These findings suggest neural processes underlying the apparent effectiveness of AA prayer.</p