Caldwell on Addiction and Religion

Jeffrey Bloom, in “God, Religion, and America’s Addiction Crisis,” defends a religious approach to treating drug and other addicts, in particular the approach used in “twelve-step” programs patterned on the group Alcoholics Anonymous. Such programs have become a matter of considerable practical importance. Due to the spread of prescription opioids and, in their wake, heroin, the country faces a wave of drug addiction deadlier than any in its history. Bloom worries about this, and about the addictive potential built (sometimes intentionally) into our computers and smartphones. To judge from anecdotes, as one must with an anonymous group, AA is effective at getting drunks sober. It has thus become a template for fighting other addictions, from narcotics to gambling. Authorities have used mandatory twelve-step visits as a tool of public policy. At the same time, atheism has come into intellectual and political vogue, and with it a radical understanding of the separation of church and state. Critics want secular substitutes for programs like AA. Bloom would think they are unlikely to find them: getting right with God is the essence of recovery. Bloom’s argument is never dogmatic or prescriptive, and is the stronger for that (although he does beat around the bush in making it). AA-type programs have religion at their core. They descend from the “Oxford Group” Protestant fellowship of a century ago. The twelve steps followed by attendees begin with “an acknowledgment that we were powerless over alcohol” (or another addictive drug or behavior), pass through “a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him,” and—if all goes well—anchor the recovering addict in a program of moral inventory, atonement, prayer, and proselytism to other addicts. While doctrinal in its origins, AA can be casual and colloquial in practice. People talk more about “sharing” than about confessing.