Spirituality, drugs, and alcohol: a philosophical analysis.

Spirituality has long been associated with recovery from the socially constructed "addictive disease." Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and its analogs have enjoyed widespread acceptance as a spiritual approach for achieving recovery. AA or its derivatives are the predominant approaches in treatment programs even though a wide array of evidence-based approaches are now promoted by governmental sources in the United States.

Implementation issues in an innovative rural substance misuser treatment program.

This article is essentially the story of the development, implementation, and testing of a treatment protocol designed specifically for rural individuals who are substance misusers. Although the treatment protocol that emerged from this process seemed to be valuable for clients, the researchers were not able to establish with statistical significance that it was better than conventional treatment. In some ways, this was a failure.

Holy smoke: tobacco use among native american tribes in North America.

The use of tobacco by Native Americans in North America seems to have ancient origins and significant spiritual meaning. This article reviews archeological and anthropological data about the use of tobacco and its sacred significance.

Shiva, Lord of Bhang.

In India, Cannabis Indica has been used for literally thousands of years in the worship of the god Shiva. Cannabis is used in an orally administered form called bhang which can be either the wet resinous leaves formed into pills of a drink made of milk, cannabis, and various spices consumed by worshipers of Shiva on festival days or by smoking the flowering buds of cannabis-a practice generally reserved for holy men who dedicate their lives to ascetic practice and the worship of Shiva. This practice is codified in the Vedas as well as in legends about the origin of cannabis and its relationship to Shiva.

The god within.

This is a new feature of Substance Use and Misuse that the editors hope will bring a new focus on substance use and misuse throughout history and in diverse cultures. Up until modern times, cultures throughout history have associated different substances with specific deities, incorporated them into specific myths, and used substances in specific rituals. Examining these associations is likely to give insight into how these substances were viewed in various cultures and the place that they had in those cultures.

A qualitative exploration of engagement among rural women entering substance user treatment.

A semistructured interview was administered to a purposive sample of 12 rural women early in substance misuser treatment in a gender specific, intensive outpatient treatment program from March 2001 through March 2003. The interview used open-ended questions about the women's state of mind before entering treatment, the experiences that helped them feel more comfortable with treatment, the experiences that caused them some discomfort in treatment, and any changes they would recommend to the program content or process in an attempt to gain understanding about factors that might facilitate a subjective comfort and engagement with the treatment experience. In approaching treatment, the women almost uniformly expressed a mixture of anxiety about the requirements of treatment and cynicism about its effectiveness.