Objective: The detrimental effects of alcohol misuse and dependence are well documented as an important public-health issue among American Indian adults. This preponderance of problem-centered research, however, has eclipsed some important resilience factors associated with life course patterns of American Indian alcohol use. In this study, we investigate the influence of enculturation, and each of the three component dimensions (traditional practices, traditional spirituality, and cultural identity) to provide a stringent evaluation of the specific mechanisms through which traditional culture affects alcohol cessation among American Indians. Method: These data were collected as part of a 3-year lagged sequential study currently underway on four American Indian reservations in the upper Midwest and five Canadian First Nation reserves. The sample consisted of 980 Native American adults, with 71% women and 29% men who are parents or guardians of youth ages 10-12 years old. Logistic regression was used to as...

Traditional practices, traditional spirituality, and alcohol cessation among American Indians.

Objective:Although spiritual change is hypothesized to contribute to recovery from alcohol dependence, few studies have used prospective data to investigate this hypothesis. Prior studies have also been limited to treatment-seeking and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) samples. This study included alcohol-dependent individuals, both in treatment and not, to investigate the effect of spiritual and religious (SR) change on subsequent drinking outcomes, independent of AA involvement.Method:Alcoholics (N = 364) were recruited for a panel study from two abstinence-based treatment centers, a moderation drinking program, and untreated individuals from the local community. Quantitative measures of SR change between baseline and 6 months were used to predict 9-month drinking outcomes, controlling for baseline drinking and AA involvement.Results:Significant 6-month changes in 8 of 12 SR measures were found, which included private SR practices, beliefs, daily spiritual experiences, three measures of forgiveness, negative re...

Six-Month Changes in Spirituality and Religiousness in Alcoholics Predict Drinking Outcomes at Nine Months*

Spirituality is a crucial but sometimes overlooked aspect of mental well-being and psychiatric care. This book explores the nature of spirituality, its relationship to religion, and the reasons for its importance in clinical practice.

In this evidence-based text, the authors discuss the prevention and management of illness, as well as the maintenance of recovery. Different chapters focus on the key subspecialties of psychiatry, including psychotherapy, child and adolescent psychiatry, intellectual disability psychiatry, substance misuse psychiatry and old age psychiatry. It contains references to up-to-date research and provides a comprehensive review of the relevant academic literature. The book is, at least in part, a response to the questions posed by researchers, service users and clinicians, concerning the importance of spirituality in mental healthcare.

Contributors include psychiatrists, psychotherapists, mental healthcare chaplains and a social worker. They discuss aspects of experience often omitted from psychiatry and present both clinician and service user perspectives.

Spirituality and Psychiatry

A major dose-limiting side effect of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) chemotherapies, such as the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), is a small-fiber painful peripheral neuropathy, mediated by its mitochondrial toxicity. Co-morbid conditions may also contribute to this dose-limiting effect of HIV/AIDS treatment. Alcohol abuse, which alone also produces painful neuropathy, is one of the most important co-morbid risk factors for peripheral neuropathy in patients with HIV/AIDS. Despite the prevalence of this problem and its serious impact on the quality of life and continued therapy in HIV/AIDS patients, the mechanisms by which alcohol abuse exacerbates highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART)-induced neuropathic pain has not been demonstrated. In this study, performed in rats, we investigated the cellular mechanism by which consumed alcohol impacts antiretroviral-induced neuropathic pain. NRTI 2',3'-dideoxycytidine (ddC; 50 mg/kg) neuropathy was mitochondrial-dependent and PKCe-independent, and alcohol-induced painful neuropathy was PKCe-dependent and mitochondrial-independent. At low doses, ddC (5 mg/kg) and alcohol (6.5% ethanol diet for 1 week), which alone do not affect nociception, together produce profound mechanical hyperalgesia. This hyperalgesia is mitochondrial-dependent but PKCe-independent. These experiments, which provide the first model for studying the impact of co-morbidity in painful neuropathy, support the clinical impression that alcohol consumption enhances HIV/AIDS therapy neuropathy, and provide evidence for a role of mitochondrial mechanisms underlying this interaction.

Alcohol consumption enhances antiretroviral painful peripheral neuropathy by mitochondrial mechanisms.

CONTEXTO: A espiritualidade pode ser considerada uma dimensao pessoal para a compreensao de questoes sobre a vida, sobre significados e sobre o relacionamento com o sagrado ou transcendente, pelo qual pode (ou nao) estar relacionada com rituais religiosos. OBJETIVO: Avaliar a consistencia interna da versao traduzida e adaptada para o Brasil do instrumento Spirituality Self Rating Scale (SSRS). METODOS: Estudo descritivo, de corte transversal. Aplicou-se a SSRS para estudar sua consistencia interna em uma amostra constituida de 138 (69%) homens usuarios de substâncias psicoativas vinculados a diferentes servicos para reabilitacao ou participando de grupo de mutua ajuda. RESULTADOS: A consistencia interna, analisada pelo coeficiente de alfa de Cronbach, apresentou valor global de 0,8355, variando de 0,7028 a 0,8878. CONCLUSOES: A versao brasileira da SSRS apresentou valores de consistencia interna semelhantes aos da versao original em ingles e podem ser considerados bons.

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E.Don Poage

Papers

Spirituality, contentment, and stress in recovering alcoholics.