Assignment on Approaches and Programs for Addiction || Sample Paper

Write a paper discussing the following programs and approaches: outpatient, residential, transitional (clean and sober living), DUI, therapeutic communities (prison programs), and faith-based.

Below is the chapter in which you must use as one of your resources for the paper. 

Programs and Approaches (Chapter 2)

OVERVIEW OF IMPORTANT COMMUNITY EFFORTS AT ADDRESSING PROBLEMS OF ADDICTION

THE MINNESOTA MODEL

In the 1870’s the states, including the state of Minnesota, confronted the problem of alcoholic inebriation; and in 1873 Dr. Charles Hewitt of the Minnesota Board of Health prepared a report for then governor Horace Austin which was entitled “The Duty of the State in the Care and Cure of Inebriates.”33 The welfare department saw the benefit that could be obtained by sobering up alcoholics whose families burdened the city’s relief roles; and a two year study in 1947-1948 demonstrated that the welfare department could achieve substantial cost savings by providing specialized services to alcoholics.34 As a result of this study, Pioneer House opened on October 5, 1948 as the first alcoholism treatment program in Minnesota that based its two to three weeks of residential treatment primarily on the philosophy of AA.35 During this same time period (in 1949), a farmhouse retreat in Minnesota grew into an internationally recognized addiction treatment center for priests and professionals called Hazelden.36

Minnesota was the first state to recognize addiction counselors as professionals; and in 1954 the state Civil Service Commission created a position called “Counselor on Alcoholism.”37

From the spread of AA across Minnesota in the 1940’s and the treatment modalities used at Pioneer House, Hazelden, and Willmar State Hospital in Minnesota arose what became known as the Minnesota Model of chemical dependency treatment which philosophy has eleven tenets38:

1.  

   1.)  Alcoholism is an involuntary, primary disease that is describable and diagnosable.



2.  

   2.)  Alcoholism is a chronic and progressive disease; Barring intervention, the signs and symptoms of alcoholism self-accelerate.



3.  

   3.)  Alcoholism is not curable, but the disease may be arrested.



4.  

   4.)  The nature of the alcoholic’s initial motivation for treatment – its presence or

    

   absence – is not a predictor of treatment outcome.



5.  

   5.)  The treatment of alcoholism includes physical, psychological, social, and spiritual

    

   dimensions.



6.  

   6.)  The successful treatment of alcoholism requires an environment in which the

    

   alcoholic is treated with dignity and respect.



7. 
   
   
    

   7.) Alcoholics and addicts are vulnerable to the abuse of a wide spectrum of mood- altering drugs. This whole cluster of mood-altering drugs can be addressed through treatment that defines the problem as one of chemical dependency.

    

   8.) Chemical dependency is best treated by a multidisciplinary team whose members develop close, less-formal relationships with their clients and whose activities are integrated within an individualized treatment plan developed for each client.

    

   9.) The focal point for implementing the treatment plan is an assigned primary counselor, usually recovered, of the same sex and age group as the client, who promotes an atmosphere that enhances emotional self-disclosure, mutual identification, and mutual support.

    

   10.) The most effective treatment for alcoholism includes an orientation to A.A., an expectation of “Step work,” groups that combine confrontation and support, lectures, one-to-one counseling, and the creation of a dynamic “learning environment.”

    

   11.) The most viable, ongoing, sobriety-based support structure for clients following treatment is A.A.

    

SYNANON: THE START OF EX-ADDICT-DIRECTED THERAPEUTIC COMMUNITIES

1.  

   The idea of therapeutic community relates back to the “moral treatment” philosophy of the 19th century inebriate and insane asylums, but even more directly from the Oxford Groups and AA.39 Synanon, a therapeutic commune of addicts, was organized in 1958 by Charles Edwin Dederich.40 The number of people living in Synanon increased from 500 in 1964 to 1,400 in 1969. Synanon revolved around Dederich, the center of its emotional life. By 1968, Dederich had shifted his vision for Synanon from the goal of addict rehabilitation to the creation of an alternative community. In 1974, the Synanon Foundation, Inc. was chartered as a religion. Increased coercion of members and increased paranoia regarding outsiders as well as the adoption of paramilitary defense measures led in 1977 to Time magazine referring to Synanon as a “Kooky cult.” Then, on December 2, 1978, Dederich was arrested on the charge of conspiracy to commit murder.41

    

   Although Synanon the therapeutic community evolved into Synanon the alternative community, it did introduce a new technology of addiction treatment that would be replaced by later generations of therapeutic communities across the United States.42

1. RECOVERY HOMES: 

2. In the early years of AA, hospitals would not admit alcoholics for treatment, so the sober members of that fellowship would either take willing new members into their homes and try to sober them up, or get them into one of the hospitals, such as Towns Hospital in New York or the City Hospital of Akron under a diagnosis that was admissible.

   
   
   
    

   Treating a truly sick person at home, without benefit of medical help proved to be quite risky, so eventually a group of people would get together, raise some funds among their members, and rent a home to take care of their very ill brothers and sisters who were willing to make some major changes in their drinking habits and lifestyles. A friendly physician would be recruited, on a volunteer basis, to look in on the residents when necessary. The success of this procedure caught on, and by the early 1970’s, there were a great number of “Recovery Homes” in the nation.

   
   
   
    

   HOSPITALS:

    

   As mentioned above, prior to the AMA and AHA declaring alcoholism a treatable illness in 1956, most hospitals would not admit patients for treatment for alcoholism, per se, but only for the ravaging medical complications that accompanied the illness. The broken bones and internal bleeding and ulcerated kidney and liver failure were treated, but the alcoholism was not addressed or rarely even mentioned.

    

   There were a few exceptions to this practice, and those that stand out were places like: Towns Hospital, under the medical direction of Dr. William Silkworth, that utilized some TLC, medical attention, and visits from recovering alcoholics who were members of the Oxford Group; and the Shadel Hospital in Raleigh Hills that utilized aversion therapy, a behavioral approach, that induced severe vomiting after ingestion of any alcoholic substance.

    

   In the early 1970’s, after the passage of the Comprehensive Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation Act of 1970 (PL 91-616) – commonly referred to as the “Hughes Act” (after its author, Senator Harold Hughes) – and funds became available for the treatment of alcoholism, many hospitals opened special units to treat the condition. There was a variety of successes, depending mostly on the treatment approach and the training, or lack of same, of the staff in the special unit.

    

   The most prevalent system was a 28-day, intensive in-patient modality that stressed abstinence, good nutrition, daily lectures, group counseling sessions, and contact with local AA community volunteers. Most of these units recruited “paraprofessionals” to assist the licensed medical staff in working with the resistant and difficult patients who wanted help but wouldn’t follow directions very well.

    

   These “paraprofessionals” were, for the most part, recovering members of Alcoholics Anonymous who gladly offered their services. Certification for these counselors was non-existent, so they were either paid a pittance or nothing at all.

    

   Managed Care, HMO’s and PPO’s

    

   As more money entered the field, and the health insurance industry began seeing the enormous benefit of treating the cause instead of just the symptoms, the helpers/assistants/paraprofessionals took on a more important role, as their efforts seem to have had a more profound and lasting effect on the patients than all the expensive efforts of the licensed staff.

    

   Today, a great number of hospitals still offer Chemical Dependency (CD) treatment, but the approach has changed dramatically, due to managed care and the shrinking treatment dollars. There are now more “outpatient” services available than “inpatient”, as the HMO’s have discovered that the recovery or “success rate” is about the same for one as for the other, and the cost of the latter is significantly less than the former.

    

   There is also a renewed emphasis on the “mental illness” approach, due to the fact that insurance companies will cover that condition for a much longer time than they will “addiction”.

   
   
   
    

   There is a return, in too many instances, of the hospitals once again refusing treatment for just alcoholism or drug abuse; but will admit someone if a “dual diagnosis” (a combination of addiction and mental illness) is present.

3. 
   
   
    

   Most of the hospitals that still have CD units hire certified counselors to work with patients, conduct educational and group therapy sessions, and generally operate the facility under the guidance of a knowledgeable physician.

    

   The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Organizations (JCAHO) has recently directed those hospitals that do not have trained, certified counselors to make every effort to certify their staff or possibly lose their accreditation.

    

   SOCIAL MODEL CD FACILITIES

    

   The middle ground between medical-model hospitals and the recovery homes is what’s known as a social-model chemical dependency center (“CDC”).

    

   These facilities offer a variety of services; but in general they function much like a recovery home, utilizing staff that are generally more experienced and usually certified. Their daily schedule of programs for their clients will be quite full, oftentimes as much or more than that offered by a hospital, and considerably more than is available to most recovery homes.

    

   The cost of treatment in a social-model is less than a hospital stay, but more than a recovery home. They generally do not have any medical staff on duty, but will have a physician or nurse on call. Some offer detox services and their approach is a non- medical style that can be very effective if the client is not seriously medically impaired.

    

   The length of stay at a CDC can be anywhere from 30 days to six months or longer, depending on the facilities goals, licensing and the client’s fiscal considerations.

    

   DRINKING DRIVER PROGRAMS

    

   As mentioned in the chronology, MADD was formed in 1980-81 to confront the lax, inconsistent and ineffective DUI laws then in effect.

    

   The anger, frustration and disgust vented by the Mothers Against Drunk Drivers caught the attention of the media, the public, and at last the various state legislatures, and new laws began to pass that came down hard on those who drove under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.

    

   NATIONAL COUNCIL ON ALCOHOLISM AND DRUG DEPENDENCE

    

   The National Council on Alcoholism was founded in 1944, in New York City, by a group of citizens concerned about the lack of information and education about alcoholism. It was headed up by a dynamic woman named Marty Mann, who gained her own sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous, and who realized that AA’s traditions wisely prohibited any public outcry about the lack of treatment for alcoholism.

    

   NCA, at first named the National Committee for Alcoholism Education, was determined to make the American public aware that alcoholism was a treatable disease, and that the alcoholic was valuable and worth treating.

    

   It was NCA that pushed and influenced and cajoled and pressured the AMA (American Medical Association) to address the problem of alcoholism, to study the condition, and to see it and treat it as the medical condition that it was: a highly treatable physical, mental and spiritual disease that was killing at least 100,000 persons per year.

    

   In 1990, the NCA added “Drug Dependence” to its name to indicate its vital role in assisting persons with other than alcoholism, and today the NCADD has chapters in over 200 American cities across the land.

    

   NCADDs offer a variety of services in all these communities, depending on the size of the community and what other services might otherwise be available, including information and referral, DUI programs, outpatient counseling, educational and EAP outreach, youth and parenting courses,and in a few smaller communities operate recovery homes and other similar services.

   
   
   
    

   Many NCADD chapters employ certified counselors, engage interns, and function as a vital part of the continuum of care in every community.

    

   OUT PATIENT - NON-RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT

    

   In addition to the services provided by the NCADDs, a great many outpatient, or non- residential, external services are available in many communities.

    

   With the recent cut backs in insurance coverage for the more expensive inpatient treatment, there has been a tremendous increase in longer -term, but less expensive outpatient treatment.

    

   Most communities provide publicly funded outpatient centers, but the majority of OP clinics are operated by individuals. Some states require private therapists to be licensed and hold Masters Degree in counseling, social work or psychology.

    

   Certified counselors may operate a private counseling clinic in their area of special training, and as long as they do not put themselves out to the public as something they are not, and do not engage in a practice for which they are not trained or licensed, an individual is quite free to provide counseling services to alcohol and drug abusing clients and their families.

    

   It is vital that an individual who does plan to open a private counseling center, check with the local county licensing agency to be certain that one can operate according to the local business and professional code, and obtain a business license if necessary.

   
   
   
    

   THE BIBLICAL CHRISTIAN COUNSELING MODEL By Rev. Michael Belzman, PhD, CDAAC, RAS43

    

   The Biblical Christian Counseling Model declares that the only way for lasting change and the overcoming of addictions is by having an inner transformation that changes the individual from the inside out. This transformation begins with surrender to God through a heart-felt conviction of HIS Holy Spirit exposing the reality of sin in the person’s life.

    

   Unless there is recognition of one’s own inner poverty and spiritual emptiness and a desperate outcry to God to fill that emptiness, the transformation process does not take place and the person will go deeper into the addiction or change only superficially while manifesting a different expression of the addiction.

   
   
   
    

   An unsurrendered person, that is, a person who believes he can still control His substance use, or life for that matter, without relinquishing it to God, may stop the abuse of drugs or alcohol and believe that he is recovering on His own. This can be done without ever coming to terms with one’s own spiritual state, which includes all issues pertaining to the mind, will, and emotions. In such cases, although there may be a ceasing of the substance abuse behavior, no underlying spiritual transformation may have taken place. In that person’s deeper spiritual, emotional, and thought life, they retain the same destructive patterns, or strongholds that led to abuse or addiction in the first place. A behavioral makeover, without an inner spiritual transformation including a humble contrition and deep awareness of one’s own poor choices and behaviors eventually ends badly.

   
   
   
    

   The Biblical Model in Contrast to the Disease Model

    

   The Disease Model of Alcoholism was formulated by medical doctors who tried to take into consideration the genetic, psychosocial, environmental, pharmacological, and physiological factors in order to explain what alcoholism is. The need for a scientific model, to explain alcoholism, or any other addiction, is strongly felt in the medical community. No matter how often the disease model of alcoholism has been reformulated by scientists who limit themselves to the material realm while disregarding the reality of the spiritual realm, it never becomes a complete model based on theory that passes all the tests of scientific proof. Without taking into account the spiritual realm, which is largely beyond empirical measurement tools limited to our five senses, we are left with masses of results that defy explanation and often get swept under the rug. By eliminating the spiritual realm, many researchers and counselors in effect eliminate what has Historically been shown to provide the greatest effectiveness in the recovery process from being considered as therapy tools.

    

   The causal elements of the Biblical Model are:

      

   The Problem with the concept of Sin and Treatment of it

   
   
   
    

   The reason why the medical disease model is not acceptable to Biblical Christians is because it tends to do away with the reality of sin as an important component in addiction lifestyles and removes responsibility to make better life decisions from the individual. If we remove sin and responsibility all together, the road back to recovery is perilously limited.

   
   
   
    

   There is a great misunderstanding about what the biblical concept of sin is and how it is part of the causal effects of substance abuse and addiction. The great misunderstanding is the idea that the bible gives us direction as to how to live a sinless life, it spells out what sin is so that man should know how to live. It is in the next sentence that the error occurs: Therefore, some fundamentalist groups steeped in unspiritual religious legalism proclaim that it is now up to man to choose and live a sinless life and pull Himself out of moral degeneracy.

    

   The fallacy of this conception of how the Christian life is to be lived is that the Bible does not tell us that it is up to us, separate from a personal relationship with God and HIS power, to live a sinless life. In fact, the Bible does tell us how impossible it really is for anyone to do so without a daily surrender to Christ, the central motivating power of our lives.

    

   The Need for an Underlying Spiritual Transformation

    

   In this life we have we have to choose which way we will walk and who we will trust. Some people choose to walk their own way and trust only themselves. They believe that they can pick themselves up by their own bootstraps in a way that will bring lasting recovery. This belief, according to the Biblical Model is doomed to ultimate failure because it puts the human intellect in the place of God and attempts to do only what God can accomplish. 

    

   The Biblical Model says that unless a person is given new life by God, he/she will not have within them the power that is needed to break addictions. People must turn to a power greater than themselves in order to enter into the spiritual transformation process.

    

   The Biblical Model warns of the existence of many powers greater than the individual and of the fact that many such powers do not have the quality of benevolent love toward the individual that God has in mind. Therefore, the individual should call upon the “Highest Power,” not who they conceive that power to be but who the “Highest Power” conceives HIMSELF to be. The bible says that God’s ways are higher than our ways, and HIS thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Unless a person is humble enough to admit that His own concept of God may not be big and powerful enough to break the bondage in His life, he/she will still be in the driver’s seat, driving in the wrong direction.

    

   The Initial Surrender

   
   
   
    

   When people finally come to their wits end, they come to the largest crossroad of their life. One direction leads to ultimate death and destruction. The other direction leads to eternal life, including recovery and abundant life in this lifetime. At this crossroad if the choice is made to surrender to God, the “Highest Power”, in the name of Jesus Christ, a new spiritual dynamic takes place in the inner person. The Bible says that the person’s spirit is reconnected to the Holy Spirit and new life begins to flow. It is because of this new life, that now lives within the surrendered person, that the spirit of love, power and a sound mind begins to regenerate the person from the inside out.

   
   
   
    

   A New Addiction in Christ

    

   God created man with a built-in innate dependency upon Him. So long as man lives His life dependent upon God for spiritual nutrition, His soul (which includes His mind, will and emotions) thrives. However, as soon as man disconnects himself from God, the spiritual nutrients cease from flowing and his spirit begins to whither. In this condition man becomes a soul without a spirit to lead him into the truth and the restorative power of God. Having a dying spirit and being disconnected from God, a person naturally turns to other things to put in the place of God and function as the driving force of his/her life.

    

   The person is deceived into thinking that fulfillment can be found by turning to other things to be the driving force of their life, that may meet their felt needs for a season. These other things may be casual relationships, drugs & alcohol, shopping, gambling, seeking riches, fame, the approval of man, or any other thing (seemingly good or bad) that can be used to take the place of God. These temporal counterfeits become the driving motivations of life until they lose their appeal and have been exchanged for the deep inner emptiness of a God shaped void and a life fulfilled with love, family, true friends and purpose.

    

   The Bible says that all addictions that do not sow to the Spirit ultimately end in destruction and death, but the one addiction that does sow to the Spirit brings new life and life everlasting. The Bible describes that this spiritual dynamic takes place deep within us when we confess that we are hopeless sinners without God and ask for His new life. God’s provision for the restoration of man cannot be comprehended by our carnal human intellect; only our God given spirit could comprehend the truth of it. This provision is laid out in the gospel of John, which says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16

    

   From the moment of our first belief in Christ, we got hold of the only addiction that God intended for us to have, an intimacy with the person of Jesus Christ. It is an addiction giving us a new life in Him and His new life in us. This relationship with Jesus Christ is to be distinguished from “religion”, liturgical ritual, or religious piety, which is often confused for authentic Christianity.

    

   At this moment of new birth, we are re-attached to the source of life that we have been alienated from all preceding days of our lives. Now the nourishment of God streaming through our soul gives a dynamic of overcoming power we never had before. However, this new connection with the person of Jesus Christ needs to be maintained daily. If it is not maintained daily (if HE does not become our new addiction), it is possible for us to fall back into old addictions that take us out of God’s light into places of old darkness. Those places of old darkness may be our old alcohol or drug addiction, casual sex partner addiction, gambling addiction, spouse abusing addiction, child abusing addiction, shopping addiction or any other addiction that would ultimately destroy our lives and the lives of those around us.

   
   
   
    

   What we believe or do not believe in life carries huge spiritual power. It is believing in the work that Christ did on the cross that makes all the difference. His work, namely sacrificing His life for ours, brought about the spiritual dynamic of the Holy Spirit and His overcoming power entering our spirits and giving us new life, starting from the moment we first believed.

   
   
   
    

   Therefore, with this understanding we surrender to Christ and turn to His guidelines on how to live and believe in the promises of restoration from our addictions and blessings of new life found in Scripture. We read His guidebook to life and find out about the plan that He has specifically for us as He begins to speak to us through it.

    

   The Central Significance of Bible use in Christian Counseling

    

   The strength of the Biblical Model is found in the Christian’s belief that every word of Scripture, understood in the context of the whole bible is true, inerrant and infallible. The Christian receives it as the impartation of God’s truth and the only reliable plumb line to measure against their thoughts and feelings that are often unreliable for making decisions as to what actions and behaviors to take through life.

    

   God does not command us to read HIS Word for the purpose of living it out in our own power. No human being can do that. The way it works is that He gives HIS Word (the Bible) as a mirror to show us how far we have fallen from who we were created to be and how impossible it is to live a holy life without Him. But He also shows us in His Word that with His life working in us daily we receive overcoming power to live a life pleasing to Him with power enough to take any of us out of even the deepest of bondages.

    

   Though our lives are never perfect this side of heaven, our faith in Him covers a multitude of sins and puts us in right standing so we can have relationship with Him. It is through this relationship that deliverance healing, recovery and character development come. We can love God and walk in His ways because we get to learn that He first loved us and empowered us to walk in the light and out of darkness of whatever bondage held us captive.

    

   The Description of God

   
   
   
    

   Unlike other religion’s holy books, the Christian Bible does not describe God as the cosmos into which we ascend, or comprised of the pantheistic idea of many gods, but instead we see in the Old and New Testament, the Judeo-Christian concept of God the Father. Only in the Judeo-Christian Bible is HE shown as the all powerful, all knowing, omnipresent, benevolent God who created us as an object of His love, and knows the condition of every hair on our heads, every cell in our bodies, and every thought in our minds. Unlike other religion’s gods, in spite of our sin, the Judeo-Christian Bible describes our God as the Almighty One who offers forgiveness and restoration to all who turn to Him and humbly receive the Messianic promise of the Old Testament, and the Messianic fulfillment of the New Testament. Unlike the lesser benevolent god’s of other religions, the God of the Christian Bible wants to commune with us and has a specific plan for each of our lives, which is revealed to those who turn to Him. HE does not call us to a militant martyrdom, though devoted Christians have been martyred because of being persecuted for their faith.

   
   
   
    

   The Conveyance of God’s Promises

    

   A Christian Counselor who knows God’s Word (the Judeo-Christian Bible) has access to the promises of God that are crucial to those stuck in addictions of any kind. Counselors with this knowledge are going to impart the hope of lasting restoration.

    

   The following promises and many more are given to those who enter in to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the Messiah who was prophesied throughout the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament:

    

   We are adopted as sons and daughters of God.
   We have inherited a legacy of blessing.
   We have been given the power to overcome our addictions.
   God has a plan for each of us.
   He transforms us from the inside out.
   He delivers us from evil.
   He gives us inner peace and joy.
   He strengthens us through trials and tribulations common to all mankind.
   He provides for our every true need.
   He exposes our sin and restores our soul (mind, will, and emotions)
   He exalts us when we humble ourselves.
   His power is strong enough to deliver us from the most severe, long lasting, and deepest of addictions.
   To those who turn to Him and determine in their hearts to walk uprightly He promises victory through the difficult battles of life.
   He promises the giving of spiritual gifts effective in helping others who desire to turn to God and be delivered and restored from their addictions.
   He reveals to the person coming out of their addictive lifestyle the true identity they were created with and destroys to old self-image that kept the person in bondage.
   He reveals their true purpose in life.
   He puts a new uplifting song in their heart.
   He takes us back to all the places of our shame and gives us another chance to do it right thereby turning around our past sin and moral failures into His glory being shone through us.

    

   The promises listed above just scratch the surface of hundreds more that are imparted through the Scriptures. Through the interaction between the Holy Spirit led counselor and the person receiving counseling, a beautiful spiritual dynamic is taking place that is not found in secular counseling. This dynamic starts in a room containing three persons: The person needing counseling, the counselor, and the Holy Spirit. God’s promise to counselors who know the Scriptures and have the Bible living within them, is that He will guide them and bring to their awareness the things that need to be said during the interaction between them. God will not leave the counselor wanting for the words and right counsel that needs to be imparted.

    

   Counsel more accurate than the best of human wisdom

   
   
   
    

   This kind of counseling that relies upon the trustworthy leading of the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the living Word of God is able to reach and break the power of the deepest inner strongholds caused by the wounds that we encounter through life. The intellect that God has given us is a gift from God but many tend to abuse it by putting it into the place of God. The counselor must understand that no matter how good we think our intellect is, it cannot take the place of the leading and guidance of the Holy Spirit who works in conjunction with the intellect properly and humbly submitted to God.

   
   
   
    

   When the counselor has nurtured a rich prayer life and enjoys intimacy with Jesus Christ (which the Biblical Model sees as a requirement to be an effective counselor), the Holy Spirit is always present as a guide in that counselor’s interaction with the person he/she is there to help. The counselor understands that cookie-cutter counseling theories and techniques do not offer the depth and fullness that the ministry of the Holy Spirit brings through the counselor who trusts in Him.

    

   Revealing the Problem

    

   While secular counselors believe that it is up to them to discover the issues of their client based upon the knowledge they accumulated through a humanistic education process, the Biblical counselor knows that the Holy Spirit reveals the true problems in the order that they are most needed and able to be resolved. As the Holy Spirit surfaces the problem through the interaction between counselor and client, He reveals aspects of the person’s life that only God can know about; aspects that are unique to the individual and go beyond the limited understandings that personality theories can provide.

    

   The Case of John: Receiving the Truth that set the Captive Free

    

   When the Holy Spirit reveals the problem and the true issues in a person’s life, He also reveals the key truth that will set the captive free. An example of this dynamic is seen in the case of John who had a problem with alcohol. In counseling, John told the counselor that over time he felt His wife distancing herself from him and didn’t know why. As John spoke of his relationship with his wife, the counselor allowed him to discuss all aspects about his feelings pertaining to their relationship. At one point John explained to the counselor his fear that the same thing that happened to his parents leading to their divorce would happen to him and he would lose his wife. The counselor knew that the Holy Spirit was surfacing the existence of a pivotal stronghold that needed the application of God’s healing power and truth.

    

   Now that the counselor and His client became aware of a powerful stronghold that gave power to the despairing mindset that kept the client in bondage to fear and alcohol abuse, they began to pray together to break the power of that stronghold. If the truth of scripture were to be applied without first the revealing of the problem and prayer to break the power of it, the sharing of the God’s Word as it applies specifically to the client may have fallen on fallow ground and not taken root in the person’s life. But the Holy Spirit through the prayerful counselor applied the power and insight that was needed to break the stronghold. The insight and wisdom of God’s Word, transcending even the best of human wisdom, took root. A process of recovery emerged with a transformational effect that may not have taken place any other way.

   
   
   
    

   As is true with so many receiving substance abuse counseling, John had a stronghold of which is was unaware. It took the revelation of the Holy Spirit during the process of counseling to reveal to John and his counselor the exact nature of his fear, in this case the prospect of losing his wife, which gave motivational power to his alcohol abuse.

   
   
   
    

   The counselor began to reveal truths of scripture to his client that the person never new before. By the leading of the Holy Spirit, he revealed the biblical truths that: 1) Love is an action given unselfishly and not just a feeling. 2) A critical spirit poisons a relationship but kind words restore it. 3) It’s a good idea to not let the sun go down on our anger. 4) It’s a bad idea to worship a spouse in the place of God. John learned from the counselor the scriptural truth that if God is in the first place of worship by both parties to the marriage, than God binds them together in a more certain and steadfast love than even the best love of a godless marriage can do.

    

   In John’s case, the counselor, moved by the Holy Spirit, shared these specific scriptural understandings with the client. The focused prayer broke the power of the stronghold containing the lie that the same thing that happened to John’s parents was destined to happen to him and there was nothing he could do about it. With the power of this lie broken, he was able to do something about it and not repeat the generational divorce pattern passed down by His parents.

    

   The focused application of scriptural truth, pertaining to John’s specific need, laid a foundation of truth that John could stand upon and live out in his future. John and his wife grew into a deep intimacy with one another, and John put alcohol out of his life.

    

   Personality Theories and Counseling Techniques

    

   The shortfall of personality theories and counseling techniques taught at colleges and universities today is that they could never pinpoint and reveal the specific problem the way that the Holy Spirit can. Still, professional Christian Counselors are required to learn the same theories and counseling techniques as secular counselors. Many of these theories are intellectually creative, interesting and useful for organizing people into theoretical categories. These theories are diverse and often conflict with one another making them more of an art form than a science. Above and beyond the twenty or so historical theories of personality commonly taught at the college level, there are thousands more being generated every year by doctoral candidates who are required by their dissertation committee to produce original research that generates new theories.

    

   These theories can be confusing to the counselor who desires to know which knowledge is going to be most helpful in the establishment of their counseling perspective. Most secular counselors deal with this ever-increasing confusion by becoming “eclectic” and picking whatever theories fit their belief system for the moment. If truth is relative, which it is not, this method would pose no problem. However, the fact is that many of these creative theories, though they are intellectually stimulating, not only oppose one another, but the Word of God as well.

   
   
   
    

   To the Christian counselor, the Word of God is fact, not theory. The Christian counselor knows there are certain unchangeable principles of life that are dependable and apply to everybody. Unlike the fleeting changes of mind found in human thought, the Bible says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His principles for healthy living and recovery from addiction never change even though new symptoms, diseases, mental illness categories, prescription drugs, new programs, models and theories continue to appear. God’s prescription for inner healing, addiction recovery, and lifestyle change, applies to everything pertaining to man’s mind, will, emotions, soul, and spirit today as well as it did 2000 years ago.

   
   
   
    

   The Solution provided by the Biblical Model

    
   1.  

      1)  The existence of sin as a causal gateway to the initial problem. The causal sin could be either caused by a perpetrator or received by a victim. If neither perpetrator, nor victim, turn to God for relief, neither will receive it, unless God sovereignly gives it.

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      2)  God will allow the development of a state of deepening bondage (known as a stronghold rather than a disease) to form from which it seems impossible to escape on one’s own power to bring the individual to their wits end making them ready to receive His grace and redemption.

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      3)  A state of spiritual bankruptcy accompanied by a feeling of inner emptiness that shatters all other attempts at denial is the place where most people need to go before they are ready to surrender their lives to Christ.

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      4)  Followed by an outcry of one with a broken and contrite spirit for Jesus Christ to forgive, deliver, heal and restore.

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      5)  The role of the counselor is to help the individual through this initial process and continue to help providing biblical wisdom and guidance along the way toward a future of spiritual, mental and emotional maturity.

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      The central motivating force of a person’s life must change from scrambling to feed an addiction to being nourished and fed through a relationship with Jesus Christ. The world says “Show me first and then I’ll take action”, but God tells us to first take a step of faith and then He will give us the power to overcome whatever addiction besets us. If we have nourished a strong personal relationship with Christ, when we do take those steps of faith, we have God’s power to overcome, one step at a time.

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      Read and meditate upon the Word of God (the Bible) for the renewing of your mind. The Bible will shed the light of God’s truth upon those places within you that have caused destructive and distorted beliefs and lead to the changing of inner attitudes that have kept you in bondage. For example, the deep-seated notion that one is doomed to repeat past failures is changed to, with the power of Christ who strengthens him, he can do things he has never been able to do before. Another example is the notion that says he will never amount to anything. This can change to the thought that now he is a man with new purpose and direction trusting God to lead him in the way he should go. As we read the Bible daily, we give God Himself the chance to speak to us about our own lives.

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       Seek more of God in prayer and ask Him for direction and wisdom.

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       Humble yourself and discard foolish pride.

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       Do not escape difficult periods of life until you have a peace and a release to go through another door. It is in our difficult periods of life that God works on us the most.

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       Seek fellowship with others who are also on an upward journey seeking more of God in their lives.

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       As hard as it may be, the person who is on a recovery journey and seeking more of God in their life needs to distance Himself from people who have no desire to seek God and would want to pull the person back into an addictive, self-centered lifestyle. 

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       Find a wise counselor or friend who you can trust to whom you can make yourself open and vulnerable. God will use this friend to speak much need truth and healing into your life.

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       Be honestly accountable to godly friends who care about you.

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       Forsake all pretense and image building activities. God exalts the humble but resists the proud.

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       Trust and obey God. Do not go ahead of Him or lag behind. Do not try to manipulate your circumstances or the people around you. In prayer seek to know where HE wants you and seek to remain in that place until HE has completed the work that needs to be done on you for that season. HE is the author and finisher of our faith. HE is the potter and we are the clay. The clay does not tell the potter how to pot. We must be still on that potter’s wheel and know that HE is God.

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       We must take captive our thoughts and bring them in line with the truth of God’s plan for our lives. We get to choose what we meditate upon, will it be on the seemingly hopeless mess we made of our lives or will it be on the plan that God has for our lives?