Spirituality and Quaker Approaches to Substance Use and Addiction

Religions 2015, 6, 385–403; doi:10.3390/rel6020385 OPEN ACCESS religions ISSN 2077-1444 www.mdpi.com/journal/religions Review Spirituality and Quaker Approaches to Substance Use and Addiction Helena Chambers Director of Quaker Action on Alcohol and Drugs, 21 Church Street, Tewkesbury GL20 5PD, UK; E-Mail: ; Tel.: +44-1684-299-247 Academic Editors: Chris Cook and Wendy Dossett Received: 16 February 2015 / Accepted: 30 March 2015 / Published: 8 April 2015 Abstract: The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) has held a consistent testimony of abstinence and moderation regarding alcohol and other substances. This paper outlines the historical background, and describes modern Quaker understandings of moderation. It then outlines hitherto unpublished results regarding spirituality from the only study to date about Quaker behaviour and atttitudes regarding substance use. The association between low substance use and religiosity is established in the literature, but the role of spirituality is less defined. This study methodology allowed an unusually detailed analysis of different aspects of spirituality. Results generally support Miller’s suggestion that idiographic spirituality may have a role in resilience to higher substance use. However, spiritual practice through prayer/meditation emerges as having a more consistent role in the Quaker sample—a finding that is of interest and potential significance in considerations of resilience and recovery. The community dimension of shared spiritual attitudes towards substance use, and the spiritual values that underlie the interpretation of testimony, are also explored. The congruence that some Quakers find with the spiritual approaches of Alcoholics Anonymous is also discussed. It is concluded that spirituality is a significant factor in a Quaker balance that can mitigate immoderate use and support recovery from addiction, without, in general, excluding those who use at higher levels. Keywords: spirituality; religion; Quaker; alcohol; substance use; addiction; liberal belief culture Religions 2015, 6 386 1. Introduction 1.1. Background to the Quaker Testimony on Abstinence and Moderation The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) was formed in the revolutionary England of the mid-seventeenth century. As a radical Protestant sect sharing some common origins with Puritanism, it displayed caution toward the injudicious or recreational use of alcohol from its earliest period. Quakerism’s founder, George Fox (1624–1691), considered this to be incompatible with being a “man of religion” and left when pressed in company to drink more alcohol than was sufficient to quench his thirst [1]. However, George Fox was not abstinent; the water supply was uncertain and “small beer” was the normal and the safer drink at the time [2]. George Fox’s guarded attitude to consumption was continued by eighteenth century Quakerism. As temperance and moderation are virtues proceeding from true religion…we beseech all to be careful of their conduct and behaviour, abstaining from every appearance of evil; and excess in drinking has been too prevalent among many of the inhabitants of these nations, we commend to all Friends a watchful care over themselves, attended with a religious and prudent zeal against a practice so dishonourable and pernicious. (Yearly Meeting in London 1751 [3], 20.38). During the nineteenth century, Quakers responded to the effects of cheap alcohol on the urbanised poor by becoming prominent in the (largely Non-Conformist) Temperance Movement. The term “temperance” was then used in its derived meaning of abstinence, rather than moderate usage. In later years, this general group identification of Quakers with total abstinence waned, particularly during the latter half of the twentieth century. Advice on substance use is now found in a section of Quaker Faith and Practice that is headed “abstinence and moderation”, thus uniting both meanings of “temperance” in the modern Quaker approach: Many yearly meetings hold very strong testimonies against any use of tobacco or alcohol. Within Britain Yearly Meeting some Friends advocate total abstinence from alcohol, others counsel moderation. Those who smoke tobacco, drink alcohol or abuse other substances risk damage to their own health, and may hurt or endanger other people. Such use can deaden a person’s sensitivity and response to others and to God. Consider whether you should avoid these products altogether, discourage their use in others, especially young people, and refrain from any share in their manufacture or sale. Maintain your own integrity and do not let social pressures influence your decisions. ([3], 20.40). This framing of substance use as a spiritual matter, and the need to resist social pressure when necessary, continue the threads first outlined by George Fox. 1.2. Quaker Approaches to Addiction The concept of addiction or dependency as we understand it today did not develop until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. George Fox did not focus specifically on addiction as regards Religions 2015, 6 387 alcohol or other substances. However, he does write more generally about any preoccupation that can gain ascendancy, and construes it as something that needs a profoundly spiritual response: Friends, whatever ye are addicted to, the tempter will come in that thing: and when he can trouble you, then he gets advantage over you, and then you are gone. Stand still in that which is pure, and after ye see yourselves, and then mercy comes in. After thou seest thy thoughts, and thy temptations, do not think, but submit; and then power comes. Stand still in that which shows and discovers; and then doth strength immediately come. And stand still in the Light, and submit to it, and the other will be hushed and gone; and then content comes. ([3], 20.42). To the modern eye, this is surprisingly consistent with current understandings of dependency—for example, with Orford’s work “Excessive Appetites” which outlined the common features between different kinds of addictions [4]. It is also highly sympathetic with the framing of addiction as a “spiritual disease” by Alcoholics Anonymous, and with the idea that surrender (“submit”) is a primary step. “After thou seest thy thoughts and thy temptations” can readily be construed within the “moral inventory” of the 12 steps, as well as within a cognitive-behavioural framework, and it chimes also with the more recent academic studies into addiction and spirituality [5]. A modern passage in Quaker Faith and Practice puts many of these frameworks together, recognises the difficulty of abstinence and moderation once dependency has taken hold, and considers how the Quaker community can respond: For those trapped in substance abuse, such advice [as in 20.40 1 ] may seem hollow. Commonalities exist between addictive behaviours with these substances and other compulsive actions such as in the areas of eating disorders, gambling, overwork and physical (...truncated)