FINDING MEANING IN LIFE KEY TO CURING ADDICTION

Treatment for addiction--whether it's to alcohol, crystal meth, or
gambling--often includes counselling, support groups, or medication.
But some say that what's missing from successful therapy is an
altogether different element: a sense of meaning. Experts from around
the world, along with addicts and those in recovery, are meeting in
Vancouver to explore the vital role that spirituality plays in helping
people overcome chronic dependency.

New Jersey-based psychologist Stanton Peele is a firm backer of meaning as
a crucial remedy for addiction. He'll be speaking at the International
Conference on Personal Meaning: Addiction, Meaning, and Spirituality, which
takes place Thursday through Sunday (July 20 to 23) at the Hilton Vancouver
Metrotown. In a phone interview with the Georgia Straight, Peele says
people aren't motivated to give up a drug or habit just because it's bad
for them or because their nearest and dearest want them to stop.

"People who use alcohol and drugs and don't become addicted have
things that are more important to them that prevent them from being
submerged in the drug experience," says Peele, who is also an
attorney. "At the other end of the process, when people overcome
addiction, it virtually always boils down to something more important,
something beyond themselves. People always have some higher goal
that prevents addiction or enables them to overcome addiction.

"Lack of a higher purpose, lack of concern for other people, lack of
involvement with higher goals, lack of commitment to community: those
are all significant [risk] factors for who's likely to become
addicted .People have different ways they quit addictions, but
that's all secondary to motivation. Motivation comes from something
being more important to them."

The solution, Peele stresses, isn't an anti-addiction pill, which the
U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse is actively investigating.
(According to the June 25 New York Times magazine, that group and the
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism are studying or
financing studies into more than 200 addiction medications.)

"It's impossible to describe why people become addicted or how they
get over addiction in terms of purely chemical effects of what they're
addicted to," he says. "That just doesn't get you anywhere."

Although the notion of a higher power shows up in 12-step programs
like Alcoholics Anonymous--members turn their lives over to God as
they understand him or some other greater force--Peele is critical of
that particular approach.

"One of the things that's wrong with treatment in America is people
impose their values on clients. The better way to help people
overcome addictions is to explore their own values, to find what's
going to give them leverage to overcome their addiction. That's
appropriate psychological technique, as opposed to religious
didacticism where you're kind of beating people over the head with
what you think is a good idea."

According to its Web site, AA is not allied with any sect, denomination,
politics, organization, or institution. Peele's views on the group's
philosophy won't necessarily align with those of all the 80 other speakers
attending the conference, which is being hosted by the Langley-based
International Network on Personal Meaning. George Vaillant, a professor of
psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, will give a public lecture called
"Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure?" on Sunday (July 23). (Vaillant's talk
is free. For conference details, go to the INPM Web site at www.meaning.ca/.)

And although Ohio theology professor Linda Mercadante will discuss the
role of religion in the healing of addictions, any concerns that the
Vancouver forum is going to be overly heavy on what Owen Wilson's
character in Meet the Parents refers to as JC are quashed by INPM
executive director Paul Wong. He stresses that the organization is
nonreligious and nonpartisan. What distinguishes INPM from other
spiritual groups is its emphasis on scientific research into the
positive psychology of meaning.

Wong started the nonprofit INPM in 1998 because, at the time, there
was little such study into meaning and its role in clinical practice.
He says he is inspired by Viktor E. Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist
who in 1946 wrote Man's Search for Meaning. The book covers his
experiences in a concentration camp and how he found the will to go on
despite his terrible circumstances.

Wong himself knows a thing or two about addiction and spirituality:
he's a registered clinical psychologist and an ordained pastor.

"People dealing with addiction need some kind of epiphany to become
aware that if there are no changes they will die of overdose. Hitting
rock bottom is a turning point," Wong says in a phone interview. "Then
they seek help and enter rehab. But an epiphany is not sufficient.
They need another epiphany where they say 'Ahhh, this is my passion
for life, this is what I want to do, this is my future.' Without
future, there is no life. They need a second epiphany. This conference
is about helping people discover their second epiphany."

In his 2005 paper for the Salvation Army's Vancouver Community and
Family Services called Meaning-Centred Approach to Addiction
Prevention, Treatment and Recovery, Wong points out some of the
problems with Vancouver's Four Pillars approach. It fails to recognize
two root causes of addiction: dislocation and "existential vacuum", or
meaninglessness, Wong writes. The latter leads to chronic feelings of
boredom and despair.

The treatment goals of the meaning-centred approach include not only
recovery from addiction but also restoring a person to wholeness. MCA
rests on a tragic sense of optimism: it recognizes bleak reality but
believes that there is hope for every addict.

Wong says the conference aims to help addicts themselves find that
hope.

"You don't have to believe 'once an addict, always an addict,'?" he
says. Besides sessions about logotherapy and the need for
evidence-based research into meaning, the INPM conference also has
seminars on yoga and Buddhist Vipassana meditation.

"This is for people looking for encouragement on the journey to
wholeness," Wong says. "Which new path do you want to pursue?"