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As we can see in the lesson two homepage, there are a wide variety of different models. You also need to note that I do not have every model listed here, only the major ones that are commonly used in both psychology, addictions treatment, social work, and other disciplines. In this section we begin discussing the moral or spiritual models of substance abuse, and these are the models that have been around for many, many years.

So let's begin by going to slide two and start to discuss this particular area. First of all you will notice that moral or religious models have been around for many, many, many years. These are different than the traditional models you commonly hear about in psychology, or social work, or other disciplines. They basically relate to the human spirit. The spirit, according to these different religious models is what makes us different from animals. This spirituality and assorted other things have been discussed by philosophers over the centuries. Ultimately, one of the conclusions that has been drawn on by these philosophers, (not just religious scholars but across Christianity and other religions) is that addiction is the result of some kind of spiritual flaw within the individual.

And as you can see on slide three, most of these spiritual models began with a discussion that relates to alcoholism because the model or the problem that has been around the longest. Basically what most of these models contended was that alcoholism was caused by a lack of morality. The alcohol alone does not cause the addiction according to these model.  Instead, the person becomes addicted because of what they considered important, what they believed: and, in general, (related to Christianity) it was considered to be a sin against God. Also these individuals were thought to have some kind of character deficit. They were morally weak in some way, and as a result, the reason why they drank.

A lot of the earlier spiritual models also don't talk about a biological cause, or some other kind of cause such as the disease models I will talk about later. Generally, for all spiritual models, the personality was the problem.  The moralistic aspects of the individual is the big idea, not anything else. And, ultimately up until the 1800's, addicted individuals were basically told to "take responsibility for your actions", "grow up", "find God," etc. If you find some kind of spiritual aspect of living, ultimately the addiction would go away. The problem was for alcoholics and assorted other people with addictions problems is that the drugs themselves (the compounds) caused the person to turn away from what was good or acceptable to the society. And, ultimately turn away from God as well.

As we continue into slide 5, spiritual models contend that the person, although they are using the compounds also begin to be impacted (very directly) both spiritually and psychosocially. As a result, the use of the compound actually becomes acceptable to the individual. So, generally, this person is using and ultimately as they continue to have more and more problems actually become morally insane. And, as we all know, drugs become more important than all the other aspects of the behavior and commitments. Ultimately, the individual’s life becomes self-centered around drugs.

Consequently, as we see in slide 6, the person who is the user begins to use all sorts of defense mechanisms to justify their problems and justify their narrow range of interests. They renounce more and more of themselves in favor of some new belief or some behavior that allows them to use kind some of particular drugs.   As we know and is shown in slide seven, the internal communication of the person becomes very, very clear. Nothing is too great! No price is too high! No behavior is unthinkable to get the compounds.  So, as a result of all this change, as we see in slide eight, the person will lie, cheat, steal, whatever to maintain their addiction. And, of course, everything revolves around the addict. Not only the person themselves, but also the family, the society, etc.

Now, within the spiritual model also comes a variety of different defense mechanisms and many of these have been discussed in psychoanalytic models. Ultimately, all of these defense mechanisms are unconscious and unknown to the person. The classic example we talk about in addictions very, very clearly is denial. Denial, says psychoanalytic theory, prevents the person from actually being aware of the problems associated with abuse or even the use. They help to reduce the anxiety and the person basically becomes very selective in their perception of certain things.

In addition, as we see in slide ten, there is a variety of defense mechanisms that we also use and projection being one of them. That is, you blame others for things that the addict or you do. The addict will also rationalize, they will try to justify the behaviors even for things that are unreasonable or blame some incident for causing them to become an addict.

And finally, there is the process of minimalization. Basically, here, what you are doing is you are using some kind of techniques to minimize the amount of compounds you are using.  For example, you pour drinks in an oversized container, or you only drink it in the evening or whatever it may be.

Now, there is a problem with all these defense mechanisms and shown in slide eleven. Let's say we took a person and they are discussing all these types of things and you, the counselor, are trying to break through all these different defense mechanisms. Well, what might happen if the person actually may not be addicted? Often times when a person says they are not addicted or they are minimalizing the problems and the counselor assumes that the person is in denial. As a result there is often a confrontation about a problem that does not even exist. So here, when you are going to be using confrontation and using other techniques, you need to have a solid and accurate assessment before you are actually confronting the client about their behavior

There are often a variety of other problems as well.  Some of these are shown in slide twelve. The big problem with using spiritual models is that it is very difficult to analyze. Often times the various models have problems with reliability or validity. And this is especially true when one is using psychoanalytic models /concepts as well. So the key is that even though a lot of people use spiritual models, and a lot of people believe that spirituality is very important, from an experimental standpoint it often times have difficult issues in relation to being able to be proven.

As a result, as shown in slide thirteen, there are really two groups. In one group spirituality is dismissed by academics and therapists as an essential part of addiction. However, another group contends that it is very, very important.  It is also not dismissed by a lot of individuals within society nor is it dismissed by many addiction counselors as well. So even though moral models are out there and they may not have a lot of empirical support, they still have major impacts in the creation of public policy, funding for substance abuse, etc.

Well, that concludes this section of moralistic models. In our next section we're going to begin talking about nutritional or diseased models.

Until then, we're hoping you're having a good day and we'll talk with you soon.