Christian Rehab

By Susan ~

Imagine, for a moment, that you have hit "bottom" as an alcoholic. You
find yourself jobless, homeless, physically and emotionally ill, and
alienated from family and friends. After a relative drives you to a
detox center, you spend five days medically withdrawing, and then are
picked up by a staff member from the recovery center where you will be
spending the next 90 days. What you do not realize, however, is that
you will be spending the next three months being heavily indoctrinated
with Christianity. This happens around our country every day. It
happened to me. There are many people in America unaware of what
exactly goes on in faith-based addiction treatment facilities. I am
here to shed some light.

detoxification
detoxification (Photo credit: sillydog)
I grew up in a fundamentalist household but managed to stop attending
church when I left home for school at age 18. After a year at the
university I no longer believed that Christianity was the ultimate
truth, as I had when I was younger and had experienced years of
hard-core indoctrination. Looking back, I would consider myself a
universalist. By my second year, I was aware of the fact that drinking
alcohol was becoming a problem for me. I drank more (and more often)
than the other students (which you can imagine was quite a bit, being
in college and all), and would always drink to get drunk. These early
years were only the beginning of what was to become a decade-long
battle with alcoholism.

After graduation, things were good. I had a great job, a nice place to
live, and lots of friends, although my drinking was beginning to
escalate. If you or someone close to you is an alcoholic, you will
probably recognize the pattern of events which brought me to the
rehabilitation facility mentioned at the beginning of the story: my
drinking became progressively worse until I could no longer function.
I ended up losing my job, my apartment, my fiancée, and most of my
friends. After emerging from the five-day detox, I was at my most
fragile state. I thought I had lost everything. I had no one to turn
to. I was an emotional wreck. And where was I going to receive help
for putting my life back together? A fundamentalist Christian drug and
alcohol treatment facility.

The facility consisted of a dormitory, a few trailers, an old church,
and a camp-style dining hall. Were there any licensed therapists,
psychologists, or medical personnel on staff? No! After spending a few
lessons learning about addiction and attending a few outside AA
meetings, the real indoctrination began. We learned about Christianity
day-in and day-out. Jesus would solve our problems. Jesus would take
away our addiction with earnest prayer. I thought it was
foolishness...at first. After the first month, the religious
indoctrination of my childhood began to kick in. I began to remember
bible verses and stories, as well as hell and the Devil. The Devil
wanted me to drink; he wanted to prevent me from returning to Christ
and being a witness for God. After all, I left the church and now look
at me! I am nothing without God! There were even posters on the wall
that said "I am nothing without God," reinforcing the garbage being
forced on patients by the "staff." And just who were these staff
members? Some of them were formers addicts who had been through the
program, all of them were fundamentalist Christians, and none of them
had a certification or degree in counseling, psychology, or medical
training.

When I left this rehab after 90 days, I was outwardly well but
inwardly sicker than before I entered. I was completely brainwashed on
religion. I would spend the next four years back in the clutches of a
fundamentalist hell. My deconversion began while attending a strict,
Calvinist congregation. I sat attentively every week and listened to
the preacher teach lessons from the Bible. Instead of being inspiring,
I began to hear them for what they actually were: misogynist, racist,
child-hating, brutal, bloody, inconsistent, incoherent, and utterly
outrageous and unconscionable stories. I had no choice but to leave
the church and Christianity forever.

In retrospect, I believe that I never would have been re-introduced to
Christianity had I not been preyed upon by Christians looking for an
easy target. There is no place for religion in addiction treatment. It
only serves to make the patient sicker, their mind enslaved to an
imaginary god. As for those who will argue that a Christian treatment
program is better than no treatment, I would emphatically say that a
Christian treatment program is not a treatment program at all. Not
really. It is a setting in which Christian proselytizers can control
the weak and impressionable...the same way that they target children
in vacation Bible school. I actually left AA because of its
similarities to church. Twelve-step programs are not the only way to
maintain sobriety, there are other methods available, and absolutely
no one needs religion or God to stop drinking. Those who escape
addiction are ultimately doing so by their own power.