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19 / 02 / 25
Editor’s Note:
At the Faith and Belief Forum we love hearing from people who are engaging in exciting and innovative work that intersects with faith. Rhys got in touch about a unique research project he was undertaking about how faith communities interact with and can support those struggling with addiction. I asked Rhys to write a blog and hope that some of our readers can get involved in his research. We look forward to hearing more about the findings when the project is completed.
My name is Rhys Rocha, I am currently a student at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) in the final year of my degree for Psychology.
I had been born into a Catholic household and over time had grown away from my faith, but as of recently, I have found myself coming back into touch with my spirituality again.
One reason why I had distanced myself from the Church when I was younger was the attitude I saw in some of the individuals I was around. Oftentimes they would see struggling homeless or drug addicted individuals and would simply say they’ll ‘pray for them’ later, rather than actually taking practical steps in helping them. I also witnessed community members hold unfortunate stereotypes towards addicted individuals as if they had committed a grave sin against God – rather than viewing them with compassion or stretching out the helping hand that they so desperately needed.
However, I believe that God would want to help all people no matter what, and I also believe that communities need to reach out to spread God’s will proactively, breaking ideas that addicted individuals can’t be helped.
While I was still thinking of what to conduct my study on, I came across a paper, which describes a researcher implementing a drug intervention treatment called ‘methadone maintenance’ inside of a mosque in Malaysia (Rashid et al., 2014).
Methadone is an opiate – something I’m sure many individuals across all backgrounds will frown down upon; perhaps they will be shocked at the idea of drug treatment taking place inside a religious building – even I was.
But this research intrigued me – one of the main factors attracting individuals to the treatment was their religion. Some provide overwhelmingly positive accounts of their treatment saying “I am becoming the person I wanted to be earlier in life,” and “I do not feel shamed by my children and family.”
This opened up a new angle to my understanding of drug addiction: some religious communities may contain addicted individuals (for example, 1 in 5 Catholics have been intoxicated during mass and at least 15% of Protestants were doing drugs in between sermons) – and these addictions may extend beyond drugs.
Due to the nature of many religious communities and the desire for modesty, these individuals are rarely seen, spoken about, or helped. Allowing interventions to take place within religious communities however, where some individuals might feel safer alongside other benefits, would likely be greatly beneficial to tackling the problem of addiction all around the world. This is especially as addiction becomes a multifaceted problem – it becomes more than just the substance or the habit and the consequences include financial problems, mental health struggles, and ostracisation from community.
My study is about spirituality, drug addiction, harm reduction, and drug addiction interventions in religious service attendees.
I would like to invite those of you who attend a religious service at least once a month to participate in an interview that will last approximately one hour. All faiths are welcome to participate.
This study is examining these factors to understand how to help drug addicts live more safely and beat their addiction. The interview will be conducted online and both audio and video will be recorded, for use in my study. It is extremely vital to note that these recordings will be seen by no one other than me and my supervisor. When using your interviews in the write-up of my report, I will make sure to anonymise all participants by giving them a false name and also ensure that all verbatim quotes in the paper are all scrubbed of all identifying information.
If you’d like to participate or you have more questions for me, please contact me using the email address below: N1094747@my.ntu.ac.uk
References
Mosque Methadone Maintenance study:
Rashid, R. A., Kamali, K., Habil, M. H., Shaharom, M. H., Seghatoleslam, T., & Looyeh, M. Y. (2014). A mosque-based methadone maintenance treatment strategy: Implementation and pilot results. International Journal of Drug Policy, 25(6), 1071–1075. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2014.07.003
