GIG1004

KURSUS LITERASI MAKLUMAT

SEMESTER 1, TAHUN 2016/2017
Project Title

: Discuss How Religious Approach Can Help to Control Alcoholism

Name

: Ahmad Haikal bin Ahmad Mochtar

Matric Card Number : CIC160001

Class Group Number : 33
Name of Facilitator

: Encik Nasaruddin Saravanan bin Ramu

Date of Submission

: December 13th, 2016

1.0 Introduction
Alcoholism, which is defined as an extreme addiction to alcoholic substances and
behaving compulsively because of dependence towards the substances has been a menace
to society. Because of that, there has been many methods and medications developed in
the field of medicine specifically to treat alcoholism and alcoholics. These methods
generally rely on medication such as medicine to suppress addiction. However, in the
modern times there has been research and development in the usage of religious approach
within the field of medicine to solve the issue of alcoholism. Despite religion being
considered as something spiritual and subjective in contrast to current medication
techniques that are considered as objective, physical and predictable, medical scientists
and psychologists working in handling alcoholism found a positive correlation between
religious methods and success in alcoholism treatment.

2.0 Search Strategies

In fulfilling the requirement of the topic which is Discuss How Religious Approach Can
Help to Control Alcoholism, there are several search strategies that has been employed to
find relevant information to the topic.
First, the keywords of this topic were analysed and extracted from the topic. In this case,
the keywords were Religious and Alcoholism. These synonyms were found using
thesaurus, and were listed. The words were: Theological, Spiritual and Divine and

Dipsomania, Alcohol Dependence and Methomania. Using the Boolean concepts AND
and OR the search statements were developed. The search statements were (Religious
OR Theological) AND (Alcoholism or Methomania) and (Religio* OR Spiritual) AND
(Alcoholism or Dipsomania).
After that, references related to the topic were searched at Pendeta Discovery WebPAC
University of Malaya by inputting the keywords into the search box. This was done to
simplify the need of searching for resources related to the topic since there was no need to
search for related materials physically in the university library. The results that were
relevant to the topic were saved and noted, and the information regarding the sources of
information were noted down.
Then, references were searched from online databases that the university has subscribed
to through UM Library website. Similar with searching at Pendeta WebPAC, the
keywords were inputted into the search box and some specifications were done to allow
for better search of information. Then, the information regarding the online database and
the resource chosen were noted down.
After that, information regarding the topic was found by searching websites relevant to
the topic. This is done by surfing the web and searching for the keywords of the topic
using search engines such as Google and Yahoo. After finding websites that possessed
relevant information, the websites and online information sources were analyzed from the
aspects of authority, objectivity, accuracy, coverage and currency. After considering all
the five factors then the sites were chosen as source of information.
3.0 Objectives
To find out the methods of religious approaches used to control and treat
alcoholism.
To determine the level of success in using religious approaches to treat and control
alcoholism
To discover how religion and spirituality can affect alcoholics and treat them.

4.0 Literature Review

Religious affiliation, spirituality, and spiritual practices often have been studied as
protective factors in the prevention and treatment of hazardous alcohol consumption
(defined as drinking at a level that causes significant problems in functioning or that
increases potential harms) and alcohol use disorder (AUD). Specifically, researchers have
been interested in whether spirituality and spiritual practices, commonly associated with
personal transformation, may also help in personal transformation of substance use
behaviors. Personal transformation may involve elementssuch as mindfulness and
acceptance of a problemthat form the bases of behavioral treatments for substance use
disorders, including AUD. Therefore, researchers are interested in whether spirituality can
have a positive influence on AUD recovery. (Witkiewitz K., M. E., Kirouac M., 2016).
The results indicated that there was a robust association between an increase in
attendance to AA meetings with increased spirituality and a decrease in the frequency and
intensity of alcohol use over time. One of the most interesting aspects of the research was
that the same amount of recovery was seen in both agnostics and atheists, which indicates
that while spirituality is an important mechanism of behavioral change for AA, it is not
the only method used. (Nurses, A. S. o. R., December 2010)
Spirituality and religiousness are positively associated with alcohol treatment outcome in
some studies. In one such study, spirituality scores increased during treatment for all
patients, but spirituality scores declined at follow-up for those who relapsed, while scores
for those who stayed abstinent did not decline. Existential well-being and intrinsic

religiosity (defined as beliefs that are internalized, as opposed to extrinsic religiosity,

which is religiosity for external reasons) have also been found to increase over the course
of outpatient treatment. Further, abstinence at one year after treatment has been strongly
predicted by existential well-being scores at discharge from treatment. Increases in
spirituality and religiousness have been associated with increased likelihood of no heavy
drinking six months after treatment, and spirituality and religiousness changes at six
months have been predictive of drinking outcomes nine months after treatment, after
controlling for AA involvement and baseline drinking. Spiritual coping is one of many
coping strategies associated with increased abstinence during the year after starting
treatment. (Martin A. R., E. V. J., Tzilos G. K., & Rohsenow D. J., 2016)
References for Literature Review:
Martin A. R., E. V. J., Tzilos G. K., & Rohsenow D. J. (2016). General and religious
coping predict drinking outcomes for alcohol dependent adults in treatment. The
American Journal of Addictions, 24(3), 240-245.
Nurses, A. S. o. R. (December 2010). Effects of Spirituality on Alcohol Dependence in
Alcoholics Anonymous. Retrieved from https://www.asrn.org/journal-advanced-practicenursing/838-effects-of-spirituality-on-alcohol-dependence-in-alcoholics-anonymous.html
Witkiewitz K., M. E., Kirouac M. (2016). Religious Affiliation and Spiritual Practices: An
Examination of the Role of Spirituality in Alcohol Use and Alcohol Use Disorder.
Alcohol Research: Current Reviews, 38(1).

5.0 References

Albar, M. A. (1993). Masalah Arak dan Penyelesaiannya Menurut Islam. Kubang Kerian:
Pustaka Reka.
Badri, M. B. (1976). Islam and alcoholism: Islam, alcoholism and the treatment of Muslim
alcoholics. Indianapolis: American Trust Publications.
Fletcher M. A., M. H. (2001). Sober for Good New Solutions for Drinking Problems
Advice from Those Who Have Succeeded. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 38(1), 97-98.
Johnson J. T., S. V. L., Kristeller J. L. (2008). Identifying Mediators of the Relationship
Between Religiousness/Spirituality and Alcohol Use. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and
Drugs, 69(1), 160-170.
M., G. (2008). The Concept of Spirituality in Relation to Addiction Recovery and General
Psychiatry. Recent Developments in Alcoholism, 18, 125-140.
Maltzman, I. (2008). Alcohol: Its Treatments and Mistreatments. New Jersey: World
Scientific.
Neighbors C., B. G. A., Dibello A. M., Rodriguez L. M., & Foster D. W. (2013). Reliance on
God, Prayer and Religion Reduces Influence on Perceived Norms on Drinking. Journal of
Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 74(3), 361-368.
Robinson E. A. R., K. A. R., Webb J. R., & Brower K. J. (2011). Six-Month Changes in
Spirituality and Religiousness in Alcoholics Predict Drinking Outcome at Nine Months.
Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 72(4), 660-668.
S., C. (1993). Spirituality and purpose in life in alcoholism recovery. Journal of Studies on
Alcohol and Drugs, 54(3), 297-301.
S., Z. E. (2008). An Overview of Spirituality in AA (and Recovery). Recent Developments in
Alcoholism, 18, 111-123.
Winter T., K. S., Rose R. J. (2002). Does Religiousness Explain Regional Differences in
Alcohol Use in Finland? Alcohol and Alcoholism, 37(4), 330-339.

6.0 Conclusion
In a nutshell, it is appropriate to deduce that various methods of religious approaches
based on different religions and cultures of man has been used to solve the issue of
alcoholism. Despite being a spiritual method rather than a quantifiable method, it has

proven itself to be a successful method to control and treat alcoholism because religious
methods apparently affect the level of spirituality in patients which lead to better selfcontrol against the urge for alcohol and compulsion that followed it. Thus, this method is
expected to be more widespread in solving the problem of alcoholics in the future in
addition to medication and ordinary counselling sessions.