*Article* **Do Involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous and Religiousness Both Directly and Indirectly through Meaning in Life Lead to Spiritual Experiences?**

**Marcin Wnuk**

Department of Psychology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Pozna ´n, 60-568 Pozna ´n, Poland; marwnu@amu.edu.pl

**Abstract:** Spirituality is a key element of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) recovery. However, little is known about the potential religious and secular sources of spiritual experiences in AA fellowship. The aim of the study was to verify if in a sample of AA participants, meaning in life mediates the relationship between their religiousness and spiritual experiences, as well as between their involvement in AA and spiritual experiences. The study sample consisted of 70 Polish AA participants, and the following tools were used: the Alcoholics Anonymous Involvement Scale (AAIS); Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire (SCSORFQ); Purpose in Life Test (PIL); two one-item measures regarding frequency of prayer and Mass attendance; and the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale (DSES) duration of AA participation, which was positively related to involvement in addiction self-help groups and religiousness. Involvement in AA and religiousness were positively related to meaning in life, which in turn positively correlated with spiritual experiences. This research indicated that in a sample of AA participants, finding meaning in life partially mediates the relationship between religiousness and spiritual experiences, as well as fully mediating the relationship between involvement in AA and spiritual experiences. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

**Keywords:** Alcoholics Anonymous; religiousness; involvement in self-help groups; meaning in life; spiritual experiences; mediator variable

### **1. Introduction**

According to the literature on alcohol-dependent individuals, involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is related to positive outcomes such as sobriety (Zemore 2007; Kaskutas et al. 2003), lower likelihood of relapse (Sheeren 1988), fewer psychiatric severity and depressive symptoms (Galanter et al. 2012), and lower anxiety (Galanter et al. 2012). Recent longitudinal studies have indicated that the AA attendance indirectly, through improving individuals' spirituality, decreased alcohol consumption (usually through sobriety; Kelly et al. 2011; Krentzman et al. 2013; Tonigan et al. 2013; Zemore 2007). Besides involvement in AA, another source of spirituality among AA members is religiousness (Pardini et al. 2000; Lyons et al. 2011; Richard et al. 2000). Despite the fact that they may present religious skepticism, most AA participants identify themselves as spiritual but not religious (McClure and Wilkinson 2020). In comparison to participants of other therapeutic programs for alcohol addiction, AA members also significantly more frequently declare that spirituality is not the same as religiousness (Atkins and Hawdon 2007).

According to Kurtz and White (2015), it is reasonable to distinguish between two groups of participants within AA fellowship: religious spirituality followers and secular spirituality followers. These two groups, which differ in attitude toward spirituality, reflect two different means of spiritual growth in self-help groups, with the first based on religiousness and the second on AA involvement. In the first group, religion can be a framework for having a meaning-oriented system (Silberman 2005), leading to spiritual

**Citation:** Wnuk, Marcin. 2021. Do Involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous and Religiousness Both Directly and Indirectly through Meaning in Life Lead to Spiritual Experiences? *Religions* 12: 794. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100794

Academic Editors: Bernadette Flanagan and Noelia Molina

Received: 31 July 2021 Accepted: 17 September 2021 Published: 23 September 2021

**Publisher's Note:** MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

**Copyright:** © 2021 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

growth. In the second group, the source of a framework for a meaning-oriented system that facilitates spiritual experiences can be the AA philosophy (Alcoholics Anonymous 2001). Little is known about the mechanisms through which involvement in AA and religiousness influence the spiritual experiences of AA participants. In particular, in addiction literature, a lack of precise, well-established definitions for spirituality and religiousness have led to some misunderstandings, as has using them interchangeably (Kelly 2017).

Religiousness and spirituality are separate but overlapping constructs, with spirituality being a broader concept than religiousness (Baumsteiger and Chenneville 2015). Spiritual experiences can be results of both religious practices (King et al. 2020) and some secular activities, such as involvement in AA (Krentzman et al. 2017). Spiritual experiences are conceptualized as a feeling God's presence, feeling deep inner peace or harmony, feeling spiritually touched by the beauty of creation, experiencing a connection to all of life, feeling a selfless caring for others and a desire to be closer to God, or being in union with the divine (Underwood 2011).

The aim of this study was to verify two mechanisms leading to AA participants' spiritual experiences. The first one, called religious spirituality, leads to AA participants' spiritual experiences through facilitating finding meaning in life as a result of religiousness. The second one, secular spirituality, offers AA involvement as an antecedent to finding meaning and purpose in life, which in turn positively correlates with spiritual experiences.

### **2. Literature Review**

Both participants who use their own religiousness as a recovery tool and non-religious members who identify themselves as religiously skeptical are involved in AA. The spiritual character of the 12-step program (Kurtz and White 2015; Liisi 1981), a core AA philosophy (Alcoholics Anonymous 2001), has a positive impact on openness to diverse religious affiliations and individuals without religious inclinations. Studies have also proven that the beneficial effect of AA membership is comparable to religion for secular members who define themselves as atheists or agnostic (Tonigan et al. 2002; Winzelberg and Humphreys 1999). Additional research has shown that involvement in AA is positively related to religiousness (Krentzman et al. 2017; Kelly et al. 2011), but some authors have indicated that religious barriers pose difficulties for AA involvement (George and Tucker 1996).

Still, some studies have confirmed that individuals who participate in spiritual and religious activities are more likely to later become affiliated with AA (Kelly and Moos 2003; Emrick et al. 1993). For example, in a study by Krentzman et al. (2017), involvement in AA measured by the Alcoholics Anonymous Involvement Scale positively correlated with private religious practices and positive religious coping. One study of different recovery groups (the 12-step program, Self-Management for Addiction Recovery, Women for Sobriety, and Secular Organizations for Sobriety) also has showed that while the average length of sobriety was similar across groups, spiritual and religious factors were more likely to predict greater program participation among 12-step members than Self-Management for Addiction Recovery or Secular Organizations for Sobriety members (Atkins and Hawdon 2007).

### **Hypothesis 1 (H1).** *In a sample of Polish AA participants, AA involvement is positively correlated with religiousness.*

AA participation differs from AA involvement, but both of these constructs are positively related (Krentzman et al. 2011). AA attendance is a *conditio sine qua non* for AA involvement, but it is not an AA involvement indicator because it does not consist of activities being of AA involvement aspects, such as reading of AA literature, being a sponsor, or having a sponsor (Humphreys et al. 1998). It means not necessarily someone who attends AA meetings for a long period of time must engage in sponsorship, considers himself/herself an AA member, or performs service, although most of the AA participants do this. Previous research has highlighted that involvement in AA has changed positively, but these results are limited to a relatively short period of time, no longer than 6 months (Vederhus et al. 2014; Manning et al. 2012). In a study by Tonigan et al. (2017), a higher

percentage of participants with long AA lifetime histories in comparison with participants with short AA lifetime histories reported higher rates of attending AA, considered themselves AA members, had an AA sponsor, and experienced a spiritual awakening in AA.

Longer AA attendance can lead to growing religious commitment of AA participants. According to research by Tonigan et al. (2017), longer duration of AA participation was related to spiritual/religious practices, such as frequency of prayer, meditation, and thoughts about God, which in turn led to decrease in alcohol consumption and an increase in the percentage of days of abstinence. In another study, positive perceptions of God was related in AA membership (Krentzman et al. 2011).

**Hypothesis 2 (H2).** *In a sample of Polish AA participants, duration of AA participation is positively correlated with involvement in AA and religiousness.*

Besides religiousness (Sørensen et al. 2019; Wnuk 2015), among alcohol-dependent individuals, one of the antecedents of meaning in life is involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous (Montgomery et al. 1995; Tonigan 2001; Carroll 1993; Gomes and Hart 2009; Oakes et al. 2000). Involvement in addiction self-help groups facilitates finding meaning in life for substance-addicted individuals (Montgomery et al. 1995; Tonigan 2001; Carroll 1993; Gomes and Hart 2009; Oakes et al. 2000). For example, among participants of Narcotics Anonymous (NA) in the U.S., involvement in NA predicted their level of purpose in life (DeLucia et al. 2016). In a sample of AA participants from Great Britain, the completion of steps 4 and 5 of the 12-step program, as well as involvement in AA, correlated positively with their existential wellbeing (Gomes and Hart 2009). In turn, finding meaning and purpose in life is an important factor for spirituality among individuals diagnosed with addiction. Indeed, many studies have noted the positive relationship between meaning in life and spiritual experiences among alcohol- and drug-addicted patients (Lyons et al. 2011; Webb et al. 2006; Gutierrez 2019). It means that religiousness and involvement in AA can be factors that indirectly through meaning in life positively influence spirituality of AA, with these two aspects of AA functionality serving as a meaning-oriented system (Silberman 2005) that positively affects spiritual experiences.

On the other hand, some studies have indicated a direct positive relationship between AA religiousness (Pardini et al. 2000; Lyons et al. 2011) and spirituality, as well as between involvement in AA and spirituality. For example, Pardini et al. (2000) found that faith leads to higher self-rated spirituality. Lyons et al. (2011) also noted that the religious spiritual practices of drug-addicted individuals predict their spiritual experiences. Moreover, in two studies conducted by Krentzman et al. (2013, 2017), involvement in AA predicted spiritual experiences of AA participants.

This means that both religiousness and AA involvement can positively influence AA spiritual experiences, both directly and indirectly through meaning in life.

These four mechanisms were tested.

**Hypothesis 3 (H3).** *In a sample of Polish AA participants, meaning in life mediates the relationship between religiousness and spiritual experiences.*

**Hypothesis 4 (H4).** *In a sample of Polish AA participants, meaning in life mediates the relationship between AA involvement and spiritual experiences.*

### **3. Materials and Methods**

#### *3.1. Participants*

The participants of this study were 70 individuals addicted to alcohol who attended AA meetings in Poland. The participants orally confirmed their consent to take part in the study, and the data were collected via questionnaire between January and June 2014. The questionnaires were distributed by a psychologist during AA meetings and collected at the next meeting after the participants completed them at home. Of the 200 distributed questionnaires, only 70 were returned. This means that the questionnaire return rate was low. This was due to the fact that many participants were absent at the next meeting. Each participant answered "yes" for the question about being diagnosed with alcohol dependence—"Have you ever been diagnosed with alcohol dependence?".

### *3.2. Measures*

### 3.2.1. Spiritual Experiences

The Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale (DSES) consists of 16 questions, each with 6 points ranging from 1 (*never or almost never*) to 6 (*many times daily*). The more points scored, the greater the respondent's level of spirituality. Depending on the population, the scale's reliability ranges from α = 0.86 to 0.95 (Laustalot et al. 2006). The short version of this measure was used for this study, which consists of 6 items.

#### 3.2.2. Strength of Religious Faith

The Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire (SCSORFQ) consists of 10 items that respondents rate on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (*strongly disagree*) to 5 (*strongly agree*). Factor analysis confirmed that the questionnaire items make up one dimension that can be called the strength of religious beliefs (Lewis et al. 2001; Wnuk 2017). The scale's reliability has been determined as α = 0.94–0.96 (Plante and Boccaccini 1997a, 1997b; Wnuk 2017).

### 3.2.3. Involvement in AA

The Alcoholics Anonymous Involvement Scale (AAIS) was used to assess the participants' lifetime AA attendance (Tonigan et al. 1996). The AAIS consists of 13 items related to AA attendance and involvement in AA activities. For 9 items, participants respond "yes" or "no". For this study, 6 items were chosen that ask if the participants consider themselves a member of AA, go to 90 meetings in 90 days, celebrate AA birthdays, have and/or are a sponsor, and have had a spiritual awakening. For these questions, participants responded "yes" or "no".

### 3.2.4. Duration of AA Participation

For the question regarding duration in AA participation, the participants responded with their corresponding number of months in AA.

### 3.2.5. Meaning in Life

The Purpose in Life Test (PIL) consists of 20 items concerning meaning in life, which subjects respond to by indicating a field on a continuum ranging from 1 to 7, with 7 representing maximum meaning in life and 1 representing the minimum. The score is computed by adding up the responses to all items. The higher the score, the stronger the satisfaction of the respondent's need for meaning in life; the lower the score, the greater the respondent's existential frustration. This test's reliability, when measured as Pearson's *r* coefficient, was 0.82, and when measured with the Spearman–Brown correction, it was 0.90 (Crumbaugh and Maholick 1964).

#### 3.2.6. Prayer

The scale for measuring how often the participants prayed consisted of never (1), sometimes (2), once a month (3), once a week (4), and every day (5).

#### 3.2.7. Mass Attendance

The participants' Mass attendance was measured on the basis of a 5-point scale consisting of (1) never, with the exception of baptisms, weddings, or funerals; (2) a few times a year; (3) 1–2 times monthly; (4) 2–3 times monthly; and (5) once per week or more.

### *3.3. Statistical Analyses*

All statistical analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics software (Version 27.0). Structural equation modeling was used to verify the research hypotheses. The structural model was tested by applying path analyses to investigate the relationships among the latent variable of religiousness and the measurable variables, such as AA involvement, meaning in life, duration of AA participation, and spiritual experiences. Religiousness consisted of three indicators: religious faith and two religious practices, such as Mass attendance and prayer. Due to this study's relatively small sample size, the Bollen–Stine bootstrapping method for 5000 samples was used to increase the likelihood of the obtained results' veracity.

The following goodness of fit indicators were used: root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), the comparative fit index (CFI), goodness of fit index (GFI), and normed fit index (NFI). RMSEA values less than 0.08, and ideally below 0.05, indicated an adequate fit to the data (Browne and Cudeck 1993). Values of 0.90 or greater, and ideally above 0.95, denoted good model fits for the CFI and GFI (Hu and Bentler 1999); in turn, the NFI should exceed 0.90 (Steiger 1990).

#### **4. Results**

The research variables descriptive statistics are presented in Table 1. R-Pearson correlation coefficients between research variables are presented in Table 2, while the measurement results of the tested model's goodness of fit indicators are shown in Table 3. Final model was presented at Figure 1.


**Table 1.** Descriptive statistics in Alcoholics Anonymous sample (*n* = 70).

(Source: author's research). AAIS—Alcoholics Anonymous Involvement Scale; SCSORFQ—Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire; PIL—Purpose in Life Test; DSES—Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale.

**Table 2.** R-Pearson correlation coefficients between research variables (*n* = 70).


\* *p* ≤ 0.05. \*\* *p* ≤ 0.01.


**Table 3.** Model fit indicators in a sample of Alcoholics Anonymous (*n* = 70).

**Figure 1.** Final model of research. (Source: author's research).

The standardized regression weights for each verified paths, apart of the path between AA involvement and spiritual experiences (CI 95% [−0.122, 0.133], beta = 0.014; *p* = 0.830), were statistically significant. Inconsistent with first hypothesis, the correlation between AA involvement and religiousness (beta = 0.139; *p* = 0.247) was not statistically significant. Additionally, the RMSEA value was less than the ideal 0.05 (Browne and Cudeck 1993), although the CFI and GFI values were greater than the anticipated at 0.95 (Hu and Bentler 1999), and the NFI value was greater than 0.90 (Steiger 1990).

Duration of AA participation predicted both AA involvement (CI 95% [0.264, 0.647], beta = 0.488; *p* < 0.01) and religiousness (CI 95% [0.166, 0.572], beta = 0.391; *p* < 0.01), while it indirectly influenced meaning in life (CI 95% [0.142, 0.373], indirect effect = 0.260; *p* < 0.01) and spiritual experiences (CI 95% [0.157, 0.472], indirect effect = 0.334; *p* < 0.01).

Religiousness was both a predictor of meaning in life (CI 95% [0.131, 0.540], beta = 0.345; *p* < 0.01) and spiritual experiences (CI 95% [0.471, 0.833], beta = 0.677; *p* < 0.01). In addition, religiousness indirectly influenced spiritual experiences (CI 95% [0.024, 0.200], indirect effect = 0.091; *p* < 0.05), as did AA involvement (CI 95% [0.005, 0.169], indirect effect = 0.068; *p* < 0.05).

Meaning in life was also a predictor of spiritual experiences (CI 95% [0.016, 0.486], beta = 0.265; *p* < 0.05).

The tested model explained 42.82% of the variance in the AA members' spiritual experiences.

Religiousness as a latent variable consisted of three observed religious indicators: strength of religious faith, frequency of prayer, and frequency of Mass attendance. This religiousness indicators were intercorrelated. Both frequency of prayer and frequency of Mass attendance moderately correlated with spiritual experiences. Correlation between religious faith and spiritual experiences was strong, meaning that these were overlapping constructs. From the other side, this correlation was not too strong (less than 0.8) to admit that these are the same constructs or that these are indicators that measure the same construct. Additionally, religiousness as a latent variable was only moderate, not being strong predictor of spiritual experiences, despite the fact that strength of religious faith was the strongest observed indicator of religiousness as a latent variable.

Moreover, differences in relationships between observed religiousness indicators and involvement in AA, as well as religiousness as a latent variable and involvement in AA, were noticed. Frequency of prayer and the strength of religious faith were positively related to involvement in AA, but frequency of Mass attendance was not correlated with involvement in AA. Furthermore, religiousness as a latent variable was not statistically significantly correlated with involvement in AA.

#### **5. Discussion**

The aim of this study was to explore the potential influence of AA participants' religiousness and AA involvement to find meaning in life as a predictor of their spiritual experiences. In this model, both religiousness and AA involvement served as potential sources of a meaning-making-oriented framework as an element that facilitates spiritual experiences. However, the hypothesis predicting a positive correlation between religiousness and AA involvement was not confirmed because the relationship between the two variables was not statistically significant. These results are not consistent with previous research (Krentzman et al. 2017), indicating religiousness and AA involvement as related variables that are engaged in the spiritual process. This inconsistency can be explained by differences in research samples, distinct socio-cultural contexts, the use of different measures of religiousness, cross-sectional as opposed to longitudinal research design, and the fact that only six items from the original AAIS were used here.

However, the most important factors that determined this difference seemed to be duration of AA participation and abstinence duration, which differed significantly between these studies. It is also possible that in the first stage of the recovery process, involvement in AA is related to religiousness, because of the restoration of this sphere of life that was neglected prior to sobriety. Another important factor that could decide upon the lack of this correlation was religiousness as a latent variable, which consisted of three observed indicators. Two of these indicators, found by R-Pearson coefficient, were positively related to involvement in AA, but one of them was not. It means that frequency of prayer and strength of religious faith were positively correlated with involvement in AA, but frequency of Mass attendance and religiousness as a latent variable were not correlated with involvement in AA. On the other side, it is difficult to predict if in the model, only one indicator of religiousness as an observed variable, such as strength of religious faith or frequency of prayer, would lead to statistically significant correlations between them and involvement in AA. To verify these assumptions, we tested two additional models. The first one was strength of religious faith as an observed variable instead of religiousness as a latent variable, and the second one was frequency of prayer as an observed indicator of religiousness. In both cases, there were no statistically significant correlations between strength of religious faith and involvement in AA, as well as between frequency of prayer and involvement in AA, despite the fact that both of these models were well fitted to the data.

Meanwhile, the hypothesis regarding AA membership as a positive predictor of AA involvement as well as religiousness was confirmed. This means that for alcohol-addicted individuals from Poland, longer duration of AA participation is positively related to AA involvement and religious practices, as well as strength of religious faith. These results are consistent with previous research that emphasized that AA participation longer than 6 months is positively related to AA involvement (Vederhus et al. 2014; Manning et al. 2012). As in the study by Krentzman et al. (2011), religiousness was correlated with duration of AA participation. These results have confirmed that AA membership facilitates both AA involvement and religiousness, and these two factors are important elements in the spiritual process based on self-help group participation in Poland.

The hypotheses regarding the mediating role of meaning in life in the relationships between Polish AA participants' involvement in AA or religiousness and spiritual experiences were confirmed, but with one exception. In reference to relationships between religiousness, meaning in life, and spiritual experiences, religiousness predicted spiritual experiences both directly and indirectly through meaning in life. Involvement in AA influenced spiritual experiences only indirectly via meaning in life.

The achieved results were mostly consistent with extant research and have suggested that involvement in self-help groups and religiousness facilitate finding meaning in life for alcohol-addicted individuals (Wnuk 2015; Montgomery et al. 1995; Tonigan 2001; Carroll 1993; Gomes and Hart 2009; Oakes et al. 2000), which in turn leads to more frequent spiritual experiences (Lyons et al. 2011; Webb et al. 2006; Gutierrez 2019). It is worth noting that the direct effect of religiousness as a predictor of spiritual experiences was much greater than its indirect effect. This is attributable to religion and the AA philosophy being two different meaning-oriented systems (Silberman 2003, 2005) that allow alcohol-dependent individuals to improve their spirituality through finding purpose and meaning in life as a result of committing to self-help groups or increasing their faith and religious practices.

These two spiritual mechanisms are thus parallel to and independent of each other. Following Kurtz and White's (2015) implications, the first mechanism, secular spirituality, has its roots in AA involvement, and the second, religious spirituality, has its source in religious commitment. Both of these mechanisms can be used parallelly with religiously inclined AA participants as well as religiously sceptic AA members. Even religiously skeptical members of AA can restore their religiousness or experience religious conversion because of AA participation.

Longer duration of AA participation is correlated with greater AA involvement and religious commitment. Religion and AA membership both serve alcohol-dependent individuals in participating in self-help groups as frameworks to perceive, experience, and explain life events through the prism of life philosophy. The two frameworks also offer examples from religious and self-help fellowships to model attitudes in the social learning process (Bandura 1986). Ultimately, they allow AA participants to understand the history of their life; facilitate building a new identity; integrate difficult and painful life events; and make life easier as something coherent, predictable, and controllable. Using Frankl's (1992) *tragic optimism* metaphor, both religious commitment and AA involvement support alcohol-addicted individuals as they transform their tragic and painful situation caused by alcohol dependence into something meaningful. Both religion and the AA philosophy can deliver ultimate life meaning, supporting finding of purpose in life in every situation, especially those most complicated, painful, and difficult to manage (Frankl 1992). Independent of whether religion or AA philosophy lead to AA participants finding meaning in life, the final result of this process is spiritual growth, as reflected in the AA participants' spiritual experiences. Both the secular and religious mechanisms leading to spiritual experiences through finding meaning in life seem to be involved in Neff and MacMaster's (2005) "spiritual transformation". On the basis of social learning (Bandura 1986), the spiritual transformation process includes not only an increased meaning in life, but also, for example, changing perceptions of God, openness to forgiveness, and improved self-acceptance. According to Kurtz and White (2015), AA participants can achieve spiritual growth in two different ways, depending on their attitude towards religion. Notably, non-religious or religiously skeptical AA participants can use secular

support, such as involvement in AA, on the way to spiritual growth, and still experience similar benefits to the AA religiously inclined members, which can achieve this purpose on the basis of religious commitment (Tonigan et al. 2002; Winzelberg and Humphreys 1999). They can also use religious methods to achieve this goal.

This research yields some theoretical and practical implications. We confirmed two independent spiritual mechanisms based on secular and religious factors (involvement in AA and religiousness) that indirectly led to spiritual experiences among Polish AA participants by increasing meaning in life. Additionally, this study has indicated that these mechanisms are results of AA membership. Longer duration in AA was also related to both more AA involvement and greater religiousness, which in turn indirectly led to the participants' more frequent spiritual experiences through finding meaning in life.

From a practical point of view, practitioners, therapists, and counselors can suggest patients with an alcohol addiction to join AA self-help groups as well as partake in religious practices or develop their faith as a potential way to find meaning in life and thus facilitate spiritual growth. For religiously skeptical individuals, creating therapeutic programs and interventions using elements of the AA philosophy as a probable meaning-oriented system, which can lead to spiritual experiences, may work better. For religiously inclined patients, these therapeutic programs should consist of factors connected to religion and faith as a potential way to improve finding meaning in life and spiritual growth.

### **6. Limitations and Future Research**

The conducted research has some limitations. First of all, the generalizability of achieved results is limited only to Roman Catholic AA participants from Poland. The research participants' mean sobriety duration was also relatively long, and the data did not encompass their relapse history and other addictions or diseases that could potentially have influenced their treatment. Additional research is needed to investigate the confirmed model among representatives of other religious denominations, agnostics and atheists, other races, AA members without stable sobriety, and in other cultural contexts.

The sample study was relatively small as well, and the bootstrapping method was used as a good solution in case of *normally distributed* variables. Using a larger research sample, which would also include alcohol-dependent individuals who recently started their AA participation and do not yet have stable sobriety, is recommended. A larger sample could also permit the verification of, for example, sex and other addictions or diseases as moderators between research variables. Further, it is important to verify whether the presented recovery model could be employed for other self-help groups dedicated to both substance and behavioral addictions, such as drugs, gambling, sex, and work.

One of the measures used, namely, the Alcoholics Anonymous Involvement Scale, had reliability coefficient slightly below the acceptable level, which is 0.7. This was probably caused by specificity of AA fellowship in Poland and cultural differences. For example, being a sponsor or having a sponsor is not a common phenomenon among Polish AA participants.

From the methodological point of view, it is worth noting that participation in the research was a very selective process because the questionnaire returning rate was low. The conducted study had a cross-sectional, not longitudinal, design. The cross-sectional research model provides the possibility of interpreting the direction of identified relationships between variables, although not from a causation perspective. For more complexity, however, other potential predictors of meaning in life should be incorporated, as should other religious variables (Sørensen et al. 2019) such as religious orientation or religious coping. This research used one latent variable, meaning that the results can only be interpreted as associations, which could differ from connections between observed variables. Finally, future studies could examine strictly observed and not latent variables in order to show the precise relationships between observed variables and verify whether the patterns of associations regarding latent variables are the same.

**Funding:** This study was funded by author sources.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Ethical review and approval were waived for this study, due to non-potential harming influence.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy of the participants.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

### **References**


## *Article* **Climate Change, Addiction, and Spiritual Liberation**

**Margaret Bullitt-Jonas 1,2,3**


**Abstract:** Climate scientists have sounded the alarm: The only way to preserve a planet that is generally habitable for human beings is to carry out a transformation of society at a rate and scale that are historically unprecedented. Can we do this? Will we do this? Drawing on her long-term recovery from addiction and on her decades of ministry as a climate activist, the author reflects on how understanding the dynamics of addiction and recovery might inform our efforts to protect the web of life and to bear witness to the liberating God of love who makes all things new.

**Keywords:** addiction; recovery; Twelve-Step Program; climate change

### **1. An Addict's World**

The addict looks away. The addict sees but does not see. She does not want to see. There is nothing to see here. Change the subject.

The addict is empty. She does not have enough. She must be filled. She must be filled right now.

The addict carries out repetitive, compulsive rituals that disconnect her from self, others, Earth, and the sacred.

The addict functions like a machine. She repeats the same behavior over and over, despite its harmful consequences to herself and perhaps to others, too.

The addict is ruthless. She dominates, forces, and exploits. The addict treats everything, including herself, as an It.

The addict is cut off from her body. Who cares what the body wants? She ignores and overrides the body, its wisdom and needs.

The addict is cut off from the rest of the natural world.

The addict lies to herself and she lies to others. (*There is no problem here. Do you see a problem? I do not see a problem*).

The addict is numb. She does not feel.

The addict is self-centered, isolated, and alone.

The addict is used to this. This is normal. This is the way things are. Nothing will ever change.

The addict is powerless. She is trapped. She cannot stop herself. She intends to change, she plans to change, she promises to change, she tries to change. She does not change.

The addict hates herself.

Her life is unmanageable.

87

**Citation:** Bullitt-Jonas, Margaret. 2021. Climate Change, Addiction, and Spiritual Liberation. *Religions* 12: 709. https://doi.org/10.3390/ rel12090709

Academic Editors: Bernadette Flanagan and Noelia Molina

Received: 4 August 2021 Accepted: 27 August 2021 Published: 1 September 2021

**Publisher's Note:** MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

**Copyright:** © 2021 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

### **2. A Story of Recovery**

Writing these words, I conjure up my state of mind forty years ago, when I was gripped by an eating disorder. As a teenager and young adult, I ate compulsively. To compensate for the binges, which I carried out in secret, I ran endless miles, tried every diet under the sun, and fasted for days on end. I made endless vows—this time I would not eat more than I needed; this time I would overcome my cravings—but my vows, however ardently expressed, had no power to set me free. Inevitably, I went back to the box of donuts, or the jar of peanut butter devoured hastily and with the shades drawn, lest anyone see me, lest I see myself.

My drug was food. As any addict knows, addiction distorts and numbs our awareness of the body. In those years of compulsive overeating, I paid little attention to my body's rhythms or needs. Feelings did not matter. So what if I was sad or lonely? So what if I was angry, excited or bored? Whatever I felt, I swallowed it down with food and set out for another grueling run. Was it night-time and was my body eager for sleep? I did not care. I would stay up late, make a tour of the all-night supermarket, and eat until my stomach ached. Was I disappointed and needing to cry, or angry and needing to be heard? Quick—I would pave over those feelings and force some cheese or chocolate down my throat. Was my body aching from the abuse I dished out? Too bad. After a bout of bingeing, I would get up the next morning and go out for a seven-mile run, maybe start another fast or launch another stringent diet. Pummel and punish the body—that was my motto. Clear-cut the forest and move on.

Like every addict who has lost control, I could not stop what I was doing, and I saw no way out. At last, through the grace of God, at the age of thirty, I found a path to recovery. Now almost seventy, I sing the familiar words of the hymn "Amazing Grace"—*I once was lost and now am found*—and look back with gratitude to 13 April 1982, the day I walked into a Twelve-Step meeting and held up the white flag of surrender: *Help. I give up*. *My life is unmanageable*. I could not fight the battle any longer, for it was a battle I always lost. I needed help beyond myself. I needed a Higher Power. I had to make peace with my body or die (Bullitt-Jonas 1998).

That day was the turning-point of my life, the beginning of a journey to wholeness. One day at a time, I began practicing the Twelve-Step Program of Overeaters Anonymous and dug into the physical, emotional, and spiritual work of reconciling with my body, myself, and the important people in my life. I began to take responsibility for the first bit of nature entrusted to my care—my body. Day by day I began to honor its limits and listen to its needs. I met regularly with a psychotherapist and began to untangle my inner knots. Additionally, I embarked on a spiritual search. Impelled by an intense desire to know what was real, what was lasting, trustworthy, and true, I ventured back into the church I had long ago abandoned and sat in the shadowed back pew so that I could listen from afar. I longed to know who God was, and how to meet God in my own experience. I began to study and practice meditation and prayer.

My mind, it turned out, was as jumpy as water on a hot skillet. I was surprised by the inner racket: worries, memories, regrets, and plans. Arguments, scraps of music, commercial jingles. How could I love God, my neighbor, or myself if I was perpetually distracted? I learned to bring awareness to the breath and to return to the present moment, disciplining my attention so that I could perceive more accurately what was here. As my mind settled down, strong feelings surged through me. Shame, sorrow, anger, yearning for years, they had been tamped down in my long bout with addiction, but now, here they were, roaring back to life. I sat with the feelings and breathed, learning to give them space and let them be. The feelings ebbed and flowed. They always passed. No one died. In fact, the more I allowed them to come and go, the more spacious I felt, and the more truly alive.

Love kept showing up. When I welcomed everything into awareness, clinging to nothing and pushing nothing away, an unexpected tenderness would eventually rise up from within and gather me up like a child. I went off for a ten-day silent retreat at a meditation center in western Massachusetts. I followed the drill: You sit. You walk. You sit. You walk. That is it. You do nothing but bring awareness to the present moment.

One day I left the retreat house for a walk in the woods. I paid attention to sensations as they came, the feel of my foot on the ground, the sound of birds, the sight of birches, hemlock, and pine. My thoughts lay still. I was nothing but eyes and ears, the weight of each foot, the breath in my nostrils. At one point I stopped walking, overwhelmed by the sense that the whole world was inside me. I was carrying the round blue planet inside my chest. My heart held the world. I cradled it tenderly, weeping with joy.

I did not know it then, but that vision of carrying the world in my heart would become one of the core images to which I would return in prayer in the decades ahead, a place of consolation that renewed my strength for climate activism. Years later, someone gave me a contemporary icon of Christ bending over the world, his arms embracing the planet.1 I caught my breath in recognition. *Yes, that's right. That's just how it is.*

### **3. Climate Change and Addiction**

Two years after starting my recovery I finished what I was doing, made a swerve, and headed to seminary. I needed to know: Who is the God who just saved my life? I was ordained in the Episcopal Church in June 1988. Not two weeks later, I picked up the New York Times and was startled by its front-page headline, "Global warming has begun (Shabecoff 1988)". NASA climate scientist James Hanson had testified to a congressional committee that scientists were becoming alarmed about the so-called "greenhouse effect" of burning fossil fuels. Human activity—driven by an economy dependent on coal, gas, and oil—was pushing the planet past its limits. The relentless extraction and burning of fossil fuels was polluting the global atmosphere with heat-trapping gasses; therefore, the atmosphere was rapidly heating. Scientists were concerned that the relentless consumption of dirty fossil fuels would disrupt the fragile balance of life. Great suffering lay ahead if we did not change course. We needed to stop what we were doing.

From that day forward, I began to track news about climate change. It became increasingly clear that the society in which I lived was behaving with the reckless abandon of an addict. In the ruthless push to drill oil wells, construct pipelines, blow off mountaintops, devour forests, and gobble up every last resource of the planet, we are laying waste to the land, air, and water upon which all life depends. The most vulnerable groups—lowincome and Black, Brown, Indigenous, and people of color communities—are those hurt first and hardest by the effects of climate change, although even wealthy and privileged communities are beginning to suffer (Sengupta 2021). The resonance with addiction is haunting: as a society and a species we are caught up in highly destructive patterns of over-consumption and we have been unwilling or unable to quit.

In the months after James Hansen's testimony, a question emerged that became the riddle of my life, a question that fuels my vocation as a faith-based climate activist to this day: If God can empower a crazy addict such as me to make peace with their body, is it not possible that God can empower a crazed, addicted humanity to make peace with each other and the body of Earth?

#### **4. The Shock of Climate Change**

When I step outside this morning, I smell smoke. Haze blurs the heated air. Plumes of wildfire smoke that traveled thousands of miles across the country have reached us here in New England. With every breath, we inhale the residue of forests burning in western North America. Traces of distant trees that were set ablaze in massive fires sparked by unprecedented drought and heat now line our lungs. We are all connected.

Midway through the tumultuous, scorching summer of 2021, the damage caused by climate change is increasingly visible. Each day brings new reports of extreme heat, drought, fire, and floods. (Extreme precipitation is linked to global warming, because warmer air holds more water and therefore deposits more water when it rains—just as a larger bucket can hold and deposit more water). The American West and Southwest

are gripped by megadrought, an extraordinarily brutal and persistent drought which is draining reservoirs, withering fields, and increasing the spread of enormous wildfires. The Pacific Northwest, a usually cool and foggy part of the world, has roasted in record-setting levels of heat. Hundreds of people died in what one expert called "the most anomalous heat event ever observed on Earth".<sup>2</sup> North America is not the only place experiencing record temperatures—so, too, are the Middle East, South Asia, and Russia (Tharoor 2021). Meanwhile, torrential rains have drenched the mid-Atlantic. As much as ten inches of rain fell in southeastern Pennsylvania in under four hours. In China, terrified commuters riding subways stood on seats and clung to poles to avoid floodwaters from record-breaking rains.3 Flooding recently killed hundreds of people in Central Europe, Uganda, Nigeria, and Italy. Famine stalks Madagascar as a drought tied to climate change dries up waterholes and crops. In Siberia, tens of thousands of square miles of forest are on fire, potentially releasing carbon into the atmosphere from the frozen ground below.

Today's headlines are frightening and stark, and they come in rapid succession. Fossil fuel emissions have disrupted Earth's atmosphere and biosphere even more quickly and dramatically than scientists predicted only a few years ago. If society is an addict dependent on coal, gas, and oil, then the addiction has reached its crisis point: Will we change course or will billions of us die, taking down with us the lives of countless other beings?

In a State of the Union address delivered in 2006, President George W. Bush warned of America's addiction to oil (Bush 2006). Of course, our dangerous relationship with fossil fuels does not function exactly like a substance addiction—we are not busily injecting oil into our veins in an effort to get high or experiencing DTs if access to coal is withdrawn. However, our society and economy—indeed, our whole way of life—does function like a person with a behavioral or process addiction: we are wretchedly, tragically—as a Christian, I would add "sinfully"—continuing to carry out activities that quickly or slowly will kill us and that are already killing countless people and other living beings worldwide. More than one Secretary General of the United Nations has called our present course "suicidal". Another word that comes to mind is "ecocidal". Indeed, a global panel of experts is now drafting a law to make ecocide—widespread destruction of the environment—a crime that can be prosecuted under international law (Saddique 2021; Surma et al. 2021).

### **5. Denial and Truth-Telling**

What insights from the dynamics of addiction and recovery might inform our efforts to save what is left of the web of life and our struggle to preserve a habitable world? Six themes rise to the top: denial and truth-telling; isolation and community; grieving our losses; taking moral responsibility; praying the Serenity Prayer; and urgency, fear, and love.

Let us begin with denial and truth-telling. Built into addictive processes is the addict's insistent refusal or inability to perceive the reality or magnitude of the harm their behavior is causing themselves or others. Denial and minimization are characteristic ways that addicts avoid confronting their problem. As we wrote in *Rooted and Rising: Voices of Courage in a Time of Climate Crisis*, when it comes to facing the truth of climate change (Schade and Bullitt-Jonas 2019, pp. xx–xxi):

The American public's widespread denial of climate change has had a stunning run. This is understandable, given that most people want to avoid thinking about something as deeply troubling as the Earth's climate crisis spinning out of control. We humans seem to have a built-in knack for delaying as long as possible the recognition of particularly troublesome facts. Some of us even turn denial and avoidance into a fine art. As comedian George Carlin observed, "I don't believe there's any problem in this country, no matter how tough it is, that Americans, when they roll up their sleeves, can't completely ignore".

However, we cannot ascribe the robust denial of climate change among many Americans solely to a supposed national capacity for dodging reality as long as possible. Nor should we assume that the denial of climate change and addiction to oil is a purely internal, mental problem that springs from a disorder in the brain, as one science writer has

proposed (Stover 2014). Nor is denial just a "defect of character", to use the language of the Twelve-Step Program—it is actually being generated and amplified by external forces, vested interests that have been hard at work since the late 1980s, spending billions of dollars in a deliberate campaign of disinformation to keep the American public confused about the reality, causes, and urgency of climate change (Oreskes and Conway 2011; Gelbspan 1997; Union of Concerned Scientists 2007).

Today, as Michael E. Mann explains in his masterful new book, *The New Climate War*, because the devastating impacts of climate change are now obvious in the daily news cycle, "the forces of denial and delay ... can no longer insist, with a straight face, that nothing is happening. Outright denial of the physical evidence of climate change simply isn't credible anymore". As a result, fossil fuel corporations and oil-funded governments that continue to profit from our dependence on fossil fuels are shifting tactics to "a softer form of denialism" based on deception, distraction, and delay (Mann 2021, p. 3). This is what Mann calls "the new climate war", and the planet is losing.

Breaking through denial, whether its source be internal or external, is an essential aspect of climate activism. Climate activism faces outward: we have urgent work to do on the streets, in boardrooms, and in the backrooms where decisions are made. Mobilizing an effective, systemic response to the crisis at hand requires contending with political and corporate powers that seek to mire us in denial, distraction, and delay.

However, climate activism faces inward, too, as we reckon with our own layers of denial. You do not need to be a full-fledged climate sceptic who challenges the conclusions of mainstream science to be a person who slips into denial. Kari Marie Norgaard, a Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon, has written helpfully about what she calls "the everyday denial of climate change, (Norgaard 2012)" the way that ordinary people who feel overwhelmed by the climate crisis simply change the subject to more manageable topics rather than face their guilt, fear, and helplessness. She connects this with the work of Robert Jay Lifton and Richard Falk, who studied, in relation to nuclear peril, "the absurdity of the double life": the way that people can live in two realities, being aware, on the one hand, of an enormous existential threat, while desperately clinging, on the other hand, to a pretense of conventional, ordinary reality.

We probably experience this cognitive dissonance in our own lives: although some part of us is aware that climate change looms over everything, we do our best to avoid thinking about it and we keep our focus on the immediate concerns of daily life. Friends of mine confess that even though they know that climate change is real, they do not pay very much attention to it: it is too painful to consider; they prefer to focus on more immediate, manageable concerns. In her brilliant novel, *Weather*, Jenny Offill evokes the difficulty of holding in mind both the close-in immediacy of our intimate, daily lives and the terrifying, large-scale reality of the unfolding climate catastrophe (Offill 2020).

Nevertheless, overcoming personal and collective denial is foundational to the ongoing work of recovering from addiction and creating a more just and sustainable future. As a recovering addict, I know how hard it can be to face, and keep facing, the truth: I remember how, in the early months of recovery, I needed to be reminded multiple times a day that I was a compulsive overeater and that a good day was a day in which I did not hurt myself with food. Unless I stayed in touch with allies in the Twelve-Step Program and unless I used its tools and carried out its Steps, it was simply too easy to slide back into denial and into the "stinking thinking" that led to relapse.

Similarly, as a faith-based climate activist, I must renew my commitment every day to dissolve my denial and to face reality as it is, not as I wish it were. That is not easy. As T.S. Eliot put it, "Humankind cannot bear very much reality (Eliot 1971, p. 118)". Can I make daily space in my mind and heart for the reality of climate change? Can I do something each day to keep myself informed, honor my emotional response, and carry out whatever actions I can that will contribute to healing? Just as an addict must renew her commitment to her own recovery daily, can we who live in an addictive society renew our commitment

to overcome denial of the climate crisis daily, and take some action, large or small, that leads to healing?

#### **6. Isolation and Community**

The Twelve-Step recovery process is carried out in community. Part of the power of the Twelve-Step model is the candor of its small group sharing: in every meeting, addicts seeking recovery share the truth of their lives and their desire to be sober (or drug-free or abstinent). We encounter each other as equals, because everyone, whether newcomer or old-timer, is in some sense a beginner and as dependent as anyone else on a power beyond themselves. In that circle of sometimes raw self-disclosure, we share our vulnerabilities and our experience, strength, and hope. Addiction is often called a disease of isolation, and by attending meetings, making phone calls, sponsoring and being sponsored, and carrying out acts of service, we gradually learn to find our place in a larger community. If, as Ann and Barry Ulanov so aptly put it, "Sin is the refusal to get our feet wet in the ocean of God's connectedness (Ulanov and Ulanov 1982, p. 96)", then the Twelve-Step model of healing in community is a release from sin. We are pulled into a current of connectedness that empowers us to set each other free: I may not be able to stop myself from overeating, but you can help me to stop; you may not be able to stop yourself from overeating, but I can help you to stop. To an addict who has white-knuckled countless lonely, failed attempts to kick the habit, entering the stream of relationships in a Twelve-Step Program can offer what feels like a miracle: buoyed by the support we feel all around us, it becomes much less difficult—perhaps even easy—to stay sober or abstinent, one day at a time. The antidote to addiction is connection.

I have never experienced a Twelve-Step meeting organized around recovery from addiction to fossil fuels or to exploiting the Earth,4 but I understand the power of relationships to sustain my work as a climate activist. Who are the people to whom I can confess my confusion, fear, grief and outrage about the devastation of Earth and Earth's communities, both human and other-than-human? Who are the people seeking to move through their own despair and into a life of service? Who are the people trying to amend their lives so that they live more gently on the Earth and who inspire me to do the same? Who are the people committed to making sacrifices and taking risks for the sake of keeping fossil fuels in the ground and protecting life as it has evolved on this planet? These are some of the people I want to be close to, because I can learn from them and grow with them. Even if we never sit together in one room, even if they live someplace far away—indeed, even if I never meet them and never even learn their names—they are my circle of support, allies in my own struggle to live in harmony and balance with Earth.

"Don't talk, don't trust, don't feel"—those three core rules of alcoholic and dysfunctional family systems were laid out by Dr. Claudia Black years ago in her seminal book, "*It Will Never Happen to Me!*" (Black 1981). Some of the other rules include "don't think" (about what is going on) and "don't question" (what is happening). Whenever we gather to talk honestly about the climate crisis, trust each other with our truth, dare to feel our feelings, think about what is going on, and ask questions about what is happening, we transgress those dysfunctional dynamics and begin to build a more authentic and resilient network of relationships. Simply breaking the silence around climate change—speaking honestly to a friend about one's worry or concern—can be the beginning of release from the paralyzing isolation that tells us that climate change is too big, too frightening, or too political to discuss.

Experiencing the healing power of connections extends to our relationship with the natural world. Just as addicts generally treat their bodies with violence or contempt, so most of us in today's dominant culture were raised to override and ignore the needs of the living world around us. Nature was supposed to be at our beck and call, a limitless resource that human beings were entitled to drain—nothing more than commodities to be bought, sold, processed, consumed, and discarded. Many Westerners are only beginning to acknowledge our deep alienation from the rest of the created order and are only now

discovering the deep wisdom of Indigenous traditions and our own mystical traditions, which speak of the essential interconnectedness, sacredness, and mutuality of everything that exists.

Learning to cultivate loving, life-giving relationships with other people and with the other creatures and elements with whom we share the planet is medicine for addiction of every kind.

### **7. Grieving Our Losses**

Facing addiction requires facing grief. Addicts who are beginning their journey of recovery will likely have many losses to grieve, such as a failed marriage, a lost job, a damaged reputation, or estranged co-workers, children, and friends. Furthermore, in relinquishing their drug of choice, addicts are also losing what seemed to be their lover or best friend, the substance or behavior to which they clung—even if they hated it—in order to manage their life. Not only that, when addicts stop using their drug, the feelings that had been suppressed by their compulsive behavior will likely come surging back into awareness: grief, shame, fear, anger, loneliness, confusion, the whole nine yards. Living into recovery, a day at a time, can be an emotionally turbulent process.

Confronting the climate crisis likewise requires acknowledging grief and other painful feelings. Grief is the normal, healthy response to loss, but the dominant culture in which we live does not handle grief well. Many of us tend to sidestep or suppress our grief, fearing that we will look weak, sentimental, morbid, or pathetic. We may also avoid thinking about climate change because we fear being overwhelmed by our emotions. What can we possibly feel in response to the acidifying ocean, the children choking from asthma in our inner cities, the rising seas, the ever-increasing droughts and floods, and the cascade of species being made extinct? Who wants to allow an emotional response to hearing that climate change is already making parts of the world too hot and humid for humans to survive (Mellen and Neff 2021)? Or that unchecked climate change could collapse whole eco-systems quite abruptly, starting within the next ten years (Berwyn 2020)? Or that the natural world is at a far greater risk from climate breakdown than was previously thought (Harvey 2020)? Stunned by the gravity of news such as this, many of us feel helpless and turn away. The scale of the problem feels too big in comparison with our one small life and our limited powers. We might as well cling to business as usual for as long as we can—drive, shop, send the kids to school, earn the promotion, fix supper, check social media—and let someone else handle the bigger problem, maybe the experts or maybe future generations. We might as well stay distracted, busy, and numb. We might as well zone out for as long as possible.

Emotional withdrawal is a natural response to trauma. We are all living in the context of ongoing and accelerating global trauma, even if our corner of the world has not yet borne the full brunt of climate change. It is understandable if we are inclined to anesthetize ourselves and shut down emotionally. However, shutting down is its own form of suffering. As Franz Kafka observed, "You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid".

It is easier to release into grief when we feel supported, understood, and upheld. This is where the power of community comes in. Like addicts recovering in the Twelve-Step Program, we do not have to tremble in fear or shed tears alone. A variety of circles have formed in recent years to help participants grapple with the spiritual and existential questions raised by climate emergency and other forms of collective trauma. Among others, they include The Work That Reconnects, based on the teachings of Joanna Macy; Rabbi Jennie Rosen's organization, Dayenu; and Margaret Klein Salomon's Climate Awakening.<sup>5</sup> Psychological and psychiatric associations are increasingly aware of the mental health challenges posed by social and ecological breakdown and are training clinicians to address these issues in their work with clients.<sup>6</sup> Parish leaders also have a golden opportunity to gather members of their congregation for prayerful, small-group conversations about

climate change and to create communities of truth-telling that allow the honest expression of pain.

We are blessed that many faith traditions provide tools and rituals for accessing and processing grief. Learning practices of contemplative prayer and meditation can be helpful, because they give traumatized people a technique to calm down, steady the mind, and quiet the nervous system. Contemplative prayer, often defined as "a long, loving look at the real", resonates with the Zen teaching, "Stay present to what's happening". In a time of emotional turbulence and agitation, contemplative prayer can help us cultivate trust and patience. We learn to sit still in the midst of uncertainty, to wait in the darkness, to relinquish our anxious and futile quest to stay in control, and to listen for the inner voice of love. To cite the psalmist: "Be still . . . and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:11).

From out of the stillness, feelings arise that may need expression—even visceral, bodily expressions, such as wailing, stamping, dancing,7 drumming, and singing. Expressive prayer is essential to articulating grief, whether we do it together or alone. Lament is an ancient form of prayer found in the Psalms, in the prophets, and in the words and actions of Jesus. He wept at the death of Lazarus, he wept over the city of Jerusalem, and he cried out to God on the cross, using the lament of Psalm 22. Lament is not self-pity nor is it simply whining. Lament is a deep outpouring of sorrow to God. Learning how to pray with painful feelings can help us to grow in intimacy with God and to experience solidarity with everyone who suffers (Bullitt-Jonas 2000). Spiritual directors with an awareness of the dynamics of addiction can help the people they guide to explore pathways of prayer that allow the expression of feelings (Bullitt-Jonas 1991).

Lament, especially public lament, can be empowering. Theologians such as Walter Brueggemann (Brueggemann 1978; Sharp 2011, pp. 179–205), drawing on the work of Dorothee Soelle, Jurgen Moltmann, and Abraham Heschel, have brilliantly shown us that lament is the beginning of criticism of an unjust social order. Articulating anguish and experiencing passion—defined as "the capacity and readiness to care, to suffer, to die, and to feel (Brueggemann 1978, p. 41)"—is the enemy of any society built on ignoring the cries of the marginalized and oppressed, the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor. Lament can end in hope or praise, because in lament we experience the presence of a living, loving, and liberating God. Lament can lead to action, because the more we experience our unshakable union with a love which is stronger than death, the freer we will be to take actions commensurate with the emergency in which we find ourselves.

The climate crisis brings us to our knees. It also brings us to our feet.

### **8. Taking Moral Responsibility**

Basic to the process of recovery in the Twelve-Step Program is taking moral responsibility for one's actions. Addiction is not "a moral issue", if by that we mean that addicts are "weak" or "bad" people without moral principles; in fact, addicts are people with a complex medical disease or condition. However, addiction does have a moral dimension: you cannot be set free from addictive behavior unless you carry out a deep housecleaning. Seven of the Twelve Steps (Steps 4–10) engage recovering addicts in a thorough and ongoing process of growth in moral self-awareness, accountability, and responsibility.

Reckoning with our moral responsibility for contributing to the climate crisis is complex (Jenkins 2008, 2013; Moore and Nelson 2010; Northcott 2007; Rasmussen 1996). Climate change is a justice issue on many levels. For starters, it is an issue of *social and economic* justice, because impoverished individuals, communities, and nations are those who suffer the effects of climate change first and hardest; they are the ones least able to adapt, and the ones least likely to have a seat at the table where policy decisions are made. Climate change is also an issue of *international* justice. As the Union of Concerned Scientists points out, "The world's countries emit vastly different levels of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere (Union of Concerned Scientists 2008)". Climate change is caused mostly by the wealthy nations—developed countries and major emerging economies lead in total carbon dioxide emissions—but it is the poorer nations which are most vulnerable to its painful

effects. The question of international justice becomes even more pointed when considering the per capita consumption of fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia and the United States are tied in first place for the world's highest per capita carbon emissions, far outpacing the per capita outputs of poor nations (Statista 2021). One analysis reviewed public health studies of the effects of burning fossil fuels and concluded that the lifestyles of about three average Americans create enough planet-heating emissions to kill one person (Millman 2021).

Climate change is a matter of *intergenerational* justice, because right now we are stealing a habitable Earth from our children and our children's children. If we continue with business as usual, we will leave a ruined world to those who come after us. No wonder so many members of the Sunrise Movement <sup>8</sup> and so many other young climate activists are angry!

Climate justice is likewise inextricably linked to *racial* justice. In the piercing words of Hop Hopkins, the Sierra Club's Director of Organizational Transformation, "You can't have climate change without sacrifice zones, and you can't have sacrifice zones without disposable people, and you can't have disposable people without racism (Hopkins 2020)".

Perhaps we must speak of *interspecies* justice, as well, because for the first time in the planet's history, a single species, *Homo sapiens,* is in the process of wiping out vast populations of other creatures, and even entire species. Driven by climate change and other pressures of human activities, the world's wildlife populations have plummeted by more than two-thirds in the last 50 years, according to a 2020 report by the World Wildlife Fund (Rott 2020). We are also in the midst of Earth's sixth extinction event. With dismay, scientists are describing what they call a "biological annihilation (Ceballos et al. 2017)". Recognizing that we are now in an emergency that threatens human civilization, one expert commented, "This is far more than just being about losing the wonders of nature, desperately sad though that is ... This is actually now jeopardizing the future of people. Nature is not a 'nice to have'—it is our life-support system (Carrington 2018)".

To push away the horror—and the responsibility—it might be tempting to shift the blame for the climate crisis onto the generations that preceded us. "After all", we may tell ourselves, "burning fossil fuels began long before I was born; people have been burning fossil fuels since the eighteenth century, when the Industrial Revolution began". However, adults such as me cannot get away with that attempt at moral deflection (which is so characteristic of an addict): more than half of all CO2 emissions since 1751 were emitted in the last 30 years (Stainforth 2020). That is, in a single lifetime—ours.

Clearly, the climate crisis is not only a scientific, political, economic, or technical issue it is a moral issue, as well. What if members of a high-carbon, high-consumption society faced our guilt and took Step 4 ("Made a searching and moral inventory of ourselves")? What if we carried out the Steps that follow and took bold, even radical action to address the moral injustice of climate change?

Taking personal responsibility means that each of us does our part to solve the problem. Many of us start reducing our personal and household "carbon footprint". We recycle, we buy less stuff, we eat less meat and move toward a plant-based diet. We do whatever we can afford to do—install solar panels, buy an electric car, eat local, organic foods, upgrade insulation, turn down the heat, use less air conditioning. Taking these kinds of personal steps to reduce our carbon footprint is worthwhile in many ways: they align our lives more closely with our values; they can inspire friends and neighbors to follow suit, making it socially acceptable and morally normative to live more gently on Earth; and they relieve our sense of cognitive dissonance—we know that we are taking action to address an existential crisis. After all, as Lao Tzu said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". Making personal changes in lifestyle may be that vital first step on the ramp to more effective action.

However, do not be fooled—if we limit taking personal responsibility simply to changing our lifestyle and consumer choices, we are falling for the lie that individual behavior is enough. It is not. Turning off the lights and driving an electric car may be the right thing to do and make us feel morally "cleaner", but moral action only makes a substantive difference when we join the fight for systemic change. A societal transformation from top to bottom is what is required to avert climate chaos—that is what the world's pre-eminent climate scientists told us in the 2018 report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The only way to do that is to push for collective solutions, to become politically engaged, and to make it politically possible to do what is scientifically necessary to maintain a habitable world.

In the meantime, fossil fuel corporations are working hard to shift responsibility for the damage that their products cause (damage that these companies concealed and denied for decades) to individual consumers. Like drug dealers, they make a fortune by pushing a deadly product and then blame their customers if they buy it and become sick. A fascinating article by Amy Westervelt explains how, for over 100 years, various industries, including tobacco, beverage packaging, guns, and fossil fuels, "have weaponized American individualism, laying the blame for systemic issues at the feet of individual citizens".9 Westervelt observes that BP "famously invented the ultimate tool for pinning greenhouse gas emissions on individual consumers: the carbon footprint calculator".<sup>10</sup> As she points out:

This rhetorical framing flourishes not only because it taps into America's individualistic identity, but also because it presents easy solutions: simply buy different things in your own life, walk or bike a bit more, and everything will be fine! It also provides a purity test that no climate activist can possibly pass. It's the perfect setup for oil companies: The problem is consumers, not industry, and no consumer can ever reduce their carbon footprint enough to be a credible critic. (Westervelt 2021)

Framing the climate crisis in moral terms gives us an opportunity to understand that effective moral action includes collective moral action. To be blunt, do not be a consumer, be a citizen.

The scope and speed of the climate crisis require more than personal changes in behavior—they require collective action and a push for policies such as pricing or regulating carbon, eliminating fossil fuels subsidies, providing incentives for clean renewable energy, and ensuring that historically marginalized communities enjoy the benefits of clean energy.

Climate scientists are increasingly concerned that if global warming continues unchecked, the Earth will soon pass so-called "tipping points" beyond which possibly irrevocable disaster will ensue (Harvey and Agencies 2021). Is it possible to create a *social* tipping point that would propel a swift transition to clean energy? According to one study (Otto et al. 2020), providing a moral framework for the climate crisis would contribute to a social tipping point and help activate "contagious and fast-spreading processes" that lead to global decarbonization. Using a term from the field of addiction, the study argues that revealing the moral implications of fossil fuels is an "intervention" that would accelerate a rapid global transformation to carbon-neutral societies. Let us start this addict on the road to recovery.

### **9. Praying the Serenity Prayer**

Like most recovering addicts in the Twelve-Step Program, I frequently turn to the Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference". Based on a longer prayer by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, these words have helped countless addicts to search their minds and hearts as they sort out what to hold on to and what to let go, what is theirs to do and what is not. Implicitly, the prayer invites us to rein in our compulsive craving for control and to find peace even in the midst of trouble. It rouses us from passivity and inertia so that we change what we can (and should) change. Additionally, it recognizes that we do not see these things clearly, and need to ask for God's help.

The prayer is immensely useful for everyone concerned about climate change. What is it that I need serenity to accept? What is it that I need courage to change? How do I know which is which? The questions themselves drive me into prayer, and the answers change over time as I listen and learn. I pray for serenity to accept the reality of the climate

crisis and the painful manifestations of that crisis which emerge every day—and I find my way to serenity only as I pray my way through outrage, fear, and grief. I pray for courage to change the things I can—and I find that courage only as I keep entrusting my actions to God. I pray for the wisdom to know what is and is not mine to do—and I try to forgive myself when I get that wrong. The Serenity Prayer is pithy, enigmatic, and as pure as prayer comes—it does not give answers; it simply opens a door to God.

We bring into prayer what we know about the world, so it is good to be aware that many internal and external forces are at work, insisting that there is little we can do to slow climate change. I will mention only two. One is external: fossil fuel corporations are eager to amplify our supposed helplessness to quit using their products. They are delighted when "collapse-aware" people throw in the towel and accept that we are doomed, that it's too late to take effective active to stave off climate catastrophe. As Michael Mann explains, "Doomism potentially leads us down the same path of inaction as outright denial of the threat". He adds, "The surest path to catastrophic climate change is the false belief that it's too late to act (Mann 2021, pp. 179, 223)".

A second message that dampens courageous action is internal: without knowing it, we tend to accept an increasingly degraded natural world as normal. It has been called "shifting baseline syndrome" or "sliding baseline syndrome": each generation adapts to worsening circumstances over time, disregarding the abundance that previous generations knew, while peacefully accepting what remains as fine, or to be expected. We slowly adjust to unthinkable circumstances. As David Roberts explains, the scariest thing about global warming is that we could grow accustomed to it—grow used to massive fires, severe flooding, killing levels of heat—and never experience a moment of reckoning. We could sleepwalk our way to catastrophe (Roberts 2020; Campbell 2020).

Humans have been a successful species partly because we are so adaptable, but the capacity to adapt can also be a moral and even mortal liability. I think of the bitter comment uttered by Raskolnikov, the anti-hero of Dostoevsky's *Crime and Punishment*: "Men are scoundrels; they can get used to anything (Dostoevsky 1989, p. 22)!" I also think of the less bitter, but still bracing quote attributed to Thomas Merton: "The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little".

When does our purported serenity to accept the things we cannot change in fact mask our apathy and amnesia? When does serenity camouflage the refusal to care—what Fr. James Keenan calls "the failure to bother to love"? Rabbi Abraham Heschel insisted that "Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods". Subversive prayer breaks through cheap serenity. True serenity springs not from choosing comfort and avoiding conflict, but from the desire to seek only God's will, to abide in God's love, and to carry out what love requires, even when doing so is costly or difficult.

Once upon a time in the United States, people accepted many things as normal slavery, Jim Crow, child labor, 80-h work weeks, the disenfranchisement of women and African Americans, the indiscriminate use of DDT, and so much more. What awoke them from their "serenity" was the persistent, massive, collective efforts of countless ardent people who were unwilling to settle for so little. What is it that we, too, must refuse to accept as normal? Are we willing to join the movements now rising up around the world—the climate justice movement, the human rights movement, the Indigenous rights movement, and the coalitions—both faith-based and secular—that are pressing to eliminate dirty emissions, restore a safe climate, reverse the sixth mass extinction of species, and create a just society that works for everyone?11

### **10. Urgency, Fear, and Love**

People suffering with addiction do not walk casually into a Twelve-Step meeting. We are not there to pass the time. We are not there to virtue signal. We are not there to pass a purity test. We are there to save our lives. Urgency is what drives a person into recovery. We have reached the point of admitting, as the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous puts

it, that "half-measures availed us nothing"12—not launching another diet, not drinking only on weekends, not shooting up just once in a while. We need a thorough makeover, a transformation which is physical, emotional, and spiritual.

Urgency is what today's climate prophets are conveying. Scientists speak with alarm about the very short time we have left in which to safeguard a stable climate; they speak about the urgent need for "rapid and far-reaching (United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2018)". changes in all aspects of society. We cannot miss the urgency of Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager with the round face, straight blonde hair, and fierce, unyielding eyes, who spoke with such intensity to the U.S. Congress, the U.N. COP meeting, and the World Economic Forum, telling the world, telling the adults who failed to take action: "The house is on fire". Our planetary home is on fire. It is going up in flames.

It is a precious moment when an addict listens, grasps the urgency, feels the heat, and makes the decision to choose life. It is a precious moment when an addict admits that their life is unmanageable, that they need help beyond themselves, and that the time has come for decisive action. It is a precious moment when an addict realizes that the old way of life has to die in order for new life to be born. Will our generation be able to look back with gratitude one day and sing "Amazing Grace"?

Fear is what forced me into recovery, and fear may be what forces society to awaken to the climate crisis at last. Given the predicament in which we find ourselves, we have good reason to be afraid. However, fear cannot sustain us over the long haul—only love can do that.

Therefore, I thank God for all the people who are willing to face their fear, to empathize with other people's fear, and to stand together. I thank God for all the people who refuse to turn away from each other or against each other, but who decide instead to turn toward each other, to join forces and join hands. I thank God for the deep message of all the world's religions: we are interconnected with each other and with the web of life.

As an addictive society wakes from its restless, deathly sleep, faith communities can help to restore our capacity to love God and neighbors. In a sermon, D'var Torah, and dharma talk; in prayer groups, worship services, and meditation groups; in pastoral care, outreach, and bold public advocacy, communities of faith and spiritual practice can renew our intention and deepen our capacity to act in loving ways, to respect the dignity of every human being, and to cherish the sacredness of the natural world. Faith communities speak to the heart of what it means to be human. When people are closing their eyes to a crisis or going mad with hatred and fear, only love can restore us to sanity.

We can be more than addicts on a self-destructive path. Additionally, we can be more than chaplains at the deathbed of a dying order. We can be midwives to the new and beautiful world that is longing to be born.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

### **Notes**


#### **References**

