Conference on problems of dependence

Below are papers read at the conference on Theological Understanding of the Addiction Problem:
Orthodox and Catholic Approaches
October 1-2, 2019, Sankt Petersburg (continuation)

Theological and psychological specifics of the program "Favor" for helping addicts

Archpriest Maksim Pletnev

These two quotes most fully reflect the principles of the "Favor" program for helping addicts. Indeed, no matter how pompously it may sound, we are trying to be guided by Love in our practice, and we hope that, following the words of Saint James, our activity will help addicts to find the true path. We are confident that our work will change our own spiritual life.

Answering the question "why and what for a person uses psychoactive substances", Christian theology points to godlessness, sinful damage to human nature, passion, sin, captivity of the soul, slavery to sin. The answer of psychology is that a person uses psychoactive substances for special psychological reasons that are formed as a result of psychological trauma, a dysfunctional family, etc. These two approaches can be combined with one concept - "incompleteness of being". This incompleteness, ultimately, goes back to the absence / lack of love: love of God, love to God, love between people.

So, incompleteness of being - incompleteness of love, here is the true and underlying reason for psychoactive substances use. And we want our "Favor" program to be the answer to this incompleteness.

In our activities, we are guided by the bio-psycho-socio-spiritual model of addiction. This model can be applied not only in the addiction issues, but also in some church and pastoral matters: it is not uncommon indeed that answers to the questions that people address to a priest can be found in the field of psychology.

Our program for helping addicts has been operating since 2015 initially as "Gorodskoy Buksir" (City Tug), and since 2018 under "Favor" (Tabor). It was established by the Coordination Center for Overcoming Drug Addiction and Alcoholism (CC) affiliated to the Church Charity and Social Ministry Department of St. Petersburg Diocese, which was founded on September 11, 2014.

Today, in addition to the Favor Charity Foundation, the СC structure includes a counseling center, a helpline, sobriety courses, groups for co-dependent people, programs for deviant behavior prevention, the "Bratsky Soviet" (Council of Brothers) (association of brotherhoods and sobriety communities of St. Petersburg Metropoly) and a number of clubs: spiritual and educational club "Orthodox", cinema club "Zerkalo" (Mirror) and volunteer club "Dobroe delo" (Good Deed).

In organizational arrangement the "Favor" addicted assistance program is implemented simultaneously by the Charity "Favor" and the CC. It operates seven days a week, providing free and confidential assistance to men and women aged 18 to 60 years. Positive HIV status is not an obstacle for admission. Classes are held in groups: daytime group - from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and evening group from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. The main requirement for participation in the program is keeping sobriety during the recovery process.

The general aim of our activities is service to God and people, service of love; and the particular one is to help addicts and their associates by creating a "spiritual therapeutic environment" (STE), which forms sobriety and spiritual life skills. Ideally, this is an environment of love / acceptance / understanding, of a community and collective life. The STE is created in the recovery process as an environment for staff and program participants (co-workers). But we are trying to create an environment beyond recovery process: the STE as an opportunity for a different life.

In the course of our works, we have introduced the term "open recovery", which explains what we are doing: if "closed recovery" means rehabilitation in 24-hour stay centers, then "open recovery", respectively, is an outpatient program.

In fact, we have created a full-fledged outpatient care center for addicts and their associates, which includes:

• Counseling center: a helpline, initial counseling.
• Recovery activity: sobriety courses (two groups - day and evening time), three months recovery process, seven days a week.
• Care for relatives: two therapeutic groups per week.
• Individual counseling for addicts and their relatives.
• Post-recovery program: self-help groups, cinema club "Zerkalo" (Mirror), educational club "Orthodox", etc.
• Prevention program.

Let's come back to the term "open recovery". There is a significant difference in the operation of a suburban / round-the-clock rehabilitation center and an outpatient center.

If in the round-the-clock hospitals it is important that a person stay in not to break recovery process, then in our situation our participants go home every day. And we set ourselves a task to make sure that the program participants return to us, also every day. We set out to arrange the process in the way that all what's happening should be interesting for the addicts and valuable to them.

We create a spiritual and therapeutic environment in which sobriety skills are being formed. They can be divided into socio-psychological and spiritual.

Socio-psychological skills include the following:

1. Defrosting feelings, detection of feelings as acquaintance with oneself. And here we are not unique. Our wards keep a diary of introspection. For the diary a table is used in which the following information is entered for various feelings (anger, fear, sadness, joy, gratitude, love): situations; acceptance / not acceptance; body reaction, how responded; expectations. Thanks to daily diarizing, a program participant discovers himself and understands who he is, learns to perceive feelings, body reactions in different situations, comes to understand his own actions in the context of different situations and sensations.
2. Awareness of one's life, reflection. This is the most important skill of sobriety. The development of this skill is one of the main tasks of rehabilitation.
3. The ability to apply for help. In the conditions of recovery process, a person learns to talk about his problem with fellows, a specialist, and a priest.
4. Self-organization. It implies the skill of planning events of the week, timing of exercises, duties, etc.
5. Self-development, self-education. This also includes studying information about the disease, symptoms, and relapses.
6. Creativity.

Before going over to spiritual skills, I will tell you about another term that has appeared in our recovery program - "soft inchurching". What is it? We stand for conscious participation in recovery - this is the basis of success. Thus church / spiritual life should also be conscious. There are obligatory things in their church life, they are of disciplinary nature: visiting the church according to the class schedule (on weekends); prayers before classes, prayer services. Attendance of these prayers is mandatory, the rest is optional. In spiritual conversations the emphasis is laid on a real religious experience, building of personal relationships with God.

The spiritual skills of sobriety include the following:

1. Sincerity. One of the most important skills of a sober life. Sincerity and honesty are necessary in spiritual life and in relationships with God; sincerity and honesty with oneself, and then with others too.
2. Gratitude. For some participants in our program it seems to be not easy to thank, to be able to see a reason for gratitude.
3. Obedience. Abide by the program rules and instructions of specialists.
4. The skill of prayer. Before the beginning of group classes, a short prayer is to be said, participants say prayers in turn. For many, this is the first prayer experience, the first steps.
5. Participation in the sacraments. We work on the territory of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in the building of the Diocesan Administration; so those who come to us, understand that recovery is based on Christian principles. But there are not many inchurched participants in the program, about 20 percent of all. We bring a person to participate in the sacraments, introduce him to the theory, and propose to proceed to the practice. Participation in the sacraments is voluntary; it must be conscious. Entering into the practice of church life for our rehabilitants usually becomes the EVENT, and the skill and need for this participation is gradually being acquired.
6. The joy of being. This is something that our program participants often lack. An addicted person often is one who has forgotten how to feel joy. We are trying to teach him to rejoice and be happy for others over again.
7. Thinking of God. This is ability to see everything that happens in this world with a spiritual eye, to correlate with Christ, including one's own life. This skill is formed by spiritual studies, experience of prayer, experience of church life, and also by the exercise "My spiritual biography", which is about describing one's path to God: how the relationship with God began, first religious experience, the first prayer, the first sincere appeal to the Lord. The human soul is a battlefield of angels and demons, good and sin, and a spiritual biography should describe the story of this struggle; the story of how the desire for God, for the Church, for good, for victory over sin has grown and developed in the soul. And the story of how one's relationships with sin and evil have developed.

In addition to the diary of introspection and the "spiritual biography", program participants also perform other written assignments, the purpose of which is to develop self-analysis skills and commonsense critical thinking. The recovery program also includes other exercises: lectures on various aspects of addiction and recovery, individual counseling, discussions on spiritual topics, therapeutic classes and group therapy.

About 20% of the participants in our recovery program are inchurched people. But if a believer is an addict, it means that his spiritual life is in a deep crisis. We help the participants of the program "reset" their spiritual life, we give them the opportunity for spiritual revival.

Many of the participants are very lonely. Their life often is like a scorched field. One of the tasks that we set ourselves is to create a spiritual and therapeutic environment outside of recovery program. Inherently, this is a task to create a "space of Christian life" in the city of St. Petersburg, that solves the problem of loneliness.