Resources / Ripples & Wipeouts

Our friend Amy Krentzman recently published her doctoral dissertation on an intriguing topic, spirituality and racial differences in alcoholism treatment outcomes between blacks and whites.  We summarize Amy’s study here.  You may download a pdf of the complete article from Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly by clicking on the link below.  Please use appropriate citations if you quote from or reference the article.

The Study
In the alcoholism treatment field, the health and socioeconomic disparities between black and white patients at intake suggests that blacks will fare more poorly than whites. However, in a randomized control trial designed by Project MATCH — a multisite clinical trial of alcohol treatment — blacks and whites achieved equivalent drinking outcomes. Using the Project MATCH Public Use Data Set, Amy R. Krentzman explored religiousness and spirituality as strengths in the African American community that may account in part for the favorable drinking outcomes. Krentzman’s study hypothesizes that as spirituality and religiousness increase, blacks will be more likely to achieve favorable drinking outcomes than whites. Krentzman,_Farkas,_Townsend_2010.pdf

Because the data set provided a measure of spirituality through its “Purpose in Life” scale, as well as a measure of religiousness through a “Religious Background and Behavior Questionnaire,” she was able to analyze the data from baseline, both prior and 12-months post-intervention, to assess whether participants achieved six months continuous sobriety. The results showed that race moderates the relationship between purpose in life and drinking outcomes — as purpose in life increases, blacks are more likely to achieve sobriety than whites. However, the interaction of race and religiousness was not significant in terms of sobriety.

This study is one of the first quantitative attempts to provide evidence that purpose in life is a cultural strength that provides an advantage among blacks in achieving sobriety — this presents a number of implications for practice, including targeting purpose in life as a treatment goal with measurable objectives; asking more questions about purpose in life and religiousness at intake; and encouraging positive spiritual or religious pursuits among clients.

Amy R. Krentzman, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan Addiction Research Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her study is published in the the current issue of Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly (2010, volume 28).