Christian drug and alcohol rehabilitation is an addiction treatment method that is experiencing an increase in popularity in the United States, due to an increase in recovery ministries and the Access to Recovery program instated by the Bush administration. However, the concept of Christian addiction treatment is not at all a new one, but rather a practice that dates back to the colonizing of the United States.
The first example of recovery through religion was observed through out the 1700’s when Christian missionaries began to encourage Native American tribes to reject alcohol and turn back to faith practices. By the late 1700’s, Christianity as a tool to combat alcoholism was found in the medical doctrine of the time, and in the century that followed, organizations such as The Salvation Army began to found colonies and homes to house recovering addicts in the spirit of Christian rescue work.
The early 1900’s saw the opening of the first medical facilities specifically created to treat disorders such as alcoholism, making use of Christianity in their practices. This spawned secular psychologists of the day to write on and even adopt methodologies being used by Christian rehabilitation programs. Alcoholics Anonymous was created in the 1930’s, at the same time a variety of less known support groups and fellowships emerged, of Christian and spiritul origin. In the 1950’s, grassroots movements and organizations, usually beginning in churches, became a more local, urban way of fighting addiction problems.
Christian communities against addiction continued to expand from the 1970’s to the 1990’s, growing in numbers as recovering addicts joined the movement. A new standard of awareness for how to approach addiction reached Christian communities at the end of the 20th century, such as modern intervention models and the face of addiction in different subcultures.
