Spirituality, Community, and Addiction

In Jeff Georgi’s Biological, Psychological, Social, Spiritual, and Experiential Model (BPSSEM) of addiction, which he distilled from wisdom gained through over 40 years of clinical practice, Jeff asserts that spirituality and addiction are often intimately entwined. Addiction robs us of our ability to be fully present making it impossible to “show up” in our own life and in the lives of others denying the support necessary for the recovery journey. In Jeff’s experience, social connection is such an integral part of being human without it isolation can be crushing. Some turn to substances to cope with the pain of social isolation, getting caught in the energy of addictive disease with the drug becoming the primary love object. As addiction intensifies, the drug of addiction pushes relationships to the side and isolation becomes both a symptom and a driver of the disease. At the same time, social connection is an essential feature of successful recovery. Jeff’s clinical perspectives on the roles of spirituality and community in healing addiction are supported by the research.

A recent meta-analysis published in February 2026 by Koh and colleagues at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health reviewed 55 longitudinal studies with over 540,000 participants and found that engagement with spirituality, including practices like religious service attendance, prayer, meditation, and seeking spiritual comfort, was associated with a 13% reduction in substance use. Notably, those who attended religious services at least weekly experienced up to an 18% reduction in risk. These findings highlight how nurturing spiritual and community connections, as emphasized in the BPSSEM model, is not only central to individual recovery but is also validated by large-scale scientific evidence. Spirituality, especially when practiced within a community, emerges as a powerful protective factor against hazardous drug use and addiction.