Thursday, April 05, 2001

NDSAG Conference 2001

Conference 2001 was the 25th NDSAG Conference. To mark this anniversary the conference returned to Dumfries, the location of the first ever NDSAG conference.

Alcohol Services in Denial
The Perils of Ignoring the Spiritual Dimensions of Our Work

Did you know that recent randomly controlled clinical trials have shown that prayer can enhance the outcome in a variety of physical conditions?
There is increasing evidence that religion/spirituality influences both alcohol consumption and treatment outcome. Yet in our assessment of clients we rarely, if ever, ask about their spirituality. This is an aspect of persons as important as their personality, which will have a major bearing on how the client will approach treatment, and view their responsibility for the problem and its resolution. Similarly we do not consider the role of our spirituality in making connection with others.
AA is the only organisation which explicitly take a spiritual model of alcohol problems. Most mainstream treatments either ignore or deny the relevance of spirituality.
Increasingly scientists are turning to these little researched areas and investigating them using traditional scientific methods. This conference will introduce participants to the main concepts in the field and to the research work going on both in the alcohol field and in counselling in general.

Keynote Speaker
Bill Miller
"Motivational Interviewing" and "Integrating Spirituality into Treatment"
University of New Mexico, USA