Most rehabs will offer some part of their treatment program or focus on the spiritual aspects of recovery.
Some will be more forthcoming than others, emphasising that the spiritual element of a 12 step program is an important one in any recovery.
Others will play the spiritual element down a bit, realising that the overall God question is perhaps the biggest bloc for many people in the recovery.
The above descriptions applies to what could be referred to as mainstream rehabs.
These are very different to what is commonly referred to as a Christian rehab, although there are some who would dispute this term.
One has to be very careful when using the term Christian, as there are many people who will use the term very differently, and have very different meanings for it.
Christian Rehab
With relation to a Christian rehab, there are many of these treatment centers who advertise themselves as Christian rehabs with a particular emphasis on certain areas of recovery.
Generally speaking they promote themselves as being long-term recovery projects, where the emphasis is mainly on a purely religious understanding of alcoholism and subsequent recovery.
Most of these rehabs will avoid totally the 12 step process, and focus instead on an extensive program of prayer sessions, Bible readings, so-called faith initiations etc.
A lot of these rehabs will offer long-term programs, sometimes in the region of 6 to 9 months.
They will also offer low-cost accommodation, and promote the so-called Christian activities as free, meaning that someone can enter this program with relatively little money for a long period of time.
Needless to say these so-called Christian rehabs attract a lot of criticism, in two distinct areas.
Mainstream Christianity often takes the view that this type of religious activity is an extreme form of religious doctrine and indoctrination.
It takes people who are extremely vulnerable and in need of help, and uses that vulnerability as a way of recruiting them into a much more fringe view of religious activity.
The other criticism that these rehabs attract is not quite so generous in terms of its interpretation of religion.
These rehabs are seen as recruiting grounds for a number of the major churches in America, a number of which are regarded as very cult like or having a very cultic dynamic.
Cults
It is certainly true that a number of these so-called Christian rehabs are attached to or part of much larger Congregational churches, many of which are regarded as evangelical, but also regarded as quite cult-ish.
Given the nature of these types of churches, who unashamedly believe in recruiting members as part of their evangelical approach to ministry, it is quite natural that most people who understand the nature of alcoholism and recovery are fairly wary of that approach.
This is a quite different issue to the perfectly valid one of whether this type of religious indoctrination is essentially abusive, but raises an equally valid issue of abuse in its own right.
Whilst much of the work itself, or the motives of people who work there may have some genuine love and compassion in it, the reality is that these types of rehab do offer the potential for a significant amount of abuse.
This is because the people they are offering help to are extremely vulnerable and in need of low cost effective treatment.
A regimen is offered that not only has no clinical basis for its program, but also potentially acts as a recruiting ground for many much larger organisations.
People who work in the mental health field have serious reservations and concerns about this tupe of rehab and its treatment programs.
Anyone who would describe themselves as a Christian, or is looking for some element of religious or spiritual input into their recovery, and is looking to enter a rehab, would do well to firstly avoid these so-called Christian rehabs.
It is a perfectly valid question to ask more normal mainstream rehabs, as to what their approach to religious and spiritual activities is, and what extent these are built into their addiction treatment programs.
Rehabs will vary widely, and it should become fairly apparent which ones are more suited to the needs of someone with a particular religious inclination than others.