Chaplains Can Help with Addictions
Don't leave the hard conversation to someone else.
A unique devotional resource that any chaplain can use to help those with addictions
You're on the care team. But when addiction is in play, you wonder how you can help.
You know the feeling.
You do your visit. You read a passage. You pray. You leave.
And somewhere on the walk back, there's a low-grade sense that addiction is part of this story. Maybe most of it.
It's not failure you feel. Just incompleteness.
Here's what I think is actually going on.
The physician has a protocol. The counselor works on goals and coping skills. The social worker has a referral network. When addiction is the presenting issue, every person knows their part in the game plan.
You walk in with a Bible and a willingness to be there — which matters — but you don't have a specific tool for this specific situation. So you default to generic. And generic doesn't reach a man whose whole life collapsed around a substance.
That's not a skill problem. It's a tool problem.
You have a position on that team no one else has. You reach past concerns about the body and the psyche. The eternal questions of a man or woman are your wheelhouse.
What you can do that no one else on that unit can.
A 2025 study in the Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy surveyed 151 VA chaplains who were already providing addiction-related care — most of them weekly. Not because they were assigned to it. Because they were the ones in the room.
The same study found that the chaplains most effective in addiction care were those who could sit with uncertainty and not rush to provide answers.
That is not a clinical skill. That is a chaplain skill.
You are not trying to fix the addiction. You are not diagnosing a substance use disorder. You are not running a group or prescribing a protocol
No physician, counselor, or social worker can hear a confession, speak absolution, or sit with a man in a prison visiting room and read him a word from Scripture written for exactly this kind of bondage.
That is your job. And it is irreplaceable.
The Resilient Recovery materials are built entirely within your lane. Spiritual care tools — not treatment, not counseling, not a 12-step alternative. The Resilient Recovery Workbook contains 57 Bible lessons about addiction.
It’s Easy to Help
Screening Business Card
FREE DOWNLOADFind out in less than 20 seconds if the Resilient Recovery Workbook is appropriate for a person you meet with.
FREE DOWNLOADFaith and Recovery Brochure
No matter what, you can still give them a valuable resource. Download the PDF and have it handy for people of different faiths.
Explore Our Chaplain Kits
Tier 1
$29
Visit Kit
Help one person this week
Workbook—One printed Copy and PDF
Pastoral Companion—Digital Resource
Lesson Picker/Visit Planner—Online tool
15-minute training video
Recommended
Tier 2
$69
Chaplain Toolkit
Build into your rounds
Workbook—3 printed copies and PDF
Pastoral Companion—Digital Resource
Lesson Picker/Visit Planner—Online tool
15-minute training video
1 Training license to become a certified facilitator
Membership including quarterly calls and deep discounts on orders of 5 or more workbooks
Tier 3
$129
Department Kit
Equip your whole team
Workbook—5 printed copies and PDF
Pastoral Companion—Digital Resource
Lesson Picker/Visit Planner—Online tool
15-minute training video
One year of unlimited Training licenses to become a certified facilitator
Membership including quarterly calls and deep discounts on orders of 5 or more workbooks
What's in the toolkit
Four tools. One lane. Everything you need for the visit.
1. The Resilient Recovery Workbook
Guided lessons built on Scripture — each with a story, powerful questions, and space for the person to write or speak their answers. Originally written for groups; the One-on-One Companion shows you how to use it on individual visits.
2. The One-on-One Companion
A short digital guide — readable in under three minutes — for using the Workbook in a single visit: what to skip, what to expand, how to pace it, and what to do when the room goes quiet for ninety seconds.
3. The Chaplain Lesson Picker
A web-based tool included with purchase. You describe the situation in plain language — it suggests three lessons that fit. Not only that, it provides a helpful summary of the situation, a sensible goal for the visit, additional powerful questions, and verses specially chosen to both convict and comfort. AI-guided, theologically grounded, 90 seconds to get your visit game plan.
4. 15-Minute Training Video
Can you use the book without this training video? Sure. But this short video will give you the confidence you need to know for certain you are ready for your first or fiftieth visit.
5. Screening Card and Multi-Faith PDF
Print as many copies as you need from this webpage. They're free, but helpful.
The whole toolkit fits in a pocket folder. It costs less than dinner.
Still have questionsFeel free to set up a 30-minute free-wheeling question-and-answer session. I am a chaplain, not a salesman. I’ll just listen and do my best to share my experience. Really. I’d love to hear from you.