Over the past year, Gregg’s Gift has focused on one overarching theme: building bridges —between young adults and their families, between communities and the services that sustain them, and between hope and long-term healing. Today, I want to explore a bridge that often goes unnamed, yet quietly shapes resilience, meaning, and connection for so many people walking the path of recovery: faith and spirituality.
This is not a conversation about religion in the formal sense—though for some, religious communities play a powerful and deeply supportive role. Instead, this is about the broader landscape of spiritual anchoring: the inner beliefs, values, and practices that help young adults feel grounded, connected, and oriented toward a life that is bigger and more meaningful than the pain they have experienced.
For many young adults navigating the challenges of substance use or early recovery, spirituality becomes a turning point—an invisible hand that steadies them when nothing else seems certain. Building awareness and the importance of this foundation is a crucial assist in the recovery process.
The Power of Meaning in a Time of Crisis
Substance misuse does not happen in a vacuum. It grows in the soil of disconnection, trauma, pressure, loneliness, and a sense of drifting through life without purpose. One of the most overlooked elements of healing is the search for meaning, that ability to believe that life has direction, value, and possibility.
Incorporating faith and spirituality in their belief system offers young adults the opportunity to answer questions they might otherwise have been too overwhelmed to ask:
Why am I here?
What kind of life do I want to build?
Who do I want to become?
What do I believe in?
These are critical, foundational questions for all of us. They shape identity, self-worth, and the motivation to keep moving forward, especially when recovery becomes difficult. The ability to recognize and take seriously these questions and the decisions they spark for the at-risk young adult has enormous impact on what the path they choose as a result.
Spirituality, in whatever form it takes—prayer, meditation, community rituals, nature, mentorship, self-reflection—helps young adults connect to something larger than the moment they are in. It creates a sense of belonging to a greater purpose that is not tied to a substance.
Faith Communities as Support Networks
Across the country, many young people quietly turn to faith-based communities when they feel they have nowhere else to go. Not for doctrine, but for connection. Faith communities often excel in something uniquely powerful: They show up. Consistently.
Not just when a young person is doing well. Not only when they are stable. But when they are struggling, uncertain, ashamed, or afraid. Many churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, community spiritual groups, and interfaith organizations now host:
Peer-led support groups
Recovery meetings
Mentorship programs
Safe community events
Volunteer opportunities that provide purpose
Family-strengthening workshops
Spaces where young people can talk without fear of judgment
Even for young adults who have no relationship with organized religion, these environments can offer the stability, warmth, and accountability they have been missing.
What we’ve seen when visiting the charities we support is simple and profound: When young adults feel supported, they heal faster. When they feel believed in, they begin to believe in themselves.
Spirituality as a Force for Identity and Self-Worth
For many young adults struggling with substance use, the greatest battle is not detox or early recovery—it is self-identity. After years of being defined by their mistakes, their addiction, or their failures, young people often carry the belief that they are broken or beyond repair. Spirituality interrupts that narrative. It reframes the conversation from What’s wrong with me? to What is possible for me?
It reminds young adults that they are more than their past and that healing is not only about survival—it’s about transformation; significant, life affirming change.
Through practices like meditation, gratitude journaling, mindful movement, prayer, deep conversation, or simply being in nature, young people begin to reconnect with themselves. They learn to regulate their emotions, have a sense of hope, and cultivate the internal resilience needed to stay on a healthier path. Spirituality becomes a compass.
Families and Faith: Building Bridges Across Generations
When a young adult is struggling, families often feel helpless, exhausted, and afraid. They may feel they’ve failed their child. They may feel disconnected from one another. They may not know how to rebuild trust or communication. This only amplifies the problem consuming their family.
Here again, spirituality can create an unexpected bridge. Families who engage in shared spiritual practices—whether structured or informal—often find:
Calmer communication
Reduced conflict
A deeper sense of empathy
A reminder that they are on the same team
Hope when hope feels lost
Even something as simple as a weekly walk together, a moment of quiet reflection, or a shared ritual can help families move from crisis into connection.
Healing is relational. Families who support their child spiritually walk the journey in a steadier, more unified way.
Why Faith and Spirituality Matter in the Work We Do
As a nonprofit that raises funds to support agencies serving young adults in crisis, Gregg’s Gift’s mission has always been about strengthening the communities of care—not only for the young adults themselves, but for all those with whom they interact, from whom they find influence.
That’s why we support programs that:
* Provide spiritual counseling or support
* Offer mindfulness and meditation workshops
* Create safe spaces for self-expression
* Foster emotional and spiritual resilience
* Bring families together
* Build compassionate, connected communities
* Provide transportation to critical resources
We do this because we know no young adult heals alone.
They heal in community.
They heal through connection.
They heal when someone believes in them.
And for many, they heal through spirituality.
Whether a young adult identifies as religious, spiritual, both, or neither, the impact is the same: they feel supported, grounded, and anchored to something larger than their circumstances.
Building Bridges That Protect Our Young Adults
Our theme of building bridges has never been more relevant. Faith and spirituality are bridges—powerful ones:
Bridges to self-discovery, hope, community, resilience and, finally, to long-term recovery.
When young adults feel connected—truly connected—to community, family, purpose, and inner meaning, they become harder to lose. They begin to see their own value. They begin to imagine a future. And once a young adult can imagine a future, the rest of the healing process becomes possible.
A Final Word: Faith in Each Other
The greatest form of faith we can offer young adults is simple: our faith in them.
Faith that they are capable of change.
Faith that they are worthy of support.
Faith that their story is not finished.
Faith that community is stronger than crisis.
As we continue our work this year and beyond, may we all stay committed to building these bridges—bridges of compassion, connection, spirituality, and hope. Together, we can help every young adult find their way forward. If this is a message that strikes recognition within you, within those you know, please consider supporting our work; you can do that here.