Periodic Newsletter
Volume 7 • December 2021
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Hand-in-hand, we can work to remove stigma and provide
needed support and guidance to our congregation members
and their families who are suffering. |
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Dear Savannah Faith Leaders,
You are receiving this e-newsletter because we have designed it for you. This is our seventh edition.
We are the non-profit Interfaith Addiction and Recovery Coalition of Savannah, founded in January, 2019. Our primary purpose is to provide education and support for faith leaders on the subject of addiction because this disease destroys lives and families, and it thrives in secrecy.
Our e-newsletter readership has expanded to include health care, treatment and mental health professionals, as well as people who have experienced addiction themselves and discovered the gift of recovery. |
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IN THIS ISSUE:
* Commentary on how faith communities can address addiction
* When being “Churched” is not enough: one addict’s story of redemption
* Three Savannah Faith Leaders speak out loud about addiction
* Exciting educational opportunity for faith leaders offered in partnership with the Clinton Foundation in 2022. See the article further down for a link to be a part of it. |
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Drew Brooks is the Executive Director of Faith Partners, a non-profit organization providing leadership, training, and consultation to develop congregational addiction team ministries.
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Finding Your Voice
The pandemic has revealed many things, especially the needs and gaps in our response to addiction and mental health issues. During the last 18 months there has been a significant increase in alcohol and drug use, relapse from addiction, drug overdoses, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideas, compounded grief, emotional isolation, and death.
Despite these facts, the stigma and silence still linger in the air of many congregations of faith.
Stigma keeps us from being honest with ourselves and asking for help. In the recovery community there is a saying: “You are only as sick as your secrets”. Juxtaposed to that notion is this: “The truth will set us free”.
The vulnerability and courage required to create a faith community that speaks openly about addiction and recovery can be stunted by real or perceived judgment and condemnation. The hallmark of any authentic community is five-fold: it is increasingly resilient, it shares concerns with people who are struggling, it connects people with helpful community resources, it supports paths to healing, and the community has found its collective voice.
Many of us have experienced addiction or mental health issues personally or with family or friends. The first step to finding your own voice, whether you are afflicted by addiction or affected by a loved one’s struggles is being comfortable with your story. Faith Leaders can honor these voices through their preaching and teaching.
One pastor – when faced with addressing the topic of recovery – said he didn’t know where to start in developing his message. He was advised to open his sacred text to any page and start wherever his finger landed on the page. The sacred texts of the world’s religions are full of fallen and broken people, many who have found redemption. Our own personal testimonies reveal God’s healing power in and through our lives. |
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Research shows – and congregations confirm – that spiritual practices and intercessory prayer can heal and restore health. The sick benefit from both good medical care and a caring, praying community. Just as we ask for prayers for an aunt about to have surgery, we can also share prayers for close friends who are struggling with addiction. Just as we rejoice in the birth of an infant, we can rejoice with a congregational member who is celebrating a sobriety birthday.
Congregations can claim recovery by making their community of faith a safe place for people to share the challenges of life, where people can be open and truthful, and where there are ongoing conversations about real life issues such as alcoholism and other addictions. This doesn’t happen automatically. It requires awareness, education, appropriate referral information, and support for individuals and families.
Henri Nouwen, author of the popular book The Wounded Healer, encourages those who minister to others to make their own wounded condition available to others as a source of healing. He says, “service to others will not be perceived as authentic unless it comes from the heart wounded by the suffering of which they speak”.
Faith communities have unique opportunities to acknowledge and bless those who have been wounded by addiction so that they may become a blessing to others.
What would it take for your faith community to not just accept people in recovery, but see them as gifts and blessings to your faith community? For surely, people in recovery have much to offer others. They have experienced great suffering and found meaning in it. They have walked a disciplined spiritual path. They have fallen on their knees and cried out to God fully knowing that they cannot heal themselves.
Wouldn’t any faith community be enriched, strengthened and perhaps revitalized by the blessing of those who have walked this walk with God and are in the position to share their experience, strength and hope with others? |
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Terri Howard is Executive Director of Assurance Life Learning Center LLC, an organization that provides intensive substance abuse outpatient services and counseling, based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ms. Howard can be reached at 980-375-1123. She is an Interfaith Addiction and Recovery Coalition volunteer.
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Being ‘Churched’ is Not Enough
My name is Terri. I have been clean from cocaine for more than 23 years.
My new clean date is November 30, 1998.
Notice, I said “my new clean date.” I tried to get and stay clean in 1994. Although I attended 12 step Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings, I never really “worked” a 12 step program. I eventually stopped going to meetings, but attended church regularly. Various members of my family were clergy and they knew about my addiction. When I reached three years of abstinence, my well-meaning family members said I no longer needed to go to “those NA 12 Step Meetings”. I believed my family when they assured me that: “What God has freed, is free indeed.”
My church was good for me; however, I quickly experienced cravings for my drug of choice again. The desires got heavier and heavier. I did not know what to do with my cravings. The only thing I knew was to confide in my pastor. Along with my pastor, my church members rallied around me with prayer, laying of hands and anointing me with oil. I believe in all of these practices, but the cravings continued.
It wasn’t long before I returned to using cocaine. I was devastated. I felt like I had failed God. A year later, my pain pushed me to seek help and I returned to an NA 12 step meeting. In the meetings, I found members of the group who understood what I had experienced. They told me a powerful truth: I was merely abstinent, but I had not “worked” the principles of my 12 step program to treat my disease of addiction. At first, I didn’t understand what they meant, but I took all of their suggestions – and when I did — I found a way out of the horrors of addiction.
Many of my NA members had substantial clean time (some of them decades). They helped me understand that abstinence was a necessary first part of getting clean, but that abstinence alone did not guarantee my sustained recovery from addiction. I found that I needed to work a recovery program which included finding and working with a 12 step sponsor – a person in solid recovery who could show me now how to do the deep, personal work of the 12 Steps. I discovered that the 12 steps showed me the path to understanding how the disease of addiction affected me and what the disease of addiction meant for me. I realized that the drugs were a problem, but the disease of addiction was rooted in obsessive thoughts and compulsion. I realized that my cravings were the obsession, and once I began using drugs again, I could not stop by my free will alone. This is the compulsive nature of addiction.
With this understanding, guidance from my NA sponsor and regular attendance at NA meetings, I felt empowered and guided through a recovery process that would take me back to my God and preserve this precious gift of recovery. My second “clean date” was November 30, 1998 and I pray that I never have another.
I decided I could help others who have suffered like me. I have continued my NA 12 step meetings for the past 23 years and I have given back to others the gift that was so freely given to me.
God revealed to me that the church is my home for genuine fellowship that enhances my salvation. God saves my soul, but my 12 step NA program and its members save me from the horrors of addiction.
https://12step.org/references/12-step-versions/na/
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Savannah Faith Leaders:
This Program is Designed for YOU
The Clinton Foundation is excited to bring the Empowering Faith Leaders program to Savannah, Georgia in partnership with Savannah’s Interfaith Addiction and Recovery Coalition, Georgia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, and Georgia Council on Substance Abuse.
The Empowering Faith Leaders Program equips faith leaders from across traditions with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to address addiction and the overdose crisis in their communities. Faith leaders learn about local prevention, treatment, recovery, and harm reduction services, and explore how different faith traditions view substance use, addiction, and recovery. This is an opportunity to join a state-wide and national network of faith leaders working to address these important health issues.
Between the months of February and September 2022, faith leaders will attend ten virtual learning sessions at noon ET that will be two hours in length. During the sessions, faith leaders will participate in discussions and training led by local and national experts. All participating faith leaders will receive funding support in the amount of $2,000 and technical assistance to plan and execute a community-based engagement project – virtual or in-person – during the program period to bring the information and resources back to their congregations.
Learn more about the program and apply here by Friday, January 7. Once submitted, Chris Thrasher or Megan Affrunti from the Clinton Foundation will contact you to answer any questions you have.
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FAITH LEADERS:
CONSIDER INCLUDING THIS MESSAGE
IN YOUR CONGREGATIONAL BULLETIN
The holidays and New Year celebrations can be especially hard for people who are addicted, as well as the people who love them.
If you are one of these people, please know that your faith leader has access to local help and resources through the Interfaith Addiction and Recovery Coalition and its Rapid Response Team.
Just contact your congregation’s faith leader, who genuinely wants to talk to you about it. |
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Faith leaders participating in Speaking Out Loud About Addiction were (from left) Moderator Rev. J. Michael Culbreth, Rabbi Steven Henkin, Rev. Thurmond Tillman and Rev. Ben Gosden.
Photo by Susan Becker
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Speaking Out Loud About Addiction
“If I’m diagnosed with cancer, someone from my church will undoubtedly come to my home with a hot dish. If I show up in church and confess to my alcoholic black out the night before, people won’t know what to do or say.”
Rev. Ben Gosden of Trinity United Methodist Church illustrates the way most faith communities address addiction even though it is a chronic disease like cancer, diabetes and heart failure. All too often, addiction is instead considered a moral failing. This disease is often shrouded in misunderstanding and secrecy, even though it is fast becoming the leading cause of illness and death in America.
Rev. Gosden was one of three Savannah faith leaders serving on a panel called Speaking Out Loud About Addiction on November 16, 2021. The panel was sponsored by the Savannah-based Interfaith Addiction and Recovery Coalition (IARC), an all-volunteer nonprofit organization, hosted by Rabbi Robert Haas of Mickve Israel, and moderated by Rev. J. Michael Culbreth of the ConneXion Church. Rabbi Haas, Rev. Culbreth and Rev. Gosden are all IARC Board Members.
Follow the first link to view the video of the November 16th Forum and follow the second link to the Q & A session following the panel discussion.
https://vimeo.com/657895189
https://vimeo.com/656772191
“Addiction and substance abuse too often ‘fly under the radar’ in faith communities. They’re topics we’re not always willing to talk about openly, and that includes clergy,” Rev. Gosden told attendees of the forum. “If we don’t talk about addiction and the real hope of recovery, we’re not fully doing our jobs as faith leaders. By speaking out loud from the pulpit, I believe I can help people feel safe enough to seek help and counsel.”
Rev. Gosden cited David Kessler, a noted expert on death and dying: “Kessler says, ‘If you don’t feel it, you can’t heal it.’ ” , Gosden stated. “That should be our community mantra as faith leaders in Savannah.
“Faith leaders need to cut through the B.S., stop talking in platitudes and get real like people do in 12 step support meetings. I’ve had fellow clergy tell me: ‘If you want to see a real church in action, go to an Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meeting. ‘ “
In the Baptist faith, a religious covenant asks the faithful to neither sell nor use intoxicating beverages, Rev. Thurmond Tillman of First African Baptist Church, said. “When we do talk about drinking or drugging in our church, that makes the subject automatically shameful., ” Rev. Tillman said. What concerns me is the silence, because behind that silence there is still talk; it’s often damaging gossip. We must instead talk about addiction in a positive way by underscoring the reality of recovery.”
Rev. Tillman also shared, “When I first came to First African Baptist, a member of our community showed up drunk.” He was literally forced out of the church and pushed down the stairs.” But things have changed for the better: “When one of our members openly said he was struggling with drugs, another member stepped forward and said ‘I need help, too’, then a third member of our church, a deacon, did the same,” said Rev. Tillman. That’s huge progress. ” First African Baptist participated, among several churches, in creating Land of Promise Christian Recovery Home, a working farm and addiction treatment center for men, in Culloden, Georgia.
“We must speak out positively and, in doing so, uncover the shame, allow people to say they need help, and never give up on anyone,” Rev. Tillman concluded.
Rabbi Steven Henkin of Congregation Agudath Achim, agreed: “As clergy, part of our job is to comfort the discomforted and discomfort the comfortable. Addiction is not comfortable. That’s why we need to talk about it. It’s not easy for congregation members to bring up the subject. Our congregants love and respect us and they want us to feel the same about them. If a person is struggling and feels shame, we must show our support and concern and — in what we say and do – assure them that they are loved regardless of what they have thought or done.”
Rabbi Henkin also emphasized how it is equally important for clergy to acknowledge and understand the destructive forces of anxiety of depression – two mental health conditions that also “fly under the radar” and carry a stigma.
He cited the Passover story as a way of approaching the subject of addiction. In Hebrew, the name of Egypt is Mitzrayim, which can be interpreted as “bein hametzarim: “between the straits”. The experience connotes anguish and distress. “Like our ancestors, we have all found our own narrow straits in life,” says Rabbi Henkin. “We have all , including clergy, been slaves to something at some time in our lives and The story of the Exodus gives people of faith the hope of escaping those narrow straits.
People struggling with addiction (either themselves or someone they love) is experiencing “a narrow strait,” Rabbi Henkin says. “While we might not have had the same experience ourselves, we can draw on our own narrow strait and summon that understanding to be an active, honest source of help and support.” |
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