PARISH BULLETIN
Two Catholic Groups Pool Resources on Addictions

Richard Thibodeau |  Fall 2009

In the ministries of every Catholic priest or religious, there is a parishioner, a patient, a student, someone whose life has been touched by a chemically-based addiction such as alcoholism.  It might even be the priest or religious who suffers the addiction.  This article is about two Catholic organizations that work together tackling these life-threatening problems.

In July of 2008, the National Catholic Council on Alcoholism and Related Drug Problems (NCCA), which is affiliated with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, became an integral part of the educational and “spirituality support” outreach services of Guest House, Inc.

The nonprofit, Michigan-based Guest House is America’s best-known treatment center for Catholic clergy and men and women religious who suffer addictions to alcohol or other substances.  Since opening in 1956, Guest House has helped more than 7,300 achieve sobriety and return to active ministry in the church. 

The NCCA, founded in 1949 by

Father Ralph Pfau (the first priest to recover from alcoholism through AA) seeks to assist its members and all Catholics in a greater understanding of the disease of alcoholism and other addictions and the importance and strength of one's Catholic faith and spirituality in recovering from an addiction.

Guest House President and CEO Daniel Kidd said the changes will help each group's efforts to communicate to Catholics about the disease of addiction.

NCCA Mission & Resources for Individuals

Under the auspices of Guest House, the NCCA will continue its key mission of educating all members of the church about alcoholism and related drug problems. The NCCA welcomes participation by all Catholics in helping to spread the word that there is indeed help available for those struggling with an addiction and for families struggling with the addiction of a loved one.

The NCCA’s basic resources highlight “spirituality support,” recognized by treatment experts as a most critical part of everyone’s road to successful recovery. Printed materials available include a pocket-sized prayer book, bookmarks, a pocket-sized calendar, and a pamphlet dealing with the subject of interventions.

The NCCA also publishes an annual "NCCA Today" Newsletter series. Membership in the NCCA is open to all individuals and parishes.

In addition to the printed resources mentioned  above, the NCCA sponsors an annual educational conference.  And for the past six years, the NCCA has preceded its conference with a drug and alcohol addictions workshop for the benefit of the local community.  Each year, NCCA also publishes the proceedings of the Annual Conference in its Blue Book.

Under Guest House auspices, the NCCA plans to begin holding multiple workshops in different dioceses each year. Topics covered by experts at these workshops will include establishing parish substance abuse ministries and the family and addictions, among others.

The NCCA has also developed a roster of resource persons from several Catholic dioceses who have established ongoing parish substance addiction ministries. The NCCA welcomes requests from dioceses and individual parishes for assistance in establishing their own ministries.

One such program the NCCA works closely with is SAM, the Substance Addiction Ministry Program of the Diocese of Palm Beach, Florida. The diocese now has fourteen active parish teams. The director of the program, Erik Vagenius, is a former treatment staff member at Guest House, and is currently an NCCA Board member. 

Vagenius says, “Addiction disconnects people from self, loved ones, and God.  For everyone who is afflicted with an addiction, a minimum of at least four other people will be affected.  SAM is a quality-of-life ministry.  And yet many of us deny the presence of the problem or the magnitude of the addiction’s effects.”

According to Vagenius, each SAM team’s mission is to

• increase awareness of addiction through the education of various ministries and groups within the parish family and the community at large (e.g., youth ministry, campus ministry, jail and prison ministries, parish council)
  
  • provide a safe, confidential place for parishioners to call for help and to receive appropriate referral and support.   

For Teens, Young Adults, and Their Parents

Through a special educational program that NCCA sponsors, it is emphasizing that all Catholics interested in helping their children steer clear of a drug addiction problem need to firmly believe that “kids want their parents to be parents.”

Lori Berkes-Nelson, an Illinois certified addictions counselor, sharing in NCCA’s  Hope Journal, wrote, “I asked recovering teenagers what valuable skills they learned from their parents that helped, or what they wished they had learned that might have prevented some of their problems.  Their responses resounded all the prevention messages I have learned in my professional counseling work:  Talk to your kids about drugs and alcohol!" These are some of the approaches to take:

• When you punish them, stick with the consequences.
  
• Know that kids are using addictive substances at much younger ages.
  
• Help them say “no.”
  
• Listen to them.
  
• Hang their artwork on the refrigerator.
  
• Know who their friends are.
  
• Help them get involved in things.
  
• Teach them about God.

As director of the NCCA, I find that it is a very humbling and thought-provoking experience to read the letters and listen to phone calls from Catholic parents to the NCCA.  What follows is from one such letter (names are changed):

This is a picture of my son Peter and his daughter Jen and his last letter.  He writes:  “To all who care.  I wish I did, Jen.  I'm sorry, but I'm tired of letting everyone down, including myself, mom and all my friends.  Thanks for trying to help.  With all my mind I want to stop but I can't.  I am tired of feeling and it's my escape, but I hate it so I guess there's no escape from feeling, hurting, loving, so I'm going to try the only other method I can think of. I loved you all. Peter.” 

Peter took his own life at the age of 26, after struggling with drugs since he was 13. I have been troubled that so little is available through the church in regard to drugs and alcohol. Please use Peter’s letter if it can be of help to anyone. I truly do not understand why this is not more aggressively addressed by our church.

This letter and similar letters certainly make the NCCA want to do all it can to help the church help families and individuals and to reflect on the thought that in every Catholic church on every Sunday, there are certainly Catholics who are struggling with the addiction of a loved one.

In my own opinion, sending out the NCCA's very humble yet powerful prayer book, Prayers For Addicted Persons and Their Loved Ones, is probably the most important thing that NCCA does.

An important current NCCA project is working with the nation's jail and prison chaplains to help make available to inmates the NCCA's prayer book and 2009 calendar (which contains a special "Prayer to Accept God's Gift of Personal Responsibility").  

Conservative estimates indicate that over seventy percent of persons in the nation's jails and prisons are there because of an alcohol or drug addiction.

The Guest House Institute: Teaming Up With NCCA

In addition to the NCCA now being a service of Guest House, a subsidiary called the Guest House Institute (GHI) has been created.   GHI concentrates on providing a broad range of educational services to Catholic dioceses, including the services of the NCCA. These services include the capability of providing individual consultation to dioceses, providing workshops and retreats, clergy and religious study days, and training for seminarians on subjects relating to treatment and recovery from addictions. 

Guest House/NCCA workshops, headed by experts in the field, can be of great help to vicars for clergy, clergy education/formation departments, leaders of women religious, and for individual priests, deacons, or men and women religious.

The Guest House Institute and the NCCA are approved education providers under the auspices of NAADAC (the Association of Addiction Professionals), and participants in these activities are able to earn CEU's (continuing education credits).

For Further Information Catholic dioceses or clergy and religious interested in learning more about both the Guest House Institute  and the NCCA can contact the Guest House Institute at 800-626-6910, ext. 1207 or check the Guest House Website at: www.guesthouse.org.

Richard Thibodeau is director of the National Catholic Council on Alcoholism.