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The church’s role in combating addiction

Zoey Maraist | Catholic Herald Staff Writer

A woman asks a question after the keynote address by Michael Horne, director of the clinical services at diocesan Catholic Charities. ZOEY MARAIST | CATHOLIC HERALD

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Dave Druitt, a former heroin addict and parishioner of Church of the Nativity in Burke, tells his story. ZOEY MARAIST | CATHOLIC HERALD

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Bishop Michael F. Burbidge prays during the prayer service at “Seeking Hope and Healing in the Midst of the Opioid Crisis,” held at Good Shepherd Church in Alexandria Sept. 29. ZOEY MARAIST | CATHOLIC HERALD

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David Goldman, a parishioner of St. Louis Church in Alexandria, prays during the opioid conference. ZOEY MARAIST | CATHOLIC HERALD

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More than 100 people gathered for “Seeking Hope and Healing in the Midst of the Opioid Crisis,” held at Good Shepherd Church in Alexandria. ZOEY MARAIST | CATHOLIC HERALD

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Dave Druitt was 18 years old when he was
sent to fight in the Vietnam War. He remembers the two-year ordeal as
cataclysmic. “People were dying all around you and you could die at any
minute,” Druitt said. He and the other men turned to partying with drugs and
alcohol, including military-issued morphine. 

By age 22, Druitt was attending
Alcoholics Anonymous. But that was only the beginning of his 23-year fight for
sobriety
. “I had many relapses, each time worse, each time more heartbreaking
for my parents,” said Druitt. 

But his addiction didn’t win. This year,
he will celebrate 18 years of sobriety. He now volunteers as a mentor to a
recovering heroin addict as part of the diocesan Catholic Charites Welcome Home
Re-entry Program for Ex-Offenders. 

Attendees such as Druitt shared
heartfelt stories at “Seeking Hope and Healing in the Midst of the Opioid
Crisis,” held at Good Shepherd Church in Alexandria Sept. 29. The daylong
conference was hosted by Bishop Michael F. Burbidge and diocesan Catholic
Charities. 

The recurring theme throughout the day
was the critical role faith plays in the healing process of an addict and his
or her family. Druitt believes regaining the faith he lost in Vietnam was
essential to his recovery. 

“I had seen things that didn’t fit with
what people had told me God was, and so I drew the wrong conclusion that God
wasn’t,” he said. “I had to rebuild my faith system. That seems to be the most
important part of recovery, finding out what you believe.”

 “There is no transformation without Christ,”
said Michael Horne, clinical psychologist and director of clinical services at
diocesan Catholic Charities, during his keynote address. “We truly believe that
God will not ignore our suffering. We believe that he will give us the strength
to come together and overcome this crisis as a community, and we believe that
people desire and deserve to be loved and embraced no matter what darkness or
sorrow they experience in their lives.”

Horne said Bishop Burbidge had asked
Catholic Charities to prioritize combating the opioid crisis and that this conference
was the starting point. “With a crisis like this, the only way we can be
successful is responding together. We must have many hands, many hearts and
many minds working together,” said Horne. 

At the end of his talk, attendees shared
their own thoughts on how to help addicts and their families. One emergency
room nurse, Diana Mann of Our Lady of Angels Church in Woodbridge, said medical
professionals now are being much more judicious with when and how many opioids
they prescribe. 

An emergency medical responder for a
large assisted living community noted that this problem affects the elderly,
not just youths. “Last night I had to respond to three calls for overdoses.
Folks near the end of their life sometimes feel hopeless, helplessness. At the
end of their life, they may feel the need to escape. Sometimes it is genuinely
a memory issue,” he said. “Check on your parents, check on your grandparents.
Let them know you love them, let them know you care.” 

The mother of a recovering addict
encouraged parents not to rescue their children from failure. “You’re worried
they won’t get into a good school, (so when) they get in trouble with the law,
you do everything in your power to prevent (the consequences). At 16, that’s
exactly the time they need to make the mistake and feel the full weight of the
consequences,” she said. “It wasn’t until we allowed our son to be homeless for
a while and then to detox in jail and not let him out (that he began to recover).”


Oblate of St. Francis de Sales Father Mark
Hushen, chief mission and legacy officer of Ashley Addiction Treatment in
Maryland, gave a talk titled “Suffering, Addiction and the Healing Power of
Jesus” based on his years working with patients in rehabilitation. Speaker Paul
Niemiec with Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Greensburg, Pa., had little
knowledge about the opioid crisis and few resources when his bishop asked him
to start finding solutions. In 2016, there were 319 opioid-related deaths in
four rural counties of the diocese. 

“(This is) a culture of life issue
because people are dying unnecessarily from a preventable disease, one from which
people can recover,” he said. 

His diocese has a small Catholics
Charities staff, so he knew they wouldn’t be able to start in-patient
treatment. But he decided what they did well was education and prayer, so they
drafted a pastoral letter for Bishop Edward C. Malesic. They traveled throughout
the diocese holding listening sessions.

Hundreds of people attended. One of the
most meaningful parts of the sessions was the coffee and cookies afterward,
said Niemiec. “People stayed and talked. They got to know treatment providers
or other people who had lost a child. It was so hopeful. We were there all night.”

Now, both locally and on the diocesan
level, they’ve developed productive relationships with law enforcement,
rehabilitation centers and government agencies. “My office became a
clearinghouse for this stuff,” Niemiec said. Even without the ability to treat
patients, they’ve become a leader in the fight, and one of the few leaders from
a religious organization, he said. “It’s important for the church to show up.”

A criminologist from St. Vincent College
in Latrobe, Pa., has conducted a soon to be released study that says a large
majority of people in recovery believe that the first step toward sobriety was
talking to a priest, minster or religious leader, said Niemiec. “That’s pretty
good news to me,” he said. 

Bishop Burbidge led the closing prayer
service for the more than 100 conference participants. “We are a people who
never despair, for with God, all things are possible,” he said.

This story has been updated. 

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