Our Stories
Share the power of long-term recovery. If you are in recovery, a family member, friend or ally of someone in recovery, we want to hear your recovery story!
Learn more...
Faces & Voices of Recovery's book page
has information on many of the growing number of recovery-related publications. It’s a work in progress, so please let us know of other books that you think we should include. Check it out!
|
Recovery in the News
Speakers tell churches to just say yes to people in recovery
Forum draws folks interested in faith’s role in addicts’ lives
Rob Cullivan
The Gresham Outlook
September 26, 2009
Trish Merrill, director of Faith Partners, says the pews of many churches are filled with people whose lives have been buffeted by the storms of drug and alcohol addiction.
“If emotional pain had a noise, you wouldn’t be able to hear the sermon in most churches,” she says.
However, Merrill, a registered nurse, says church members and leaders should not stay silent on the issue of drug and alcohol abuse, but should open their hearts to folks yearning to recover from addiction.
“I think a lot of (church) folks who might be interested in this think that (other) people wouldn’t be interested,” she adds. However, nothing could be further from the truth, she says.
“We’re really trying to equip people to respond to the issues around addiction.”
Hospitals for healing
Merrill’s organization is based in Austin, Texas, and works with people of faith nationwide to “promote prevention of alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse and (create communities) where recovery from addiction is valued and supported.”
She brought her message to more than a dozen representatives of congregations and organizations in Gresham, Portland, Scappoose and Vernonia, who attended a Team Ministries Leadership Training on Friday, Sept. 25, at St. Henry Catholic Church’s parish center on First Street.
Speakers included Merrill, as well as Drew Brooks of Hazelden Treatment Centers, which operate programs in several states, including Oregon.
A video Merrill used to illustrate her work noted churches aren’t “houses of saints — they’re hospitals of healing.”
Churches can build teams of lay people to implement drug and alcohol abuse programs, she notes, adding that churches can host 12-step programs, educate parents to talk to their children about drugs and alcohol, offer activities to prevent young people from getting involved in substance abuse and support folks in recovery through worship and other services.
Home again
Churches also should consider renting empty buildings to recovery programs, notes Javier Islas, a minister with Victory Outreach Recovery Homes, a faith-based, live-in program for men and women in Portland.
Unfortunately, “business is booming,” he says, but he notes his organization has helped hundreds of men and women in the Portland area grappling with addiction over the past two decades.
Recovery programs such as his can occupy unused church spaces, he says, and can offer such benefits as volunteer labor in exchange for low rent.
Islas says drug and alcohol abuse often is an attempt to fill a spiritual void, and often gets in the way of people realizing their higher purposes.
It’s time for people of faith to satisfy the hunger of addicts with a banquet of spirituality, he notes.
“There’s not enough of us out there giving them some spiritual guidance.”
Abuse awareness
• For more information on the Greater Gresham Area Prevention Partnership, write GGAPP, 449 N.E. Emerson St., Portland, 97211; call 503-823-0250 or visit www.ggapp.org.
• For more information on Faith Partners, visit faithpartners.org.
• For more information on Victory Outreach, call 503-335-3264 or write Victory Outreach, 16022 S.E. Stark St., Portland, 97233.
Team Ministries Leadership Training
Sponsors of Friday’s training included St. Henry’s Faith Partners, Clear Creek, Springwater Nazarene, Trinity Lutheran and Living Hope Baptist churches, as well as the Police Activities League and the Greater Gresham Area Prevention Partnership.
Copyright 2009 Pamplin Media Group