Faith community summit talks substance abuse

The Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services Board of Lorain County has worked with congregations to spread awareness and provide resources for those struggling with substance abuse and addiction.

As part of a series titled, “When Addiction Comes to Church,” the Drug Addiction Services Board facilitated a second summit Feb. 13 to provide an opportunity for faith leaders to learn about addiction, prevention, treatment and recovery.

Elaine Georgas, executive director of the Drug Addiction Services Board, said the goal of the summit series was to have the county’s faith leaders actively engage their congregations about substance abuse and addiction by June 30, 2019.

“Fortunately, there are resources that are helping us through the opioid epidemic,” Georgas said. “We know that any facility, any service has to understand addiction and also its connect to issues like mental health issues as well as physical health issues.”

For the summit’s keynote presentation, The LCADA Way’s president and CEO Thomas Stuber discussed the psychological and emotional effects of addiction and what the timeline of recovery and detox may look like.

“Managing your illness is a simple equation, but it’s very, very hard to do,” Stuber said. “It’s important to understand there’s no shortcut.”

Those who experience addiction often put up defenses when they act in ways that inflict pain or conflict and violate their values, causing distorted memory and creating logical reasons to their behaviors, he said.

“When we lose control, there will be times where we engage in behaviors that violate our values,” Stuber said. “... Usually, our values reflect the way we were raised and our families and the values of society.

“As a result of my addiction, I begin behaving in just the opposite of all those values that I have.”

Asking a person experiencing addiction to take down their defenses can leave them even more guarded, Stuber said.

“Because of the emotional pain they are experiencing, they’re covered up as a result of the continuous violation of their values,” he said. “To ask them to drop the defense becomes ego-threatening.

“They can’t function that way, so they hold onto the defense in spite of the obvious realities that are represented to them.”

Stuber said it takes 35 weeks to two years for a mind to stabilize during recovery and relapse commonly occurs at least once with a recovering addict.

Attending therapy, getting professional help and medication are all key factors to recovering from addiction, he said.

Additionally, faith leaders spoke at the summit concerning the importance of providing resources and reducing stigma.

Avon Lake United Church of Christ Pastor Kelly Brill is one of the religious leaders in the county who has begun destigmatizing addiction in her congregation.

“One of the learnings I had was that stigma was real within our own congregation,” Brill said.

Everyone deals with some sort of addiction every day and should follow biblical teachings in helping those often forgotten, she said.

“In the Christian community, we realize and we remember that Jesus chose to spend time with people that other people shunned, ignored and rejected,” Brill said. “Jesus chose to spend his time with people that we try to pretend are not around.”