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Suffering is a fact. How one faces suffering is what matters most, however. St. Thomas a' Kempis, for example, wrote in The Imitation of Christ: "The cross always stands ready, and everywhere awaits you. You cannot escape it, wherever you flee; for wherever you go, you bear yourself, and always find yourself."

Attachments, addictions and desires make one anxious and restless, so why go after them? Perhaps St. Augustine of Hippo has an answer:


"Everyone, whatever his condition, desires to be happy. There is no one who does not desire this, and each one desires it with such earnestness that it is preferred to all other things; whoever, in fact, desires other things, desires them for this end alone. . .."

Such saints help an addictive culture confront, rather than deny rampant and destructive behaviors. Our communities of faith can also help. Overcoming mistaken stigmas that drug and alcohol dependency results from moral failure and willful misconduct is a challenge. However, combining "the power of God, religion, and spirituality with the power of science and professional medicine to prevent and treat substance abuse and addiction," is the remedy of Joseph A. Califano, Jr., president of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, gleaning from its two-year study, So Help Me God: Substance Abuse, Religion and Spirituality: Why Priests and Psychiatrists Should Get Their Acts Together.

Like Augustine and Thomas a' Kempis, the handbook cites a lack of clear, convincing motivation for life as the reason one uses drugs. Drug dependency is a symptom not a disease, the handbook says, at odds with the social sciences that label alcoholism, for example, a disease with a genetic predisposition. Suppression of drug dependency rests with Governments, the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, who wrote the handbook for the pope, suggests: The Church wants to intervene in the situation of drug addicts in the name of her evangelical mission; with the aim of letting them listen to the word of the love of God, offering the means to spiritually reach all those who are hit by drugs." John Paul steers pastoral workers to help addicts discover their proper human dignity which the drug has buried, the pope observes. Global and universal in its nature as "catholic," the guide's approach to treatment and prevention is prophylactic (preventing the dangers, assessing the risks, avoiding baleful consequences and helping people take responsibility for the use), therapeutic (aimed at taking care of treating and curing the sick persons), and social (getting the addict into a culture of support, a community, a church, a sponsor, and a groups to be accountable to).

Treatment does work. While assessing addicts at a rehabilitation center in Michigan as a therapist and spirituality specialist, I have watched treatment work when one's own fears and stigmas attached to substance abuse and addictive behaviors are faced.

Take Butch, for example. Two decades ago, he stopped using and has been clean and sober from alcohol and heroine. "It's all God's grace," he reminds his audiences these days when he inspires others to quit, tells his troubling tale of the past, and manages a construction company, while he enjoys his family and parish community. Regularly, Butch participates in 12 step meetings of Alcoholic Anonymous - the effective self help support group for recovering addicts who break denial and admit "powerlessness" over alcohol and drugs (Step one). When weary that he or she cannot beat the opponent in the wrestling ring, to use a helpful metaphor, the abuser surrenders, like Butch did, "to a power greater than self," namely God. Daily practice of the 12 steps affords addicts a framework in recovery, "to breathe under water," to quote Franciscan priest Richard Rohr, who claims the 12 steps of AA are North America's contribution to spirituality.

Stigma, like that attached to persons coping with depressive and other mental illness, finds its self deep in the minds and hearts of some people who should know better. Stigma has been identified as "the most entrenched obstacle for faith communities or spiritualities to overcome," concludes P. Riccio in Prevention Pipeline. Initial use of drugs or alcohol may be voluntary, however, consensus of addiction specialists today agree that use may all too readily lead to addiction, which is now defined as a chronic, relapsing disease that can be successfully treated. Heart disease and diabetes patients, conditions which may result from years of smoking or poor dietary choices, are encouraged and supported in their efforts to secure treatment, yet, drug and alcohol-dependent persons suffer in isolation daily, despite the good news that addictions can be treated as other chronic diseases, such as asthma, diabetes, and hypertension, reports the National Institute of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The problem of drug addiction has the attention of the Vatican, in as much as a 200-page manual, Church, Drugs, and Drug Addiction was published in 2001 by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers. This historic document states that drugs are one of the main threats facing young people, including children, let alone obesity in the United States. "Prevention can be brought about by offering to potential victims of drugs the human values of love and life, illuminated by faith," Pope John Paul II stated in this helpful guide that provides strategies for prevention, suppression and rehabilitation.

This handbook invites the Church community to face drug addiction and make it part of the parish's agenda annually in preaching about it, and in hosting prevention programs. While some pastors seem to fear facing addictive behavior, be not afraid, is clearly the message of the Vatican document. With persuasive moral authority and arguments for teens to avoid drug use, I have never felt such strong support for pastoral workers, catechists, parents and formators in confronting this "grave offense," this handbook warns, borrowing from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. "The priest and the pastoral worker have to make a greater effort in order to be present to the world of drug addicts who, with their rejection of reality or with their way of manipulating it, jeopardize a good number of values and constraints." Passage from death, destruction and dealing drugs to an emergence of the paschal mystery's new life of hope and promise is the road addicts steer as they embrace a fearless, moral inventory (Step four), examination of their conscience and harmful ways of sin, and sharing that written accounting with a trusted confidant or priest (Step five). Daily, the recoverer, like Butch, promptly admits wrongdoing, seeks forgiveness, and practices this process (Step ten). Unlike the intense "dark night of the soul" of the fourth step's grueling and candid examination, step ten affords one to live in peace with the gift of the present moment. Such calm is met with "conscious contact" with God (Step eleven) through prayer, sacraments and meditation. A deepened resolve for solitude replaced the compulsive, obsessive past in Butch's once staggering saga of self-defeating behavior.

What Butch, and all serious believers, for that matter, let alone addicts feel for the first time, are the three movements or conversions of the purgative (taking off the masks one dons to gain acceptance, uncovering), illuminative (discovering of God's love in its original beauty), and unitive (recovering) union with the Divine Psychotherapist, namely God, who alone heals in one's cooperation with God's grace, favor and blessing on the pilgrim's path. The thirst for God (Psalm 42) beyond artificial means is realized here.

Like Butch, those who know the ravages of nicotine, alcohol, process addictions, such as gambling and work, the quest is quenched as St. Augustine said earlier, when one rests, simply "hangs out" with God, soaking like a sponge in Love. Simply being with God, doing nothing, pervades renewed humans in Christ.

Among other reasons faith communities must overcome stigmas and get involved in this epidemic, reports the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Abuse: Challenges and Response for Faith Leaders, include:

~For 6 out of 10 Americans, religious faith is the most important influence in their lives, and for 8 out of 10, religious beliefs provide comfort and support; ~People who actively participate in an organized religious or spiritual group have a great deal of respect for their leaders, who function as teachers, mentors, confidants, as well as advisors;

~Spirituality is an important part of recovery for individuals with drug and alcohol problems;


~Ministries can actually prevent drug and alcohol use by reaching out to youth and getting them involved in positive activities. They can also provide a safe haven for children who are living with drug and alcohol problems at home; and

~Faith can serve as a catalyst for changing public perceptions about addiction and increasing awareness about the good news that recovery is possible.

Additional CASA research shows that:

~Teens who never attend church are twice as likely to drink, more than twice as likely to smoke, more than three times more likely to use marijuana and binge-drink, and almost four times more likely to use illicit drugs than teens who attend religious services at least weekly; and,

~Teens who do not consider religious beliefs important are almost three times more likely to drink, binge-drink, and smoke, almost four times more likely to use marijuana and seven times more likely to use illicit drugs than teens who believe that religion is important.

Studies show that no area of the country is untouched by addiction. Help is available, however. Treatment works and recovery is possible. Treatment worked for Butch. It works today. Facing addictions and exposing secrecy, sin, and one's shadows (dark, unwanted addictions) to Light is key to unlocking denial and restoring a lost soul's dignity. Enabling the stigma attached to substance abuse by concealing or evading the epidemic proportion only furthers fears and discomforts in talking about the problem, preventing faith communities from healing and their right to treatment and recovery. Dialogue is vital. John Paul's handbook has it right for our Catholic communities when it comes to facing the demon of a culture of addiction.

As St. Thomas a' Kempis and St. Augustine provide assurance that one's heart is restless until it rests in God, and that the way of the cross and suffering will always be part of life's journey, so all of the People of God can be proactive in preventing addictions that continue to skyrocket, in particular, currently research shows that 18 million suffer from sexual addiction in the United States and Canada, with cyber addiction escalating each day. To do nothing is to live in denial.

Pope John Paul II's manual on substance abuse is a clarion call to overcome the stigma of addiction, and heralds the importance of spirituality in prevention and treatment. While counseling those in the travail of the cross and addiction, I have watched treatment work when one's own fears and stigmas attached to substance abuse and other addictive behaviors are faced. Everyone wins. The evergreen virtue of hope prevails.