Episcopalians Urged to Take the Lead in Alcohol and Drug Abuse Issues
Episcopal News Service. June 21, 1990 [90160]
Sarah T. Moore, Editor of the Diocese of Utah's Diocesan Dialogue
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH -- Tears welled up as a Midwestern housewife listened to a young Shoshone-Paiute woman from Las Vegas talk of her alcohol addiction and ongoing recovery.
An elderly priest from Wyoming nodded knowingly as 19-year-old Andy, a Navajo from Salt Lake City, related his entanglement in the web of substance abuse that began at age six. An urban gay man struggling with his addiction, sexuality, and spirituality brought both new insight and familiar battles to a small-town Florida priest.
Their stories were their own, but hauntingly the same.
About 100 lay and clergy church leaders gathered here on June 14 to 17 for the Annual Gathering of the National Episcopal Coalition on Alcohol and Drugs (NECAD) with the theme "Quiet Revolution: The Family of God."
Representing nearly 60 of the 99 dioceses in the country, the delegates, most of whom are recovering alcoholics, came to share information, concerns, and ways in which their dioceses could increase awareness of the issues of alcohol and drug abuse, and become more of a voice in the policy of the national Episcopal Church.
"We are all part of a quiet revolution, and we will continue that revolution on and on," said NECAD President Mary Bredenberg of St. Louis, Missouri. Bredenberg passed the NECAD gavel to Janee S. Parnegg of Albuquerque, New Mexico, who will lead the organization for the next two years.
Diocesan alcohol and drug commission chairpersons shared successful program models and heard pleas for help in resurrecting burnt-out commissions. Delegates from San Diego asked for help in starting a program. A request for program funding came from South Dakota, where 75 percent of Episcopalians are Native Americans. Western New York sought help for education that is "pastoral, not punitive."
The Rev. Kyle St. Claire, from the Diocese of Pennsylvania, presented models of an addiction-and-recovery committee and a recovery advocates program. Skip Higgins from the Diocese of Louisiana presented a highly successful "Celebration of Life and Recovery" program taken into the parishes by the diocesan alcohol and drug commission.
A NECAD strategy paper, distributed at the meeting, presented the group's "marching orders" for the next triennium. It called for:
- the presiding bishop to take the lead in speaking out on issues of abuse and addiction within the church, and to create a working group to plan a national mission strategy on alcohol and drugs;
- the establishment of a stable financial base for NECAD to strengthen its programs;
- aid in establishing employee assistance programs in dioceses and church institutions;
- required alcohol and drug training for clergy in seminary, ordination, and continuing education;
- required alcohol and drug training for new bishops;
- the creation of a network for clergy whose lives and ministries have been affected by family involvement in alcohol and other drugs;
Marcia Newcombe, of the Episcopal Church Center's Social and Special Ministries, in response to the paper, said the church will seek new and more effective ways to resolve the issues NECAD has raised.
More than two-thirds of the dioceses have alcohol and drug commissions. Since 1979 successive General Conventions have called Episcopalians to "raise collective consciousness of alcohol and drug dependency," establish education and employee assistance programs for its workers, and push for federal funding for alcohol and drug treatment and prevention programs.
"We want to get the church to take on alcohol and drugs as a priority issue for the next triennium, through education, communication, and pastoral care," said Eric Scharf of Washington, DC, administrator of NECAD. "The church needs to take ownership and leadership, provide resources to carry those out, and go out into the larger world with that message."
The gathering, held at the University Park Hotel adjacent to the University of Utah, centered on three areas: "The Family of God," "Alcohol and Substance Abuse Awareness in the Age of AIDS," and "Spirituality and Religion -- Making the Connection for the Recovering Native American."
"All three key sessions touched on a special area of interest in the church, and provided usable information for people to take home," said Scharf.
The Rt. Rev. George Bates, bishop of Utah, presented three meditations and celebrated at the opening Eucharist at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark. A musical setting of Niebuhr's "Serenity Prayer" commissioned for organist and composer Alec Wyton, was sung at each plenary session and daily worship.
Keynote dinner speakers were the Rev. Leo Booth, Emmaus, Ltd., Long Beach, California, who spoke on "religion abuse," and H. Stephen Glenn, Ph.D., family psychologist, author, consultant, and director of Family Development Institute, Washington, DC. A foster parent of 18, and a natural father of four, Glenn presented issues of abuse and concern for the youth and families of today, incorporating Alcoholic Anonymous's 12-step process as a healing guide.
Small group workshops concentrated on alcohol abuse in senior citizens and adolescents, recovery issues in divorced and blended families, the spiritual aspects of recovery, and Native American alcoholism. Gay and lesbian workshop participants shared their personal struggles with alcohol and homophobia in a standing-room-only workshop.
Curt Yazza, a Navajo counselor from Flagstaff, made a plea for "culturally specific treatment" for the American Indian. "If you take somebody from the reservation and send them down there (to a treatment center), the modalities used in the treatment process are so foreign, they're gonna leave," Yazza said. "The sweat lodge has become more and more a therapeutic approach which works well, both for people from the city and from the reservation," he added. "It is a frame of reference which is closer, a lot easier to relate to, and nonthreatening."
The Samuel Shoemaker Award for the person who best exemplifies NECAD's ministry to sufferers from addiction was presented posthumously to Frank Davis, former chancellor of the Diocese of Iowa. His widow, Mrs. Nan Davis, accepted the award after remarks by the Rt. Rev. Walter Righter, retired bishop of Iowa. Bishop Righter said as an attorney Davis restructured the diocese and helped lead retreats in the diocese that drew record attendances each year.
The Diocese of Milwaukee was presented the Russell Horton Award, which honors the diocese that made the greatest contribution in creative or new ministry in substance abuse. The Rev. Judy Cervise accepted for the diocese, which has provided abuse education workshops for Episcopal clergy and youth, in ecumenical settings and in cooperation with the dioceses of Eau Claire and Fond du Lac. In 1984 the diocesan alcohol and drug commission began the first of a series of annual five-day workshops. Nashotah House seminarians are now required to attend these as part of the seminary's program in pastoral theology. To date, 350 clergy (including four bishops) and lay leaders have participated in these workshops.
The 1991 NECAD gathering will be held in late May in the Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida, area, hosted by the Diocese of Southwest Florida.