Alabama Teaches Faith Leaders How to Help People Struggling With Addiction

The daughter of a police chief and schoolteacher, Denice Morris might have seemed safe from the trap of substance use. But she was in the grip of addiction from young adulthood into her early 30s, she says.

When the right care opened a path out, she decided to spend her life helping others recover.

Today, she’s head of substance use treatment for the Alabama Department of Mental Health. In recent years, she’s helped launch an innovative project training faith leaders to respond effectively when they discover members of their congregations have drug or alcohol problems.

In Alabama the church has always been the pillar of the community, Morris says, the place where people go when they need help. If the problem is drugs, stigma can get in the way.

“I could go to a church today and say I’m struggling with diabetes or high blood pressure and they’re going to make sure I get the care I need,” Morris says. “If go to the same church and say I’m buying crack every day and can’t support my kids, they’re going to assume I’m begging and trying to feed my habit.”

Stigma isn’t limited to churches, or to the problem of substance use. Alabama’s mental and public health departments have an ongoing “Stop Judging, Start Healing” campaign designed to change attitudes that can get in the way of the healing process for a range of problems.

Morris and her partners are working to introduce pastors to the science of substance use problems and treatment. Time and again, faith leaders are realizing they may have turned away those they could have helped.

Crickets, Then Inspiration

Since 2022, more than 400 faith leaders in Alabama have earned certification as Faith-Based Support Specialists (FBSS) by attending two-day training sessions provided by the nonprofit Agency for Substance Abuse Prevention (ASAP).

The curriculum they deliver is based on training the Department of Mental Health developed in 2015 to train “recovery support” specialists: people in long-term recovery from substance problems who are certified to help others recover.

The topics covered over the course of training include the code of ethics for treatment professionals, the meaning of “evidence-based” treatment, how professionals assess people struggling with substance use issues and the difference between in-patient and out-patient care.

Along the way, church leaders learn that addiction is not a moral failing. And importantly, they learn about the certified treatment facilities in their community where they can send those who come to them in need. Staff from these organizations are part of the program, and they staff educational booths at training sessions and speak at events.

ASAP is a certified prevention provider, funded in part by the Department of Mental Health. Its executive director, Seyram Selase, came up with the idea for faith-based support specialists in a Zoom meeting with the Alabama State Prevention Advisory Board, which he chairs. It struck him during the meeting that no one had mentioned any engagement with churches and faith communities that might be able to reach people struggling with substance use issues.

“I asked what initiatives we had related to our faith communities, and you could hear crickets on the Zoom,” Selase says. “Once I heard those crickets, I realized we had to figure something out.”

Some states have programs to educate congregations about drug issues, he says, but reaching a meaningful share of the people attending Alabama’s more than 13,000 religious institutions via third-party programs didn’t seem feasible. He approached the state about training faith leaders instead, using the already developed curriculum for recovery support specialists.

That curriculum had already proved its worth; the state had trained and certified nearly 500 recovery support specialists when Selase brought forward his plan to work with faith leaders. “There was no need to recreate the wheel,” Morris says. “You’re still a support specialist.”

Game Changing

In keeping with national trends, Alabama has seen a decline in deaths from opioid overdoses in recent years. Opioid prescription rates in Alabama are among the highest in the nation, but opioids aren’t the only concern.

Seventy percent of ER overdoses in Alabama involve other substances. A national survey on drug use and health by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that close to 1 in 5 Americans 12 or older had a substance use disorder of some kind, including almost 30 million with alcohol problems.

Rev. Eugene Jacobs joined the ASAP team after attending two of its training events. “I was one of those pastors who was ill equipped to help an individual who needed my services,” Jacobs says. “Someone came to me about their spouse, I looked to Google.”

A third of the religious institutions in the country are in the Southeast, Jacobs says, and Alabama is in the heart of this Bible Belt. He’s helped take training elsewhere in the region, including seminars in New Orleans and Nashville.

Edith Caver, a therapist who works with clients referred by courts, has been an FBSS speaker. Caver was born and raised in the Southern Baptist Convention and still attends regularly. The training is unique, she says, because it includes the element of faith and also aligns with Department of Mental Health guidelines.

“It’s not focused on the Bible,” she says. “It’s more of the science side, bridging the gap so they have knowledge and skills to take back to the church and add that faith aspect.”

Monique Chatman supports her husband in his ministry at a church in Anderson, Ala. “There is an epidemic of drug and substance abuse here,” she says. “We’ve never known quite what to do when we have someone who is dealing with that.”

Thanks to the training, they now know about the resources in their community. Beyond that, they have taken on projects to let others know about them and improve understanding of the nature of substance use among their congregation.

The church organized its own “Red Ribbon Week” campaign, distributing information about treatment resources, fentanyl and newly emerging drugs. ASAP sent a speaker who spoke of her mother’s recovery struggles.

“She had a perspective that the church had not heard,” Chatman says. “To hear her testimony was a game changer — it was a lot of crying, a lot of awareness to our leaders and the church in general.”

Right Choices

ASAP has received funding from the Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts to take what it started in Alabama across the country. “We’re getting ready to go to New York City,” Jacobs says. “We’re taking our program across the world because I truly believe that we are saving lives.”

Morris has been a regular speaker at FBSS trainings but has too many other responsibilities to play a significant role in this national evolution. But the expansion reflects something she’s seen often during her decades of recovery.

“I want people to understand that once you start making a series of right choices,” she says, “you have no idea where God will put you.”