How Churches and Spiritual Leaders Can Help Opioid Addicts

'I want to meet with people who are struggling,' said the head of a program that focuses on theology, medicine and culture

The opioid epidemic claimed more than 40,000 lives in the U.S. in 2016 alone.

And the problem is growing particularly acute in Appalachia. In Tennessee, for example, 80 percent of crimes are drug-related.

On Friday and Saturday, May 18 and May 19, a conference on opioid addiction brought clinicians, clergy and educators to the tip of southern Appalachia to begin a yearlong conversation on ways churches can help heal and support those caught in the epidemic’s grip.

Among its organizers was Dr. Raymond Barfield, a pediatric oncologist at Duke University, who has a joint appointment at its divinity school. For five years he directed a program called “Theology, Medicine and Culture.”

He now teaches courses on Christian philosophy and mentors students in the Medical Humanities Study Program.

Question (RNS): How did the conference come about?

Answer (Barfield): I was asked by Duke to go and give some talks in Bristol, Tennessee. After my first talk, I got a tour of the hospital they were building. They had built a whole unit for neonatal abstinence syndrome. I was surprised. They said 50 percent of their neonatal admissions are for this syndrome, where babies withdraw when they’re born because their mother has been on some kind of substance, and as soon they’re born they no longer have it, but they still have the physiological need for it.

They go into withdrawal. It can be a real challenge to manage.

So I asked, "What's the rest of the community like? What's the drug and alcohol problem?"