Bishop Methodius of Kamensk-Uralsky and
Alapayevsk, who is in charge of the Coordination Center for Prevention of Drug
Addiction of the Synodal Charity and Social Ministry Department, gave an
interview to Russia Today News Agency.
- Your Grace, I heard that those priests who
deal with drug addicts even once have to keep helping them throughout their
lives. Is it true? Why did you start to help this social group?
- Not all
the priests who encountered people suffering from issues related to substance
abuse have devoted their entire lives to helping the addicts.
In my
case, it was simple. I was a priest in a remote rural parish. Several new
parishioners who were involved in helping drug addicts asked me how to help the
drug addicts according to the Church tradition. I had to research this topic in
order to be able to respond to their question. Finally, they arranged a meeting
with three drug addicts for me so that I could get to know them. It was in
1990-1991.
We got to
know each other but we actually began working with drug addicts only after the
1998 crisis. Our parish was remote, and people had to travel long distances to
attend the services but then transportation collapsed and their travels were no
longer feasible. We were merely hoping to remain priests and not to turn into
stokers, night guards, and yardsmen. We recalled that we had met drug addicts,
and we invited them to help us. They were helping us in the parish, and we
started helping them to overcome their dependency. That was how it began.
- You have been helping drug addicts for many
years. Who do you remember most vividly?
- Working
with drug addicts is fun, you won't get bored. There are many talented and
creative people among them. Sometimes, of course, we face difficult situations,
too.
The first
story was the easiest to remember. I remember the first drug addict whom they
brought to us. We provided accommodation for him in a separate house. He worked
with us, confessed, and led a sober life. My fear of drug addicts disappeared
after I got to know him. He turned out to be a nice guy and was eager to play
with children. However, his confession was frightening to hear. The things that
he confessed to doing were really serious. It looked as if there were two
drastically different personalities inside him - that was how he changed under
the influence of drugs.
Now he's
already dead because he couldn't stop drinking. Unfortunately, he couldn't move
past it. It was not rehabilitation per se - it was just our first experience.
He died like a Christian: he repented in hospital, asked everyone to forgive
him, confessed, and then died. It was a Christian death. We pray for him and
hope that he gets saved.
- Ninety-five percent of requests for help
are said to be initiated by drug addicts' relatives. What about the addicts
themselves? Do you have to force them into treatment?
- I can't
say that drug addicts don't turn for help. You just have to reach out to them
properly. Although there are not as many church-run rehabilitation centers as
we need, we are capable of hosting many people. When drug addicts' parents
come, we work with them, too. Substance abuse is not exclusively limited to
dysfunctional families. However, the entire family starts to suffer from a
spiritual illness when there is a drug addict in it. As a rule, if there is a
drug addict in a family, people are afraid to talk about it or ask for help
because they fear that they will lose their social status.
Our
society is characterized by an extremely negative attitude towards drug
addicts. Many people believe that they deserve to be isolated, suffer
restricted access to basic human rights, instead of rehabilitation. Our society
is more inclined towards building a system of punishment, instead of a system
of assistance. If we start looking at drug addicts as people in trouble, rather
than criminals, attitudes will change, and new laws will appear.
Drug
addicts don't cry out for help because they expect to face huge repercussions
instead of help. As a result, we often encounter drug addicts at a final stage
of their dependency, when they have nothing to lose: neither health nor a
family nor friends. It's as if cancer patients went to hospital only at the
fourth stage. Even though it happens all the time, we often manage to cure such
patients.
- Are there incurable drug addicts?
- When
someone dies because of her addiction, we can say that she was hopeless but as
long as she is alive, we can hope that she'll get well.
- Drug addicts who come to church-run
rehabilitation centers often complain that secular rehabilitation centers don't
help, while asking for too much money. Are church-run rehabilitation centers
really so much better than secular ones?
- There
are good and bad secular rehabilitation centers. There are bad church-run
centers, which are not equipped with the necessary skills yet, and there are
good ones. Of course, we can't say that all our church-run centers are good,
while the secular centers are bad.
What
church-run centers definitely don't do is exploitation. We do not get rich at
the expense of drug addicts. Their relatives are often ready to sell or give away
everything in order to pay for treatment. We do not indulge ourselves in it. We
help selflessly. However, there are many centers which profit from treating the
addicts. There are few successful secular non-profit centers out there. More
often than not, they request either more or less adequate fees, or exorbitant
ones.
Not all
our centers are absolutely free: some centers require their residents to pay
for accommodation and meals. Due to the fact that the Church is always ready to
help those who stumble, if a person slips back into his dependence, we are
ready to take him back. No fewer than half of our patients eventually enter
stable remission.
- What makes church-run rehabilitation so
effective? Why are many people who went through treatment in your centers
reluctant to go home and try to live close to the place where they received
help?
- Our
centers are not isolated, they are not separated from the society. We do not
force people to stay there - they are rehabilitated on the voluntary basis.
When they live in a church atmosphere, people often start to go to church.
Nonetheless, there is no coercion here - it occurs voluntarily and naturally.
There are
four or five types of rehabilitation methods. Although we use best global
practices, we prioritize rehabilitation in a church community over all other
methods.
Certain
church regulations, such as fasting, can be useful when working with drug addicts,
too. Obviously, an individual who is capable of abstaining from certain kinds
of foods can better oppose the yearning to get high and he is more likely to
throw the drugs out of his life forever.
That's a
fact that many people do not want to return to their native cities and towns
after treatment. It is like in monasticism: as a rule, people become monks far
from the places where they were born and grew up. It is much more difficult to
start a new life in a familiar environment. Drug addicts also find it easier to
move to a different location after rehabilitation. Even if they return home,
they will need to find new friends, new jobs, and new hobbies.
- Some representatives of the Russian
Orthodox Church suggest that the government should delegate some of its social
functions to the Church. In fact, the Church manages to organize assistance to
the needy better sometimes. What do you think about this idea?
- We live
in a secular country, still. If the government makes this decision, it will
face resistance of many organizations and individuals. We need to be able to
justify the priority given to the Russian Orthodox Church over other
organizations.
Of
course, we hope that the government will support our efforts aimed at the
rehabilitation of drug addicts. However, we should protect our smaller centers
against being closed under the pretext that they do not meet official
standards. Our rural rehabilitation centers might not meet the standards
concerning living conditions. Officials sometimes criticize them for having pit
latrines instead of flush toilets. In my opinion, pit latrines are better than
death on the street.
We
consider renewed interaction of the Synodal Charity Department with the State
Anti-Drug Committee to be our top priority. Unfortunately, the interaction with
the government at such a high level has been interrupted recently.
- What issues do church-run centers face most
often?
- Our
rehabilitation is free. That is why we have to subsist on little money,
although we need to pay the staff well. We have no right to pay skilled
professionals too little money: however, we have no money for that.
There is
one more issue: we don't know how to advertise our services, how to show off.
Our society tends to think that all expensive things are good, and that all
cheap or free goods or services are worthless. That is why many successful
church-run centers, which are almost or totally free, remain unoccupied: people
simply lack information about us.
Beside
that, our society has another problem. I recall traveling to an old lady by car
in Soviet times. I stopped to buy a melon for her. The man selling melons gave
us a melon for free because, he said, he could not accept payment from a
clergyman. People in his native village deemed it inappropriate for a priest to
live in poverty.
For
instance, priests in our diocese live in austerity, especially given that they
have big families: three children on average, and there are priests who have 10
or 11 kids. Their income, however, is meager.
Mass
media almost never write about the good things but they contain plenty of
information about some priests driving posh cars. On the other hand, surveys
have demonstrated that people in our country trust the Church as a social
institution to a great extent. Unfortunately, our mass media have become
habituated to writing about failures, so when you read or watch the news, you
come across too much negative information.
There is
no shortage of cases of unworthy behavior but why publicize them? In my
opinion, everything isn't as bad as it seems. When you get your information
from the media and then go out and look at the world with your own eyes, things
are different, praise God.
Source: http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/4941536.html
CONVERSATION