Out of the Basement

UU World: The Magazine of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Jul/Aug 2004 by Deakin, Michelle Bates

Addictions ministry moves beyond AA

IN 1988, DENIS MEACHAM'S LIFE WAS A study in contradictions. He was a successful man of business, founder of his own publishing company. He was a college professor with degrees from Princeton and Harvard. And he was an alcoholic, struggling with a compulsion to drink around the clock.

He couldn't leave his house without a drink. He was plagued by night sweats. He found himself in bars at 8:30 in the morning to fortify himself for the day's work. The grueling cycle wore on until Meacham awoke one morning, unable to get out of bed, wracked with tears, and faced with a horrifying dilemma. His body and his spirit couldn't tolerate his drinking, but he didn't know how to live his life without it.

His wife, Janet, helped get him to a detoxification unit in Boston. And his life has never been the same. Meacham has turned his struggle with substance abuse-one that millions of Americans fight every day-into a lifelong search for the link between recovery and spirituality. Now, the Rev. Dr. Denis Meacham, who was ordained in 2002, is on a quest to equip Unitarian Universalists with the spiritual tools to overcome addictions themselves.

Like any spiritual journey, Meacham's has not been direct or predictable. He has traversed uncharted ground and confronted perplexing questions in trying to create an avenue of treatment for addictions in a community with beliefs as diverse as Unitarian Universalists'.

UUs often dismiss traditional Twelve-Step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous as too theistic. AA groups meet in Unitarian Universalist churches across the country but only a handful of our congregations sponsor any kind of programs for addicts and alcoholics.

Even in our liberal religious communities, addictions remain a taboo subject. So much of Meacham's work has been to break that silence, to help UUs talk about this silent plague among us. When Meacham has spoken the words "alcoholism" and "drug addiction" in UU congregations, uttering them for perhaps the first time in some churches, the response from church members has been nearly overwhelming.

"Whenever I speak to congregations, I always ask people to raise a hand or light a candle if a person or someone in their family has had a problem with drugs or alcohol," says the soft-spoken Meacham. "I never see less than three-quarters of the room raise their hands. And you can hear people sucking in their breath, they're so surprised."

Meacham's manner is measured, his calmness infectious; he's not one prone to quick outbursts or hyperbole. But the light in his eyes betrays his excitement. He's clearly charged up by the sheer number of people he's been able to reach out to and by the countless more who could use his help. His crystal-blue eyes, set off by the whiteness of his neatly trimmed hair and beard, reach a new intensity when he talks about the legions of UUs affected by substance abuse and our institutional silence about them.They are eyes so clear, so sharp, it's hard to imagine them once stained red by martinis and hiding a fear that only another drink could mask.

Meacham's work is centered at the First Parish Brewster, a large congregation on Cape Cod in Massachusetts where he has been affiliate minister for four years. He has established several programs at Brewster for church members, and increasingly, Meacham is traveling to other New England churches. His book on how to create and sustain an addictions ministry, The Addiction Ministry Handbook: A Guide for Faith Communities, has just been published by the UUA's Skinner House Books. And he's lobbying the Unitarian Universalist Association for institutional responses. "The biggest single thing I want to do is to open the windows and doors so people can talk about this," says Meacham. "So many fellow members and congregants are hurting. And if you're willing to help them, the floodgates will open."

WHEN MEACHAM COMPLETED HIS stint in alcohol rehab, he returned to his church, the First Unitarian Society in Newton, Massachusetts, looking for a program that might help him along his road to recovery. But there was no structure to support recovering alcoholics in his congregation in 1988.

It's an odd gap, considering that alcoholism, drug dependency, and their cousins-overeating, compulsive gambling, and the full panoply of addictive behaviors-are frequently considered spiritual ailments. Recovery from them, Meacham believes, is a spiritual process.

The support Meacham was looking for came primarily from other recovering addicts and alcoholics in AA. There, he was helped by the community and the common experience of people whose lives had been torn down by addiction and rebuilt by talking to one another. Ironically, most of these AA meetings took place in church basements.

"Addiction is the great equalizer," says Meacham, who despite his fancy educational pedigree and material success found himself in recovery with people from all walks of life. Even with the business success he had enjoyed, he says he would have pursued a very different career if he hadn't fallen under the spell of drugs and alcohol. Meacham had had a lifelong ambition to be a doctor, but post-Princeton, he fell into the world of music and drugs instead.