Faith healing: Spirituality offers help on addictions

Three faith-based organizations have qualified to receive tax money to help pay for treatment programs. Volunteers of America received $1.6 million in state and federal money last fiscal year, while Catholic Community Services received about $227,000 and the Salvation Army received $178,000.

They each offer time-proven treatment programs and tireless personnel driven by religious zeal and unshakable faith in the worth of all human beings.

Volunteers of America literally brings the opportunity for treatment to the streets and works with the most hard-core alcoholic and drug-addicted residents. Their outreach program includes vans, affectionately known as "boozer cruisers," that go out on "patrol" almost every day. Volunteer teams search for people and families on the streets, under viaducts, on railroad tracks and on the banks of creeks.

Those with drug-abuse problems are brought to the detoxification center, a 60-bed residential facility that annually houses more than 4,000 people. Center residents attend 12-step meetings and are referred to substance-abuse-treatment programs.

Because a majority of women addicted to drugs are young, often homeless mothers, Volunteers of America also operates a 40-bed residential facility to help them quit. Those admitted don't have to deal with the added anxiety of being separated as they detoxify and get treatment.

The center grew out of necessity, both because of the dramatic recent increase in the number of addicted mothers and the fact that they will resist treatment if they are separated from their children, said Jeff St. Romain, president and CEO of Volunteers of America Utah.

Children who have been taken into state custody because of traces of drugs found in their blood have been returned to their mothers because the center provided housing and treatment.

According to Fleming, Volunteers of America, Catholic Community Services and the Salvation Army have met state licensing requirements mandated of all treatment programs. They are also required "not to violate the separation clause of the Constitution," and they cannot "refuse service to a person of a different faith."

Other churches have opted not to accept government funds, but they provide clinical counseling and refer addicts to other licensed treatment programs for additional care.