Alcoholism familiar to clergy under stress

Episcopal Bishop Chilton Knudsen of Maine can sympathize with her church's first openly gay bishop, Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who announced last week he is being treated for alcoholism. Knudsen herself needed alcohol treatment 21 years ago after becoming the first woman to lead an Episcopal congregation in Illinois.

"There is a particular kind of stress people are under when they are the first," she said. "Being a clergy person is a stressful job — and any disease process latent in our bodies is going to be exacerbated" when an extra level of scrutiny is added on.

While Bishop Knudsen believes other high-pressure vocations — doctors, for instance — face similar problems, the Rev. Dale Wolery of the Clergy Recovery Network says religious denominations that accept social drinking wind up with more alcoholism among clerics.

"But where the church culture is not open to (drinking), the resistance to getting help is more profound," so seeking treatment and managing recovery is more difficult, he added.

Religious professionals often have high expectations of themselves and are viewed with high expectations by others, said the Rev. Wolery, an independent Baptist minister based in Joplin, Mont. When they can't live up to those ideals, that can lead to alcohol abuse, he said.

"The core of the addictive process is shame," said the Rev. Wolery, who has aided between 200 and 300 clerics with alcohol problems.

Gail Gleason Milgram, education director at Rutgers University's Center of Alcohol Studies, says that all executives, including bishops, have a special problem because "the higher up one becomes in an organization, the more difficult to confront the behavior" and tell the boss that help is needed.

Local clergy have another temptation. "They might come and go at their own schedules. They don't punch a clock," she said. So, it's easier for them to cover up the problem, say avoiding appointments before 10 a.m. because they're hung over, or after 4 p.m. so they can resume drinking.

The Rev. Nancy Platt of Augusta, Maine, an alcoholic who became sober before joining the Episcopal priesthood, is active in the Recovering Alcoholic Clergy Association — an Episcopal group with 350 active members, including one or two bishops.

The Rev. Platt says the clergy have three special challenges: parishioners' demands of them and their families; low pay relative to other professionals with graduate training; and the requirement of dealing continually with peoples' problems.