Harper uses experience with addiction to find solutions in faith communities
Substance use and addiction are critical issues in our nation, and one Lipscomb student is using his own story and faith to make a difference
Kim Chaudoin |
Learn more about the Bisons in Recovery program
According to a 2020 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, 40% of adults in the U.S. reported struggling with mental health or substance use, with 13% reporting starting or increasing substance use as a way of coping with stress or emotions related to COVID-19. Studies also indicate that the early months of the pandemic brought an 18% increase nationwide in overdoses compared with those same months in 2019. The trend continued throughout 2020, according to the American Medical Association, which reported in December that more than 40 U.S. states have seen increases in opioid-related mortality along with ongoing concerns for those with substance use disorders.
In July, the Nashville Davidson County Metro Public Health Department released data that indicated the opioid epidemic is on track in 2020 to kill more people than ever before with a 47% increase in opioid overdoses from the first six months of 2019. In Tennessee, about five people die every day from an overdose. Even before the pandemic, the issue was growing at an alarming rate.
When Jaime Harper reads statistics like that, he knows that they represent more than merely numbers. They represent people … like him. To Harper, every statistic has a story and a life attached to it. He has been one of those statistics and lived to tell his story.
Jaime Harper
Today he uses his experience to help others as a faith-based community coordinator in Tennessee’s Department of Mental Health & Substance Abuse Services (MHSAS). He is also a student in Lipscomb University’s Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling addiction specialization program, which is the only faith-based, CACREP-accredited university in the south that offers this unique program and equips students with the knowledge and expertise that make a difference on the front-lines of treating those with a substance use disorder. He plans on graduating in May.
Launched in August 2014, the MHSAS’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives provides the framework for faith-based organizations across Tennessee to join in a recovery network. Harper said the Division of Substance Abuse Services is actively engaging faith communities.
“In Tennessee, we have a great resource in our communities of faith,” says Harper. “Of the 6.6 million Tennesseans, 85% affiliate with one of the state’s 11,500 houses of faith. As MHSAS developed its response to this crisis, department leaders recognized the opportunity to leverage this critical, untapped network of caring individuals and faith communities as a means to help address addiction in our state.”
“Given the number of Tennesseans who are part of a faith community, there is a high probability that these communities will be impacted by those with substance use disorders,” he continues. “If we can educate individuals of faith to understand this issue, to be able to know what to do and how to create a safe environment for people who need or seek help, we can put a huge dent in this epidemic in our state.”
Harper says the goals of the MHSAS’s faith-based initiative are to:
- Connect individuals struggling with addiction to treatment
- Increase knowledge of what addiction is
- Facilitate understanding of substance use disorder treatment and recovery
- Understand the continuum of care and collaborate with it
- Spread awareness of the Faith-Based Initiative certification and its requirements
- Help groups understand and implement the best practice model
- Promote and improve effectiveness of the faith-based initiative and how it connects the community with recovery and support services
Since its inception, the office has certified more than 740 churches as recovery congregations, have started more than 600 recovery meetings, referred more than 13,800 Tennesseans to treatment and have held more than 6,000 community training sessions. MHSAS also oversees the state’s Regional Overdose Prevention Specialist (ROPS) program, the Lifeline Peer Project and Crisis Services. In his role as a faith-based community coordinator, Harper oversees services for the 41 counties that comprise the middle Tennessee grand division.
More than a statistic
Harper’s journey with substance use began at age 11. He experienced “a lot of trauma” in his childhood, which led to experimentation with and eventual addiction to various substances. His main “go-tos” were alcohol and cocaine. During his childhood, he and his family moved frequently. When he was 17, Harper’s father was killed and he eventually dropped out of high school.
“But I grew up going to church,” Harper recalls. “I was going to church when I started using at age 11. I dropped out of high school when I was 17. When my father was killed I went into a deep spiral and I stopped going to church. Nobody from church ever visited me to see what was going on … to see why I stopped going.”
Harper continued his substance abuse until age 30 when his wife, Emily, told him she was pregnant with their first child.
“I knew I couldn’t allow the environment that I had created to continue. My wife was the key component in getting me out. She allowed me a safe place, and suggested that we start going to church,” says Harper. “I told her to have a good time and that I wasn’t going. At that time I had gotten to the point that I had determined that there was no God.”
Those whom I thought were ‘those hypocrites’ actually became the community that I needed. They introduced me not just to sobriety, but to recovery. — Jaime Harper
One day, Harper’s wife convinced him to go with her to church — and he went with the stipulation that they would arrive after services started and leave before they ended so he would not have to “talk to those hypocrites.”
“Those whom I thought were ‘those hypocrites’ actually became the community that I needed,” he admits. “They introduced me not just to sobriety, but to recovery.”
A turning point came when a church member asked him one Sunday the standard, “How are you?” in passing. When Harper responded, “I’m not doing too well,” it “kind of freaked him out.”
“He was used to the ‘I’m fine’ answer,” recalls Harper. “And all he knew to say was ‘I’ll be praying for you.’ But I told him later what I needed instead of telling me he was praying for me, was for him to actually pray for me and with me, to give me 30 seconds out of his day. It's just being able to have empathy for an individual rather than sympathy. It’s something that everyone can do, but we haven't been taught how. It requires us to become vulnerable about ourselves and to say, I don't know how to do that. It requires us to understand that we can't fix the situation. And we don't have to. We can be there with the individual to assure them that they aren’t alone and this is a safe place to be able to seek help.”
Paying it forward
As Harper was in his recovery process, his minister asked him if he would be willing to start a recovery program at his church, the Mt. Juliet Church of Christ. Ten years later, the program continues with materials translated into several languages and Harper serves as a recovery ministry leader. Harper has been in recovery for 17 years.
That sparked a passion for helping others in need by utilizing faith communities in playing a role in recovery just like they did in his life. He is on a mission to pay it forward. In his role with MHSAS, Harper is a point of contact in the faith community for establishing recovery programs, providing educational presentations, and facilitating coordination of substance abuse, mental health and co-occurring treatment and recovery services to those in need. He is a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist, a certified Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) and Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) trainer, a Trauma Informed Approach trainer, a Mental Health First Aid-Adult/Public Safety trainer and a CPRS trainer.
After dropping out of high school, Harper returned to school earning an Associate of Science degree in electronics engineering technology and a Bachelor of Science in psychology. Harper wanted to be able to “provide a deeper level of care” and decided to enroll in Lipscomb’s graduate Clinical Mental Health Counseling addiction specialization program.
“I knew that I wanted to be able to provide a deeper level of care, and I came to Lipscomb to enhance the knowledge and experience that I had,” explains Harper. “The experience at Lipscomb has allowed me the opportunity to be able to provide a level of service and system of care that I've not understood before. It's given me an opportunity to not only make that therapeutic alliance with a client, but with individuals in general, and to allow them to understand that I'm a safe place where they can reach out for help.”
Harper says one of his goals for his studies at Lipscomb is to be able to take mental health and substance use services to the uninsured, under insured and indigent populations. He says one of the first steps in reaching these populations is to break the stigma. “I can build trust by sharing my story and for them to see that I was once where they are, but I’m not there any more,” he reflects. “Then, I can help them move through their own stages of change and to help them find hope. That's what Lipscomb’s program has allowed me to do — to reach individuals on a deeper level than what I've been able to do before.”
Harper is also working to help Lipscomb students. On Tuesday, March 16, he launched a new Bisons in Recovery 12-step support group exclusively for Lipscomb students who are in recovery or beginning recovery from substance and/or alcohol use. The group meets from 6-7 p.m. every Tuesday and individuals may participate in-person or online. Learn more here.
There's always hope. Until there's no breath left, there's always hope. — Jaime Harper
There is a great need for addiction specialists and Harper believes Lipscomb’s program is helping fill that need. “We are growing in number for the cure,” he says. “The way that I see it, every student who comes out of here is going to be better prepared to help those who we need to reach.”
“The professors are brilliant and beautiful people. They don't teach at you … they walk with you,” continues Harper. “They know the strengths and weaknesses of the students. They're able to help students in their weaknesses, gather the strengths of others and really bring the whole cohort together. It's refreshing to be a part of a program that drives my passion to help others.”
Although the statistics may indicate an impossible problem, Harper is a living testimony that there is hope for making a difference. “There's always hope,” he says. “Until there's no breath left, there's always hope.”
Learn more about Lipscomb’s Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling addiction specialization program.
Learn more about the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.
Tennessee Crisis Services Line: 855.274.7471 (855-CRISIS-1)