Since 1983, Sister Therese O'Sullivan has had a front-row seat to observe Chicago's drug scourge, serving as co-founder of a homeless shelter turned sobriety home on the city's South Side.
She has seen a lot in those three decades, and some of it has been good, such as increased societal compassion and understanding toward people struggling with addiction. But as she heads into retirement, O'Sullivan, 77, says the problem seems more forbidding than ever.
"A lot of people are in danger," she said. "The drug dealers engage all kinds of people — young people, doesn't matter. It's all about money and power. And I think that's why our drug issue is a lot worse."
O'Sullivan, a diminutive nun with the Loretto Sisters of the Irish Branch, recently stepped down from day-to-day oversight of the St. Martin de Porres House of Hope in the Woodlawn neighborhood. She gave her observations on Chicago's changing drug scene in a newly refurbished meeting room, its walls gleaming with vibrant red paint.
She has been ministering to the addicted since her religious superior prodded her to expand her horizons beyond teaching first-graders at a Woodlawn elementary school. Guided by the Holy Spirit, she said, she opened the House of Hope as a homeless shelter with the late Sister Connie Driscoll, but decided to focus on recovery when it became clear that drugs had led many clients to the street.
The program adopted a 12-step model supplemented by GED preparation, anger management, art, music and "grammar" (assistance with writing and speech). Women, along with their children, stay for about a year, trying to secure their sobriety before living on their own.
O'Sullivan said while the drugs have remained the same over the years — alcohol, heroin and cocaine still cause the most problems — the clients have changed.
They tend to be older these days — O'Sullivan guessed that younger women are less willing to commit fully to their recovery — and have chronic health problems to go along with addiction. They also frequently enter the program with a mental illness diagnosis, a development she credits to better screening at the treatment centers most attend before moving to House of Hope.
That can complicate their recovery, but one positive change O'Sullivan has noticed is that today's families tend to be more supportive of people tormented by addiction.
"There are more families affected," she said. "This is something that maybe wasn't that way previously. I go out to Barrington, where there's a parish that supports us, and people come up all the time saying, 'Pray for my daughter, pray for my uncle, pray for my brother.'
"I mean, these are people who are very well off, have a good life, but some member of their family is (suffering) and they're looking for ways to give them help."
Some alums of the program have noticed changes, too.
Angelia Holman, 52, entered House of Hope in 2010 seeking help for a crack addiction that spanned nearly three decades, and later became a detox specialist. She said the drugs sold today tend to come with more adulterants than ever — fentanyl-tainted heroin, for example, or marijuana coated with roach spray — and that can create unpredictable problems.
"We were getting real drugs in the '80s," she said. "People now are getting mixtures, substitutes, things we have no idea about. We barely had an idea how the real substances affected the brain and the body. We have no idea how it's affecting the body now because we don't know what it is."
Linda Williams, 65, who will soon leave the home after a two-year stay, said drugs seem to be even more widespread than they were when personal problems led her to a cocaine and heroin habit in the early 1990s. She said, though, that she feels prepared to face the threat when she gets her own apartment.
Though O'Sullivan is no longer in charge, she's still living at House of Hope and plans to continue working with the residents. The new executive director, Yaisa Hagood, said her top job will be to firm up the home's finances through fundraisers and partnerships with organizations such as the University of Chicago; House of Hope has been operating at a deficit for five years, she said."I pray to find a place that is not in the midst of that, but it's everywhere," she said. "You have to stay focused and know what you want. I realize I have an addiction. I can't ever pick up anything that will change my mood."
The home's survival is important, O'Sullivan said, because the issues it addresses appear fated to remain a fixture in the city. Asked what it would take to solve Chicago's drug problem, she replied:
"A miracle, for sure. I just don't see, with the way the gangs are doing what they're doing, that this will go away real soon."
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