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Rev. Kirk Houston

Cathy Perry and Raymond Woods. Photo by Alvin Swilley

Church Ministries
Helping Addicts
Re-Enter Society

By Leonard E. Colvin
Chief Reporter
New Journal & Guide
 
      In 1997, after violating her probation several times, the court decided that Cathy Perry should go to jail and serve out the remaining  2.8 years of her original sentence.
       Perry, who was  in the throes of drug addiction to crack cocaine, found herself reflecting on  how she had landed in jail and all of the people she had hurt and disappointed, including the  three children who had been taken away from her, her mother and other close relatives, and a husband  (who was also battling drugs). She had regrets and guilt over losing her family and a  home and a well paying job.
       While in the Norfolk City Jail she was assigned to the Religion Block.  There spiritual intervention and a strict daily regimen were imposed to  prod substance abusers and folk with other pathologies to get a grip on life through God.  Perry admits she learned a lot about her addiction and a few things about herself during that brief period.
       But it was not enough. Soon after being released from jail, she was back to the streets using drugs. She had a recurring dream—not to become sober—but to go to New York and score lots of cheap drugs, take a nice hot bubble bath and smoke crack cocaine until she stopped breathing.

     “But one day I picked up a Bible. I was frustrated,” she recalled. “I had read about the miracles—Jesus walking on water back in the day, but I did not see any new miracles with my eyes. I needed a miracle. I prayed to God that if he showed me a miracle to help me I would stop drugs from that point on.”
       Over 10 years after Perry made her bargain with the Almighty, she says her miracle has been realized, for she has been freed from drugs.  Even now Perry, like thousands of other ex-addicts, lives from one day to the next, hoping that those old demons which fed her lust  for illicit drugs do not return.

     She has reclaimed control of her life and reconnected with her children. One is in the military serving in Afghanistan. Another is working as a recreation administration in the District of Columbia. She is also raising three nephews, sons of a sister who is fighting addiction, too.
       For three years, she has been working for the Housing Authority of Chesapeake, where she records maintenance orders and dispatches personnel to resolve them.

Posted April 2, 2008

  
       By year’s end she will be completing her study to become a Certified  Substance Abuse Counselor. She  wants to help those who have not found their way out of the darkness of drug addiction.  For the past year, she has been receiving part of her training from the Gethsemane Community Fellowship in Norfolk’s Brambleton section. The church’s Joshua and Living Waters Ministries supports and counsels  ex-addicts on how to  battle drugs and re-enter society.
       On her own she wants to help counsel, especially young black men in her community “who are acting out violently and showing disrespect to the people around them because they are angry and hurt. They just need someone to reach out to them before they reach out for a gun or drugs.”
       “When my miracle began I had to learn how to do everything all over again,” she said. “I had to learn how to walk, how to think like a daughter, mother and sister. I had to relearn the importance of going to work. People would say ‘you should know how do it…it is common sense.’ But after years of being addicted to drugs and doing whatever to get them I didn’t know the basics of life. That’s how far drugs will pull you away from normal life.”
       Perry and hundreds of other ex-addicts owe much to men like the church’s senior pastor  Rev. (Dr.) Kirk Houston. Houston was serving as a Norfolk City Chaplain, Perry said, when she first encountered him.
       Many of the participants in Houston’s church’s re-entry ministries are alumni of the Norfolk City Jail or state prison systems who crossed paths with Houston and other helpful spiritual leaders.
       “There are people who are coming out (of jail and prison) every day and they need help to keep from going back to drug addiction and eventually jail,” said Rev. Houston. “We provide a variety  of services to people seeking to renter the community after serving their time.  We network with agencies like Second Chances, First Step or Community Services Board to help them get clothing, food, shelter help with employment. They also need help with  their drug addiction which destroys everything if we do not get it under control and eradicated.

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