There’s Help for Alcohol and Drug Addictions

 

The Rev. Dr. Jane Abraham working out of her office
in Midtown Memphis. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

Roughly 400,000 people in the state of Tennessee use or abuse alcohol or drugs, which accounts for 5 percent of the population, according to BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.

The statistics are startling. Teens, young adults and seniors had reported using illicit drugs, including prescription opioids. But only a very small percentage get the treatment they need.

Memphians and others across Tennessee need not worry. There is help for addicts. The Rev. Dr. Jane Abraham and her business partner, Keith Henderson, are transforming lives.

Abraham is the CEO of The Healing Arts Research Training (HART) Center, a licensed facility for non-residential addictions treatment that addresses co-occurring disorders and offers counseling and alternative healing experiences. 

She is also the CEO of the non-profit Healing Hearts Foundation, which provides a “continuum of care process for individuals afflicted with substance abuse, mental health and/or co-occurring disorders.”  

Henderson is the clinical director of both.

“I love working with addicts,” said Abraham, whose life was reduced to tatters nearly 35 years ago when she herself grappled with alcohol and drugs. 

“I was an addict,” she acknowledged.

At that time, Abraham was living with her mother in Leland, Miss., about 140 miles south of Memphis following the U.S.-61 route. 

“I was really sick,” she said.

Her mother wouldn’t enable her and wasn’t going to watch her destroy her life. So, in 1986, she took immediate action and, without so much as a notice, kicked Abraham out the house.

She said, according to Abraham, “I didn't bring you into the world to watch you die on my couch,” after which Abraham replied: “I'll be gone the next morning.” 

Apparently, Abraham didn’t move quick enough, which elicited a sharp rebuke from her mother to leave the house immediately. 

“No ma'am, I mean right now!” Abraham recalls her mother saying. 

Abraham said she gathered her “frugal” belongings, jumped into her “rat trap car,” picked up a newspaper, and headed to the levee down in the Mississippi Delta.

The following morning, she perused the newspaper and stumbled upon an opportunity that would change her life forever.

It was a job at a treatment facility for a weekend counselor that included an apartment on the grounds. 

“I went and interviewed for it and got it,” she said. “I had no idea I was an addict [at that time]. It was only when God picked me up like a pawn on a chess board and put me in the treatment facility.”

Abraham realized she couldn’t keep drinking and drugging if she was going to work with addicts and participated in the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous in Greenville, Miss.

“My date of sobriety is April 17, 1987. That was the last time I had a drink or drugs,” she said. “That was the beginning of my change.”

That same year, Abraham met Henderson, who was recovering from addictions himself and working as well at the treatment facility.

“We started talking about what we wanted to do with our lives,” she said, and set up a 12-step Narcotics Anonymous program for addicts and the groundwork for The HART Center and the Foundation. 

“I knew that God had given me a reprieve,” said Abraham, now a trauma specialist in the field of addiction and mental health. 

With no prior college experience, Abraham earned an undergraduate degree at the University of Memphis and a master’s degree at the University of Tennessee College of Social Work. 

In 2005, she was conferred a doctorate at New Mexico Theological Seminary in Santa Fe, NM. Her mother and father were staunch Southern Baptists. “I got a taste of that,” she said. “Then I started studying religion when I was around 11 or 12.”

Now, Abraham, Henderson, and their multidisciplinary team are working “to transform lives and communities by integrating best practices in addiction and co-occurring disorders with cutting-edge holistic therapies that activate the heart’s inner guidance system.” 

“They're the Dream Team,” she said.

Henderson has extensive experience in the field of mental health and addiction as well. Along with Abraham, they work diligently to assist those who’re afflicted with addictions.

The HART Center, licensed in 2005, has contracted with Judge Tim James Dwyer’s Shelby County Drug Court since 2010. They work with non-violent adult offenders for a year to 18 months.

They provide non-residential services for substance abuse and mental health treatment, among others. 

The Healing Hearts Foundation, established in 2010, is funded by the Tennessee Department of Mental Health Substance Abuse Services and provides services for the Tennessee Department of Correction-Probation & Parole. 

“We can keep people up to a year or longer if they are determined to need those services and [if] we can get the funding for it through our contracts with the state,” Abraham said.

Services include traditional and specialized interventions and experiential intensives such as massage, personal training, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), breath, music, art, movement, and more. 

“We provide outpatient services in Tennessee only,” said Abraham, adding: “We’ve been blessed with all of these incredible people who've come to us for help.” 

For more information, logon to www.thehartcenter.org or www.healing heartsfoundation.net. Or contact the Rev. Dr. Jane Abraham for an appointment at 901-726-4213.