We are called to help

An interview with professional counselor John Conway about spirituality and recovery

John Conway is a lifelong Jacksonian and longtime member of St. Philip’s, Jackson. A licensed professional counselor who works primarily with clients struggling with substance abuse, he facilitates group therapy programs at Bridge to Recovery and manages a grant for the Mississippi Public Health Institute. Through that grant, he provides Narcan, which can save the lives of people overdosing on opioids, and trains first responders on how to use it. Conway also works with the Diocese of Mississippi’s Episcopal Recovery Program and helped establish Andre’s Fund, named for his brother who died from addiction. The fund helps people in need of treatment.

TME: How did you get started in this line of work?

JC: I am in long term recovery myself and, God willing, will celebrate 27 years sober on October 2nd. So it was through Alcoholics Anonymous and through recovery that I felt compelled to try to help and try to see if I could provide some sort of support and care for people as they went through the same struggles I went through. My family’s got a pretty long history with recovery. My mom just got her 45-year chip. My younger brother Andre struggled with addiction his whole life. He had some periods of recovery, but ultimately succumbed to the disease.

TME: That led, if I understand correctly, to the establishment of Andre’s Fund?

JC: Yes. Bishop Seage decided that we could focus some resources there using my brother’s name, and I believe a number of people wanted to honor him in some way, and so began to give donations to Episcopal Recovery and that turned into Andre’s Fund that Episcopalians or people through the Episcopal Church could request support for treatment, for recovery.

TME: You and Andre grew up in the Episcopal Church?

JC: Yeah, my brother and I both went to St. Philip’s, starting when my parents moved to Jackson in 1969. We were in that neighborhood, and we grew up experiencing all the great things the Episcopal Church offered us. We were active in EYC. We were acolytes at St. Philip’s. In fact, for a number of years, we were probably the go-to acolytes because our parents took us to church every Sunday so we could be counted on for that. We were a utilitarian acolyte corps, you know. So EYC, acolyting, and then Camp Bratton-Green.

TME: Can you tell us a bit about Andre? What kind of person was he?

JC: As is often the case, the paradox of addiction means that it’s not that simple. He was a great man, a loving guy, someone who, at his best, tried at every turn to help somebody else, to help other people in recovery, and had a fairly significant impact in the recovery community in Jackson and in Mississippi with the work he did. And when I say work, I mean lowercase ‘W,’ I mean just the efforts he made through his own program of recovery. And the paradox is that he also suffered greatly from the disease of alcoholism and drug addiction, and so he struggled mightily with that. He had long periods of sobriety, but also periods where he was struggling. And throughout it all, he tried to help others, and I believe did that a great deal. In fact, I know he did that a great deal. I got to see God working in his life a lot. And also got to see the horrors of how addiction can take over all of that as well—block us from that sunlight that is God’s love.

TME: Spirituality, I take it, is a big part of recovery. Can you talk about the relationship between those two things?

JC: For me, to talk about the spiritual part of my program of recovery is like talking about the wet part of the ocean. You know, it’s just all encompassing, and it only exists because of that and through that, right? The program of recovery that I practice through Alcoholics Anonymous offers me a spiritual solution to help with all the problems in my life and when I was introduced to that, I found that it dovetailed just seamlessly with how I’d been raised in the Episcopal Church and the way spirituality had been presented to me in the Episcopal Church as all-welcoming, benevolent, all-loving, and just truly something I could count on on a day-to-day basis.

I’m very fortunate that my avocations and my vocations have lined up together, you know, and are in lockstep. I feel really lucky that I get to do the thing that I care most about at my work, as well as care deeply about the things I’m doing from a personal and a spiritual standpoint. I believe we are called to help, and that’s a lesson I always learned in the Episcopal Church and that my parents imparted on me.

TME: As someone with such a long career helping folks struggling with addiction, what’s your message to those who may be considering seeking help?

JC: Well one of the biggest things that I want to emphasize, is that people do recover, people can get sober. It’s an incredibly frustrating disease. It can be discouraging. It can be fraught with missteps and false starts. But people do recover. I’ve watched people’s lives change through spirituality and trying to find solutions that can work in their life. So I would just say that as an encouraging word to anyone who’s struggling with addiction or with family members with addiction—recovery is possible, and people do get better, they can recover.

I want to be able to offer that message of hope for anyone who needs it and offer myself, St. Philip’s, the diocese, or any of the other avenues there are for help. The idea that we can do this alone, that we’re put on this earth alone, that we have to face challenges alone or live alone, is simply not true. We’re taught that we are all connected. We’re wired for connection, and that’s a spiritual principle. I believe that we are meant to be God’s message to each other, and oftentimes be God’s voice. Reaching out for help can feel like an arduous task, but man, that’s where the solution can begin.