By Catherine Pepinster
The Methodist minister, Rev Laurent Vernet, begins a new role in Glasgow today as minister for recovery — Britain’s first minister for drug addiction.
After several years serving a church in Glasgow that offered special services for those with addiction problems, the Strathclyde circuit of the Methodist Church has released Mr Vernet from his previous responsibilities to focus wholly on addiction and recovery problems — and take the Methodist community closer to providing a church just for those coping with drug, alcohol and gambling problems.
It means that Glasgow will see the biggest commitment from a Christian denomination in this country to ministering to people with addictions.
It is following the pioneering work south of the border in Newcastle upon Tyne, where the Anglican cathedral was the first to run special services for people with addictions and in recovery.
Neither the Glasgow nor the Newcastle projects set out to convert people, although the recovery services on the Tyne have led to some baptisms. According to Mr Vernet, he is committed to his new role with people in recovery because: “I want to offer them a new community, one that doesn’t judge them, or proselytise. But it is a chance for a new beginning.”
He starts his work as the city and the rest of Scotland struggle to cope with the extent of drug addiction, with 90 deaths every month amounting to the worst drug death rate in the UK and Europe, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.
The Scottish government is now proposing the decriminalisation of drugs for personal use, citing the much lower numbers of deaths from drugs in Portugal, since it brought in decriminalisation in 2001. It had 74 in 2021, compared with Scotland’s 1,330, despite having almost double the population of Scotland. But drugs law reform depends on the UK government, which opposes the change.
According to the Rev Jon Canessa, the vicar who helps to run the recovery church services in Newcastle Cathedral, the government’s long-standing war on drugs policy, which focuses on criminality, has failed “spectacularly” and is “massively unhelpful”.
“The number of people dying from drug-related causes is going up in our area,” he said. Newcastle’s annual drug-related death rate is more than double the average for England and four times higher than London, with 106 Newcastle residents dying from drugs last year.
Mr Canessa, alongside Methodist minister Tracey Hulme, began their work in Newcastle through online services when many people during the Covid pandemic became more vulnerable to drink and drugs. “They were drinking too much because of lockdown,” he said.
“I would say addiction is about people trying to soothe pain, loss and trauma. We talk about the whole person and what it is about their life which has proved a problem. Coming along to a service is a form of confession and that vulnerability shows a willingness to change.”
Mr Vernet’s understanding of addiction after working with people in recovery is similar.
“Often addiction is linked to despair,” he said. “People don’t know who they are. They can despair because of the addiction, but it goes deeper than that. We can offer a sense of identity, and also that a higher power loves them.”
Woodlands Methodist Church in Glasgow, where Mr Vernet was previously based as minister, has provided for people with drink and drug problems for more than 40 years, with meetings for addicts, and is now the base for regular sessions by Alcoholics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, attended by more than 400 people a week. The special church services for people in recovery include Bible readings, prayer and worship — a similar pattern of church service held at Newcastle Cathedral.
Mr Vernet’s project is part of the Methodist initiative “New Places for New People”, reaching people outside the church. Its future is funded in part by the sale of Trinity Methodist Church on Shettleston Road, Glasgow, with proceeds going towards a church building dedicated entirely to serving those in recovery.
“The congregation there was in decline and they felt the responsibility of running the church was causing stress for the people left,” Mr Vernet said. “So they said spend the money raised by the sale on serving people in recovery. They do believe that that by their church dying and this work going on because of it, that is a resurrection.”
Mr Vernet has also started Recovart, led by a professional artist, which explores addictions and lives. In addition, he runs coaching training, to help people in recovery develop skills in coaching and public speaking so that they in turn can help other addicts.
Christian organisations are being encouraged to be more engaged in working with people with addictions and in recovery, by the drugs policy foundation Transform, which backs decriminalisation of drugs.
In 2022 it held a consultation on drug addiction and Christian ethics with representatives of Christian organisations at St George’s House, Windsor.
Afterwards it issued this statement: “Justice is a strong Christian ethic, and the group agreed there was a need for Christian churches to question whether prohibition is executing proper justice and to be open to an alternative form of policy that moves away from enforcement which is exacerbating harms.”
