Father Roland Lajoie
Addiction is difficult to manage in “normal times.” But during a pandemic, extra challenges abound.
Just ask Jim, 61.
“Anxious times, stressful times, COVID is certainly creating that,” Jim said, “jobs and change in structure …. For those of us who have the disease, you can go to the bottle.”
Staying closer to home, feeling isolated or bored creates an extra opportunity to slip back into addictive behaviors, he said. “We’re not seeing people; we’re not connecting with people.”
Thankfully, there is help, Jim said.
A member of Alcoholics Anonymous for two years, Jim, who lives in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, also regularly meets with and benefits from the Calix Society, a Catholic-based group that he considers an additional tool to AA. Founded 74 years ago, Calix (Latin for “chalice” or “cup”) helps alcoholics and drug addicts maintain sobriety by encouraging them to practice and draw strength from their Catholic faith, as well as AA’s 12-step program. Family members and friends affected by addiction may also be members of the Calix Society.
According to the Maryland-based National Institute on Drug Abuse, COVID-19 has posed “enormous challenges” for people in addiction recovery, with “significant” increases in various drug use beginning with the shutdowns across the U.S. in March 2020.
Greg, 65, who like Jim asked that his last name and parish not be used, lives in northwest Wisconsin but participates in the Twin Cities-based Calix group via Zoom. He said he attends Calix from the perspective of Al-Anon, which supports family members of people with drinking problems. His wife is a recovering alcoholic.
Greg grew up Catholic and said a 12-step program helped him understand the fellowship of a recovery program. “But when I heard of Calix, I was able to practice speaking freely as a Catholic and not having to worry about professing my faith,” he said.
“One of the (12) steps talks about … ‘a higher power,’” Greg said of AA, “but we don’t know who or what that higher power is. But in Calix, I can really talk about the higher power, which happens to be God in Jesus Christ. So, I’d have to say it’s being able freely to really practice my Catholic faith in a 12-step program.”
“We’re unapologetically Catholic,” said Calix member Steve, 60, a parishioner at St. Peter Claver in St. Paul. While members need not be Catholic, “we pray to our Mother (Mary) … we bring in Catholic prayers, we bring in Catholic rituals,” Steve said. “Some of us outside the meeting do (eucharistic) adoration together. … We are so fortunate to have this faith and it’s so rich.”
Calix has helped his recovery as he “unapologetically prays to Jesus as my higher power, and I surrender my will and my life over to the care of Christ. … I’m constantly repenting and I’m constantly seeking a way to follow.”
Jim said Calix was the catalyst for a “renaissance” in his faith.
“It has reconnected myself to the Catholic Church and taken it to a new level,” he said.
A small group of parishioners from St. Stephen in Minneapolis founded Calix in 1947 at the former Rainbow Café in Uptown, Steve said. “They got on their knees, lit a candle in front of a statue of Mary and said prayers.”
Marist Father Roland Lajoie has served as chaplain for the archdiocesan Calix group since 2018. Since COVID hit the state in March 2020, he hasn’t been able to participate as he once did. His parish, St. Louis, King of France, in St. Paul, is run by a community of Marist priests, and Father Lajoie, at 80, has other responsibilities, including assisting at St. Bernard in St. Paul with Spanish Masses. He also serves as a chaplain for the Little Sisters of the Poor in Minneapolis.
But he lauds the value of Calix, which has about 20 consistently active members in the Twin Cities and a database of about 100 people.
Father Lajoie had met with group members at their twice-monthly meetings at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul and also gave a 45-minute talk during a virtual retreat last August.
He said that Calix is important because people can be Catholics together, to use and talk about the sacraments, and better share their faith than at nondenominational groups. While groups like AA are valuable, he said, Calix frees Catholics to have a meeting where they can speak about their sacramental life and their prayer life, and their attendance at Mass and how the Church is helping them through their addictions.
“That’s the beauty of Calix,” he said.
Father Lajoie said that at AA meetings, people say, “well, whoever your God is,” but “at Calix, they know their God is Jesus Christ, so we can talk about Jesus as the healer, the redeemer, the savior.”
He said that makes his role as chaplain at meetings easier, too, because he can use the Sunday Scriptures and all that was understood within the Catholic liturgies.
“We know who our God is,” he said. “We can call him by name. So that’s the important part of Calix. We identify with the greater power that is Jesus Christ, which is what gives lots of support to Catholics who are struggling with addiction.”
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