CHICAGO (CBS) — A woman overcame childhood pain to help people struggling with substance abuse. It is her profession and so much more.
Dr. Keisha Nicole House is a powerhouse. She urges people to stop judging and learn to understand substance use disorders. She said this is her life’s calling.
“The opioid epidemic has claimed the lives of thousands of people, especially on the West Side and South Side of Chicago,” she said.
House is a physician of nursing and associate director of the Substance Use Disorder Center of Excellence at Rush University Medical Center.
“We educate the community about alcoholism, opioid use disorders and stimulant use disorders like crack and methamphetamine,” she said.
Her mission is to educate people about substance use disorders and encourage empathy over judgment.
“I’m here to arm all of you with knowledge to help someone and save someone’s life,” she said as she taught student barbers at Larry’s Barber College about the importance of Narcana drug used to reverse opioid overdoses.
Why bring the knowledge and the Narcan to a place where people learn to cut hair?
“When people go to the store, as we like to call it, it’s like a therapy session,” House said. “Your esthetician or your hairdresser, they may know you have a problem. … And that’s why we’re handing out Narcan at the beauty salon and at the barbershop, and teaching them how to recognize signs of an overdose.”
House knows all too well what those signals are.
“On the South Side of Chicago, I initially grew up middle class,” she said. “When crack hit the hood, as I like to say, it completely destroyed our family. We had several members of our family using crack cocaine, and there was a house full of kids trying to fend for themselves.”
House said things went from bad to downright hellish.
“One day we had food in the fridge and the next day it was all gone,” she said. “Our house was raided because my mother… owed a lot to the drug guys, and they took over our house.”
Determined to build a good life, House worked her way through college and nursing school, finding her way into substance use disorder treatment. It changed her life.
“I was no longer the person who didn’t want to hang out with those people,” she said. “Now I had a bigger purpose: to help me so that another child never has to experience what I went through.”
House also takes her program to churches, bringing in Narcan and training church staff. It hasn’t been easy.
“In the black family, and even in the Hispanic community, you don’t talk about a lot of things. A lot of things are quiet,” she said. “Our grandmothers, our mothers, they go to church, they get into fights, they love the Lord, they get into the spirit, but they don’t want to talk about drug use.”
Little by little, it’s working, but she said people still don’t understand addiction.
“I don’t think there’s anyone alive who woke up one day and decided, ‘This is what I want to be with my life. I want to destroy my family. I don’t want to hold down a job. I want to do that.’ being homeless, I want to end up in the criminal system.’ I don’t believe that,” House said. “Most people with use disorders have pain in their minds or in their bodies.”
Easing that pain is not only House’s job, but also her calling.
“I want to help turn this thing around,” she said. “I want my godchildren, I want my daughter to be able to say, ‘You know, my mother really did everything she could to help people.'”
House says research shows that when hairdressers and beauticians are educated about health issues, it has a proven positive effect on their clients.
To learn more about how your beauty salon, barbershop, church or other group can help, visit rush.edu/services/addiction-care.
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