Doctor uses family’s struggles with substance use to dispel addiction myths

CHICAGO (CBS) — A woman overcame her childhood pain to help people who are struggling with substance use disorders. It’s her profession and so much more.
Dr. Keisha Nicole House is a powerhouse. She urges people to stop passing judgment, and learn to understand substance use disorders. She said that’s her life’s calling.
“The opioid epidemic has claimed the lives of thousands of individuals, particularly on the West Side and on the South Side of Chicago,” she said.
House is a doctor of nursing practice, and the assistant director of Rush University Medical Center’s Substance Use Disorder Center of Excellence.
“We educate the community about alcoholism, and opioid use disorder, and stimulant use disorder such as crack and methamphetamine,” she said.
Her mission is to teach people about substance use disorders, and encourage empathy over judgment.
“I’m here to arm you all with knowledge to help somebody and save somebody’s life,” she said as she taught student barbers at Larry’s Barber College about the importance of Narcan, a medication used to reverse opioid overdoses.
Why bring the knowledge and the Narcan to a place where people are learning to cut hair?
“When people go to the shop, as we like to call it, it’s like a therapy session,” House said. “Your beautician or your barber, they may know you have a problem. … And that’s why we give out Narcan at the beauty shop, and at the barber shop, and we teach them how to recognize signs of an overdose.”
House knows all too well what those signs are.
“On the South Side of Chicago, I grew up initially very middle class,” she said. “When crack hit the hood, as I like to say, it totally destroyed our family. We had several members of our family that was using crack cocaine, and there was a house full of children trying to take care of themselves.”
House said things went from bad to downright hellish.
“We would have food in the refrigerator one day, and it would all be gone the next,” she said. “Our house got raided, because my mom … she owed a lot to the drug guys, and they took over our home.”
Determined to make a good life, House worked her way through college and nursing school, and she found her way to treating substance use disorders. It changed her life.
“I no longer was this person that didn’t want to deal with those people,” she said. “Now I had a bigger purpose: Let me help, so another child won’t ever have to experience what I’ve experienced.”
House also takes her program to churches, bringing in Narcan, and educating 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 hush hush,” she said. “Our grandmothers, our mothers, they go to church, they fall out, they love the Lord, they get in 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 believe there’s a person alive that woke up one day and decided, ‘This is what I want to become of my life. I want to destroy my family. I don’t want to keep a job. I want to be homeless. I want to end up in the criminal system.’ I don’t believe that,” House said. “Most people with use disorders, they either have pain in their minds, or pain in their bodies.”
Easing that pain is not just House’s job, but 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 mom was out there really striving to help people.'”
House said research shows that when barbers and beauticians are educated about health issues, it has a proven positive effect on their clients.
To learn more about how your beauty shop, barber shop, church, or other group can help, visit rush.edu/services/addiction-care.