Johns Hopkins and Helping Up Mission
On A Mission To Treat Addictions
Partnership between Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Helping Up Mission program improves the odds for conquering substance abuse in East Baltimore.
At the height of his career, Tom Bond had a prestigious job, a house, a company car and a big salary. But the Harford County native says he never felt fulfilled by his fancy job and soon turned to drugs and alcohol. After losing several good jobs over a dozen years, he began bartending, a lifestyle that supported his addiction to cocaine. Soon he was also using heroin and eventually became destitute and homeless.Bond found an abandoned house in East Baltimore, where he lived until he got locked up. His cellmate told him about the Helping Up Mission, a nonprofit, faith-based mission that offers a residential addictions recovery program. Bond perked up. “I didn’t want to spend another winter without a shower or a roof over my head,” he says.Today, 13 years since that encounter, Bond is not only clean, but as director of programs for the mission, he’s helped thousands of other homeless men to reclaim their lives through the shelter’s 12-step recovery program, daily classes, and career and spiritual guidance. And for the past several years, Bond and treatment coordinator Michael Gray—another recovering addict—have shored up the mission’s efforts through a partnership with Johns Hopkins addictions experts, who come to the site daily to provide supplemental care.Launched in 2012, in response to the mission’s request for Johns Hopkins addictions expertise, the Cornerstone Program merges…
Read the full article in Brainwise, Johns Hopkins’ psychiatry periodical.
Download the PDF version here: Hopkins BrainWise Winter 2016-10
**UPDATE** Check out the video Hopkins produced to accompany the feature article:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=r6f1fxHj7iY%3Frel%3D0