Michael Menard’s message is personal. One of 14 children raised in Kankakee, Illinois, he lost two brothers — Adam and Patrick — to heroin addiction. Both deaths trace directly back to unresolved childhood trauma.
The founder of United Against Childhood Trauma (UACT), the author is calling on faith communities to get involved. His book, “Greater Than Gravity: How Childhood Trauma Is Pulling Down Humanity,” connects childhood trauma to America’s leading causes of death — and makes a direct case that faith communities are uniquely positioned to respond.
“We’ve been treating symptoms for decades,” said Menard. “Addiction. Depression. Heart disease. Suicide. We keep naming the branches while ignoring the root. Childhood trauma is the root. And nobody is talking about it at the scale it demands.”
His research, drawing on more than 350 peer-reviewed studies, reveals that childhood trauma is now responsible for an estimated 511,000 American deaths per year — 1,401 per day. That makes it the nation’s #1 actual cause of death, ahead of tobacco, obesity, and firearms. It is also the #1 contributor to addiction, suicide, depression, and chronic disease.
“Think about it,” Menard says. “Pastors counsel people in crisis every day. Small groups gather every week. Churches run food banks, recovery programs, youth ministries. They already have the relationships and the trust. What they don’t have is the awareness that childhood trauma is driving most of the pain they’re seeing — or the training to respond to it.”
“Greater Than Gravity: How Childhood Trauma Is Pulling Down Humanity” is available on Amazon.
