USCJ: From Addiction to Recovery

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From Addiction to Recovery - A Jewish Spiritual Journey

As I write these words, a nice Jewish boy sucks on a crack pipe. In twenty-five seconds, freebase cocaine will sear his brain, firing the neurons that signal intense pleasure, the visceral excitement of food or sex. A few minutes later, he sits frozen, eyes darting. When the paranoid delusions ebb, he reaches for the pipe again.

Across town, in her parents' marble-tiled bathroom, a nice Jewish girl purges her latest carbohydrate binge. Later tonight, her sister sits with friends in a club, drinking vodka gimlets as she surveys the men. At home, a Jewish mother counts out her hoard of pain killers and muscle relaxants. Meanwhile, the bus to Atlantic City delivers its cargo of pleasure seekers, including Jewish husbands and fathers who will put this month's mortgage money on the line and lose it all.

Listen to the sound of unanswered phones ringing. One, two, three rings, then a click. Sleep-deprived and frantic, someone who loves an alcoholic or addict listens for the tenth time in a row to the recorded greeting, wondering whether the person whose cheerful voice they hear is alive or dead.

Who are these people? They have your eyes, your arched eyebrows and curving nose, your mouth. They like chicken soup and a good corned beef sandwich, lean. "They" are us. Are there alcoholics and addicts in your congregation? Yes.

Denial is a hallmark of addiction. Jews face double denial. The alcoholic or addict denies the disease. And our community denies that the alcoholic or addict exists. As one woman recalls, "I remember looking in the mirror and saying, 'I can't possibly be an alcoholic. I'm Jewish. But wait a minute. What if I am an alcoholic. Then maybe I'm not Jewish?' I had to go pour myself another drink and sit in my rocking chair to figure it out."

Addiction and Recovery

Addiction is a disease, not a moral failing. But it is a disease with a spiritual component. Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D., founder and Medical Director of Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Pennsylvania, explains that addictive behavior arises from an extremely negative self-image which distorts the addict's perception of reality and leaves him or her feeling empty, purposeless, and lost, devastated by shame and rejection, and driven to self destruction in a desperate but futile attempt to escape the pain or fill the void.

As one Jewish alcoholic recounts, "My parents were Holocaust survivors. I grew up with a lot of secrets. The first time that I remember alcohol, I was about thirteen. I drank, and I got drunk, and I cried. But I remember that warm feeling -- I remember crying almost like a release -- not having to feel."

Families and close friends of an alcoholic or addict may be equally afflicted. Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky of Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, who has written a series of books linking twelve-step recovery to Judaism, estimates that "fifteen intimate others are impacted by each person in addiction." Parents and spouses fall into co-dependency, becoming obsessed with trying to save the addict. Children, doing their best to make sense of a dysfunctional, abusive world, get caught in a web of deception or blame themselves for their parents' problems -- perpetuating the cycle of self-destruction from generation to generation.

For millions of alcoholics, addicts, and families, the only way to stop the pain and quell the yearning is to turn to God, a "Power greater than ourselves," following the 12-step program first laid out by Alcoholics Anonymous. What does this mean to a Jew in recovery? Initially, it may mean confusion. Although 12-step programs are expressly non-denominational, most meetings are in churches and end with the Lord's Prayer. Jews accommodate the Christian context, often without realizing that the twelve steps embody the very essence of t'shuvah. But how does a Jew in recovery approach God? A visit to the rabbi may end in frustration, or worse.

Dr. Twerski recalls a young Jewish alcoholic who "told her counselor that she felt spiritually empty, and he advised her to see a rabbi. The rabbi she consulted admonished her to control her drinking and told her that it was a disgrace for a Jew to drink excessively. So her alcoholism counselor then told her of a priest who was knowledgeable in alcohol problems. She began to see this priest and progressed well in her recovery. She's now happily married, eight years sober, and a devout Catholic."

JACS: Connecting Jews to Judaism

Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons and Significant Others ("JACS") bridges the gap between recovery programs and the Jewish community. Founded in the late 1970s by Jewish alcoholics and family members under the auspices of the UJA-Federation, JACS is a now a program of the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services in New York. Similarly, Boston JACS receives support from the Combined Jewish Philanthropies. More than a dozen smaller JACS groups meet across the U.S. and in Canada.

JACS is not a treatment program. It is not "Jewish AA." JACS has three purposes: to sponsor events that connect Jews in recovery to each other and to Jewish tradition; to educate the larger Jewish community about alcoholism and addiction; and to act as a resource center and information clearinghouse on the effects of alcoholism and chemical dependency on Jewish life. The New York office, staffed by Executive Director Tami Crystal, fielded 3,500 calls last year and, with the active participation of JACS members, coordinates weekend retreats, "Spiritual Days," holiday celebrations, and educational programs ranging from a drug education curriculum for children to a three-day conference at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

JACS members also go on "commitments," telling their stories to congregations, brotherhoods, sisterhoods, and youth groups. Afterwards, no one doubts the reality of alcoholism and addiction among Jews. Sometimes, a commitment provides the first words of hope to someone suffering in silence. As one JACS member describes it, "I found out that there are a lot of people like me out there. All they have to hear is [for me] to say, 'I'm Jewish, I'm an alcoholic, I'm a drug addict, and I'm sober.' Those few words can mean a whole new life to somebody."

The Conservative Challenge

The challenge of serving Jewish alcoholics and addicts and their families reaches far beyond the world of addiction, testing our communal faith. As Rebecca Ehrlich, Director of Religious Education at JBFCS and a member of the United Synagogue Commission on Substance Abuse and Teens in Crisis, comments, "Contemporary kids don't have a concept of gaining strength from a community. It would be a wonderful model if synagogues opened their doors to people in recovery -- to show that people can share weaknesses and gain strength from our religion and our relationship to God."

Rabbi Neil Gillman of the Jewish Theological Seminary, who has written and lectured about the Jewish aspect of the twelve steps, agrees that "people who want spirituality are not getting it in most of our synagogues." Rabbi Gillman advises us to ask, "How much room does the [synagogue] service leave for feelings, personal expression -- or conversely, how much of it is cold, unfeeling? Is it participatory, does it draw people in?"

Rabbi Samuel Barth, former Assistant Dean of the Rabbinical School at JTS, explains, "Jewish liturgy done right supports recovery -- it asks us every day, Who am I? Who are we? What is our life? What is our strength? What is our piety? It reminds us of our own limits and how much we can aspire to; it asks us to link ourselves to those who came before us; and it invites us to do it with a melody that goes very deep into our subconscious."

Resources in the Conservative Community

The United Synagogue Commission on Substance Abuse and Teens in Crisis, under the leadership of James Schlesinger, will sponsor a presentation at the 1995 Biennial Convention (November 2-6) and hopes to become a central resource for substance abuse initiatives in the Conservative community. Commission members Rabbi Eric Lankin of the Jewish Community Center of West Hempstead, New York, and Rabbi Shawn Zell of Temple Beth O'r in Clark, New Jersey, have actively sought to open their synagogues to people in recovery. Rabbi Zell has given sermons on substance abuse, opened Temple Beth O'r to Al-Anon, and created "A Third Seder," designed for recovering Jews and their families.

Rabbi Lankin reports, "I gave a Rosh Hashanah sermon on issues of substance abuse and addiction. As a result of that sermon, a whole group of congregants came to me and shared with me the pain of their recovery with members of their families. From that sermon, the congregation has reached out to provide services to Jews in recovery all over Long Island." Rabbi Lankin now works with a group of forty Jews in the Nassau County Jail, thirty-five of whom were incarcerated because of drugs, alcohol, or gambling. The Jewish Community Center of West Hempstead hosts ninety pathological gamblers (60% of them Jewish) each week, with simultaneous Gamblers Anonymous, Gam-Anon, and Gam-Anon Parents meetings for family members.

Commission member Arleen Sternfeld, Coordinator of Substance Abuse Education and Prevention of The Jewish Family and Children's Services of Monmouth County, New Jersey, has designed an eight-session curriculum for grades 1-6, piloted at the Solomon Schechter School Day School in Marlboro, New Jersey, to promote self-esteem and responsible decision-making and to educate children about substance abuse. Congregation Olam Tikvah in Fairfax, Virginia, in conjunction with Project Pride of the Chabad Center in Rockville, Maryland, sponsors a Drug Abuse and Self Esteem Day for children from kindergarten to the tenth grade and their parents.

Reaching for the Light

Substance abuse education is vital to prevention and sometimes provides an easier, more acceptable path to introducing the problems of alcoholism and addiction to the congregation. But if we think of drink and drugs as a "teen problem," we are closing our eyes to the truth. Although alcoholics and addicts may begin their substance abuse as teenagers, the roots of the problem often go much deeper.

During the High Holidays, rabbis remind their congregations that "kol Israel arevin zeh la zeh," all Israel is responsible for one another. The word "arevin" is related to the word "erev," meaning evening, the time when day and night, light and darkness, mingle together, a time when complex emotions are more poignantly felt. So often, the cause of denial is fear. Alcoholics and addicts are "those people," not us, not Jews, not in our congregation, our home, our mirror. That is not true. The truth is that we are all mixed up in it, in one way or another, and so we are all responsible. As the old year draws to a close, mingling our hopes and fears, may God help us to lay aside our communal denial and reach out to the alcoholics and addicts and their families among us, to open our synagogue doors and let in the light.

How Your Congregation Can Help

Resources

The JACS video, available for $20 from JACS in New York, is a moving and informative introduction to addiction and recovery in the Jewish community.

Recovery bibliographies are available from JACS in New York and from the Nassau-Suffolk Jewish Recovery Group, (516) 481-2700. Or call Joy Perla at the United Synagogue.

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D. has written a number of excellent books on addiction and recovery as has Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky. Many of their books are available at Jewish bookstores.

For Passover, the Baltimore JACS Passover Haggadah is used in Baltimore and Boston, and Rabbi Shawn Zell has written "A Third Seder--A Spiritual Seder Designed for Recovering Jews and Their Families." Copies are available from the United Synagogue Commission.

The Board of Jewish Education has worked with JACS to design a substance abuse curriculum for schools. Call (212) 245-8200.

For information about the school curriculum on self-esteem, decision-making, and substance abuse described in this article, call Arleen Sternfeld, (908) 972-0469.

For information about the Drug Abuse and Self-Esteem Day at Congregation Olam Tikvah, call Rochelle Paley, (703) 425-1884.

For information on JACS at JTS, call the office of Va'ad Gemilut Hasadim, (212) 678-8916.

Please note that the rabbis mentioned in this article would be pleased to act as resources for rabbis who would like to know more about addiction and recovery in the Jewish community. Call JACS in New York for additional resources.

Susan J. Cole is an assistant professor at Northeastern University School of Law and serves as Social Action Coordinator for The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in the New England region.