JACS Library - Our Stories

JACS: Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons, and Significant Others

JACS LIBRARY - OUR STORIES

Dayenu
A True Story of Addiction in the Orthodox Community

(The author's name is not printed to preserve anonymity. All names and places mentioned in the article are fictional, except where noted. All else is true.)

My 22-year old son David is tall, handsome, bright and charming. He is also an alcoholic and a drug addict. David was brought up in an Orthodox Jewish home in Queens, active in Jewish causes.

He discovered an interest in drinking, as we learned recently, when he was ten years old. He developed a growing affinity for alcohol over the next few years and added marijuana and other drugs during his last two years of yeshiva high school. When he slept overnight in the yeshiva's dorm to ostensibly study, he was actually engaging in drugging and drinking. David was eventually kicked out of two yeshivas and graduated with a GED diploma.

During his adolescence we thought he suffered from personality disorders and sent him to a succession of psychologists. David was able to fool them just as he fooled us. There is no more adept liar, we learned, than an alcoholic or drug addict. The relations between my wife and myself were often strained due to David, with each of us accusing the other of being responsible for his behavior. The anguish was sometimes unbearable. We tried to hide David's problems from our other children and from our extended family but without great success.

After high school David went to Israel to study in a yeshiva that dealt with troubled boys. David didn't last past Sukkot. Upon returning from the holiday recess he was kicked out for reportedly smoking Hashish. After reviewing the situation with my wife I quickly hopped on a plane to Israel. On my arrival David told me that he had only tried Hashish once and was being thrown out as an example. I had no success in convincing the yeshiva to accept him back. At the time we were angry with them. Today we have a better understanding that they were not the address for helping boys like David.

We were given guidance by Jerusalem Rabbi Moshe Prager (real name), an unusual personable, dedicated Karliner Chassid from America who devotes his life to helping boys like David. On his advice David applied and was accepted to a well-known Baal Teshuvah yeshiva and I returned to the US.

After one month David was asked to leave because the school was unable to deal with people from originally religious backgrounds, even though David had behaved reasonably during his stay. David spent the next few months wandering around Jerusalem, sleeping in school dormitories, friends' houses and youth hostels.

Eventually, he volunteered to work in a non-religious kibbutz near Tiberius. He told us drugs were forbidden there. (Parenthetically, he informed us later that he and some other volunteers bypassed this restriction by going a few nights a week to Tiberius to buy Hashish.) We were very disappointed that David was now totally non-observant. We did hope, however, that the hard physical work in the banana fields would turn him around.

When David returned to America three years ago we had to confront almost the worst nightmare a parent can face. David was in hell already; we were about to join him. The battle for his soul had begun.

My friend Robert was the first to make us fully aware of the true scope of David's problems. He is a well-respected religious therapist, some of whose patients suffer from alcoholism. His support and sage advice helped us through many difficult nights. David asked to meet with him to discuss his problems. At this point David was attending a local college and living with friends near the school.

Robert notified us that David had a raging drug problem and recommended we speak to Barry Wilansky (real name), executive director of the Tempo Group in Woodmere, New York. Tempo provides outpatient services to alcoholics and drug addicts and also runs support groups for family members. David agreed to attend weekly group meetings at Tempo, while we were encouraged to join a family support group. In a recent letter to his younger sister David described his feelings at that stage (published with his permission as is the whole article that he reviewed before publication).

"When I used to meet people, I would try and see if they were like me, a drug addict. If people weren't, I mostly attempted to see what I could get from them, whether it was their money or their pity. The alcoholism almost killed me. Physically, there were many times when I should have died of alcohol poisoning or overdosed on drugs. Spiritually, I was bankrupt. It felt like there was nothing for me in life and that the only way to get through another miserable period of time was to get drunk enough or high enough till it would go away. This became harder and harder as time went on."

David's sickness was mirrored in our family. He was in a state of denial and we were in denial. He was suffering and we were suffering. Alcoholism us truly a family disease. Our nerves were raw and many a night we cried ourselves to sleep. We went through all the emotions of terror, shame, humiliation and disbelief. But we never gave up, even at the worst moments; we were dogged; we remembered the sweet child David had been and were determined that somehow or other things would turn out all right.

David lived in a pigsty of an apartment with other similar boys while supposedly attending college. He was completely non-observant, confrontational and irritable. He never disclosed how he spent his time and constantly badgered us for money. Eventually, we found out he was supporting himself and his habit by gambling on sports with bookies at the college.

One night he came home crying that his life was in danger. He had run up a large debt with college bookies after his winning streak of a few months had ended. He was scared and so were we. We paid off the debt and David was sufficiently frightened to stay away from gambling with bookies.

David intermittently attended group meetings at Temp and was tested for drug use. I remember vividly one parent support group meeting when the social worker leader asked us how David was doing. I replied that he seemed to be behaving a little better. She then told the group that David had recently tested positive for cocaine. I started screaming at her. How dare she announce that in front of the entire group. I was totally agitated. After all, how could a young boy from a religious, successful, respected family become an alcoholic and drug addict?

With the help of the dedicated professionals at Tempo we started to learn about the "disease" of addiction. If ten boys were to experiment with marijuana, nine of them might enjoy it but would not develop an incessant craving for it. The tenth, however, might be genetically predisposed to develop a chemical dependency. We learned that this disease is viewed like diabetes - you can learn to live with it but there is no cure.

We learned of the ability of human beings to develop addictions to a wide-ranging group of mood-changing substances. Some of them are socially acceptable, like alcohol, valium, pain killers and sleeping pills. Keep in mind that substances like alcohol can take years to build up to a level affecting daily functioning. Other substances, such as crack, may require only a few months.

What could we parents do? We learned at the group how to treat a member of the family who is an addict. As parents, we try to help and support our children; addicts require the opposite. We learned about acting in ways that we previously thought would be hurtful but were now actually acts of love and kindness. For example, we couldn't assist David with money to rent an apartment because the money would go to drugs. The addict continues to need his or her family because eventually no one else will assist them. The natural tendency to "enable" them financially and otherwise must be totally ended.

Only when the addict hits rock-bottom is there a chance they will take stock of themselves. Unfortunately, no one can define that bottom. You can only hope and pray they reach it before the disease kills them. We did learn, however, to seek out leverage to raise the bottom before tragedy struck.

Six months after being involved with Tempo we were advised that outpatient treatment was not working for David. I will never forget the afternoon of October 3, 1994. At a family meeting with David and Barry Wilansky of Tempo, we told David that he had two choices - either immediately go to an alcohol and drug rehabilitation center or leave the room and never see us again! We were tense and emotionally drained because we were in the dark regarding his answer.

It had taken us six months to reach this point. We weren't kidding, we meant every word and David knew it. We couldn't enable him to continue his senseless existence and we had to take the hardest decision for a parent - before he killed himself. David agreed to go. The Tempo staff arranged for him to join an excellent program at a rehab center in the Midwest. By Friday morning he was on the plane. We concealed his journey from our friends and family with various concocted stories. His Bubbe was especially agitated with his behavior and it was difficult to hide the situation from her.

David later told us it took him six weeks at the rehab center to admit to himself that he was truly addicted. He stayed in the center for four months full-time, one month in a volunteer work program and one month in a half-way house. He then decided to stay in the town attending outpatient meetings and AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) groups. The doctors and other professionals in the center were generally themselves recovering alcoholics or addicts, some as long as fifteen years.

During a family visit to the rehab center David related his history of substance abuse in its entirety. The room in which my wife and I gathered with other visiting parents, spouses and children, contained numerous boxes of tissues. When I asked the social worker why, she told us they were necessary. She was right.

The tears flowed as each patient, in turn, related his or her history of substance abuse in detail to their family members and the group, as part of the recovery process. Some alcoholics began at the age of ten, others at the age of fifty-five. One alcoholic explained that he started each day with a twelve-pack of beer.

Others spoke of taking enormous quantities of every imaginable pill, many of which we had never heard. All described the trauma they had caused to themselves and their families. Other patients who heard the stories in prior group meetings were assigned to interrupt if the patient prevaricated. Oh how the tears ran like a summer storm.

This rehab center was formed seventeen years ago by medical doctors to treat health-care professionals only. Over time the center was opened to others as well. The patients in the room were doctors, lawyers, nurses, factory workers and our son. The curse of substance abuse cuts across all ethnic, religious and socio-economic boundaries.

As we sat with a box of tissues on our laps, David described to us his entire odyssey for the first time. We were requested not to interrupt until he finished. Believe it or not, we had not realized that he had an alcohol and drug problem until he was 19 years old, three years ago (typical, as we learned, of most families of substance abusers).

David came back for his first visit home a few months later. In a remarkable move, he visited all our family and close friends and informed them of his addiction. To our wonderment and gratitude most of our friends and family were understanding and supportive. David's openness with his affliction removed an enormous burden from our shoulders. We didn't have to be secretive and furtive anymore about his whereabouts and behavior. We could start to recover with David. We were even finally able to explain the situation to his Bubby who found it difficult to comprehend but was supportive.

For the rest of his life David will drink grape juice in place of wine for Kiddush. For the rest of his life, he will be wary of any medicine containing a mood-changing ingredient. In some ways David is mature beyond his years; he has learned to take one day at a time. In other ways he gropes to understand the world around him. Coming out of his drug-induced stupor he has had to rediscover himself; and that includes his religion, his family and his community. Thank G-d he has passed these self-examinations successfully.

Two years later David's recovery continues. He attends college in the same town and was recently offered a position as a clinical assistant at the rehab center he had attended. He teaches Bar-Mitzvah lessons in the local synagogue and instructs a group of five people in the intricacies of chanting (laining) the weekly Torah portion. Rabbi Prager of Jerusalem recently visited him and informed us that he was amazed at his progress.

David's story is not his alone. A 55-year old man from a large Orthodox community recently enrolled in the rehab center. His alcoholism and crack addiction had been exacerbated by drinking at a weekly Kiddush Club during the Shabbat services.

When I read the first draft of this article to another couple, good friends of ours, they abruptly stopped me in the middle to call in their son who studies at a "black hat" yeshiva. They suddenly realized that his intense interest in drinking at Purim and Pesach might mask a deeper problem.

In the discussion, he admitted that he had drunk up to a half a bottle of whiskey at holidays or when he felt tense, a total of perhaps fifteen times. Having gone the course and having no illusions about addiction's tenacity, I probed the young man with his parents' permission. His drinking problem turned out to be serious and he had already started taking drugs to satisfy his awakened cravings.

The curse of addiction can occur in any family, even Orthodox ones. It happened in ours. I believe the road to recovery lies in recognizing the symptoms and dealing with them honestly, no matter the pain.

Barry Wilansky of Tempo lectures often today at yeshivas on this topic. Hassidic rabbi and psychiatrist.

Dr. Abraham Twerski runs a rehab center in Pittsburgh.

The JACS Foundation (Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons and Significant Others assists Jewish families in many communities.

AA (Alcoholics Anonymous), NA (Narcotics Anonymous) and Al-Anon (support group for family members) meetings are held almost everywhere today. Help is available. Rabbi Twerski has written that the incidence of alcoholism among Jews is no longer negligible. Chemical dependency, involving mood altering drugs is growing. Among the older population, addiction to tranquilizers, sedatives and pain pills is quite common; among young adults and adolescents the problem of marijuana dependency as well as abuse of other street drugs is rampant; the epidemic spread of cocaine has also deeply affected Jews.

People tend to believe that addicts can beat the disease if only they were disciplined enough. The otherwise successful professionals we met during the family visit to the rehab center belie this seemingly logical point. As a general rule, if you can beat the craving yourself you're not truly addicted.

The 12-step program of AA and NA directs the addict to the path of spiritual growth necessary to counter-balance the addictive craving. The 12-step program stresses belief in a Higher Power and turning to G-d for help. Working within a group of peers this approach guides the sufferer out of the wasteland of addiction towards a plateau of spiritual serenity. When the alcoholic and addict work the program assiduously they are on the road to recovery.

We are very proud of David's continuing recovery from the disease of addiction. It has made him mature beyond his years, though the time lost has left its scars. There is no cure, only recovery. He continues to attend AA meetings on a regular basis; his sponsor and mentor is also a yeshiva graduate. For the rest of his life, we wish David the blessing of spiritual growth and continuing recovery.

At one of the Tempo support meetings I realized the full meaning of the chant of Dayenu in the Passover Haggadah. Each level of freedom from slavery, personal and national liberation, and spiritual growth is acknowledged in the song by the repetition of the word Dayenu (It is enough). The Rabbis were wise to recognize advancement after each difficult achievement.

At the same time, without the initial step of escaping slavery, there would be nothing else. Whatever else he may do, and we believe David will have many accomplishments, we thank G-d every day for David's continuing recovery and say a small prayer of Dayenu.

Dayenu A True Story of Addiction in the Orthodox Community

Dayenu
A True Story of Addiction in the Orthodox Community