JACS Library - Our Stories

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

JACS LIBRARY - OUR STORIES

By Gail B., San Diego

I am a Jew and have been a member of Al-Anon for over 13 years. Up until four years ago when my mother died, we were four generations in a Jewish family. We are all productive, loving, and committed family members whose family has been riddled with the disease of alcoholism and chemical dependency. We are each Jewish in our own way, and we do our recovery from the disease in our own way. None of this, however, has diminished the love, caring, and commitment that we feel for one another. Over the many years battling with addictions our family has faltered, lost our way at times, and been hurtful to one another, but nothing has destroyed the fact that we are a family, and that we continue to care deeply for one another. We are an important part of each other's lives.

Our stories vary, as does each Jew who has been blessed and cursed with the disease of chemical dependency. We have cried with, fought with, and been torn apart by what the disease has done to our precious family. We have smiled, laughed, made amends, and told jokes about our own behavior, and loved and hugged over our ability to survive it all. We are, above all else, a loving Jewish family.

The disease has blessed our family because as a result of choosing recovery we have found a new way of living, a new way of communicating with one another, and a new way of loving each other in a deeper and more meaningful way. We have moved through the superficiality of life to more purposeful, direct, and honest relationships. We have more appreciation, rachmones (compassion), and humanity to our existence.

Several of us have availed ourselves of the supposedly gentile community of Alcoholics Anonymous and/or Al-Anon where we discovered that the members were not concerned about our being Jewish. They were concerned about our welfare and our serenity. Those folks in the 12-Step Programs loved our family until we could begin anew to love ourselves in a more healthy and balanced way. It was in the rooms of Al-anon that I personally discovered a deeper sense of spirituality, one that I could bring back to my own neighborhood synagogue and see the sameness in it all. It has helped all of us grow closer to the God of our understanding, which in my case is found throughout the Twelve Steps, and the Torah.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kitsk said: "A life in quest of truth is a life of struggle in which peace and easily won comforts have no part." It was through the struggle in my own family with alcoholism and addictions that I have come to know God and humanity at a much deeper level. It has had a price, however. I have had to give up many of my old ideas, my innocence, my illusions, and my certainly, but it has been replaced with the development of my neshamah, my soul.

We buried my father 7 years ago from an addiction. We buried my mother four years ago from an addiction. My parents died with the love and respect they so richly deserved, and with all of the acceptance I had worked so hard to achieve throughout all the years in Al-anon.

My hope would be that in sharing my family story, and my experience, strength and hope in this article, it will help at least one other person possibly find their way to healing and freedom. For this is indeed the Jewish way of doing a mitzvah, a good deed, and Twelve Step work. Thank you for the privilege of being able to discuss openly as a Jewish woman my affiliation and love for Judaism and Al-Anon. I also thank Al-Anon for the courage to have changed the things I could.

Warmly -- Gail B., San Diego