Tag: Addiction

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Healing member support mental health

Leaving Shame Behind: Sharing my Story as a Recovering Alcoholic

“We have heard from you that balancing our professional and personal lives is one of the biggest challenges of rabbinic life.  Being in the public eye is not easy.  This is especially true when we are facing all too human circumstances such as physical pain, family trauma, mental illness and alcoholism.   We know that there are rabbis who are struggling with alcoholism and addiction.  We have held workshops on addiction and ‘Friends of Bill W.’ meetings at CCAR convention for many years.  Above all else, it is the support and embrace of colleagues traveling the same road that can help us feel less isolated and alone.”  — Rabbi Betsy Torop, Director of Rabbinic Engagement and Growth

Shame. That’s the only emotion I was feeling as I frantically searched the library where I was sure I had left my book. The book I had used when I met with my sponsor. And now it was gone – not to be found anywhere. I worried what I would do if a congregant found it. I’d be exposed . They’d know my secret. They’d know I was an alcoholic. Okay, I’m a recovering alcoholic, but it still felt shameful to me.  I knew what I had to do.  Even after I found my book.  That experience showed me I had to make a decision. I had to come clean. I couldn’t continue to feel this way.  I ripped up the sermon I was going to give on Yom Kippur and wrote a different one, one on mental illness.

I admitted my struggles with alcohol and drugs. I confessed that I used and abused substances to make me feel better.  Alcohol was my friend, my confidant and my lover. It helped me do impossible things.  But one day it turned on me and I had to get help. I struggled with getting help.  I didn’t know how I would live in a world without my vodka. Alcohol had been such a crutch for me.

But getting the help wasn’t as hard to I had thought. As soon I as I reached out, someone was there to walk with me – to guide me through the trials and tribulations of sobriety.  I worked and struggled a day at a time, but eventually I found solid ground.  And now it was time to share this struggle publicly.

I was afraid to admit I was an alcoholic to my congregation, afraid of their reaction, but I was no longer willing to live in shame and fear.  I thought maybe I’d be asked to leave, but instead, that sermon was a turning point in my rabbinate.  It opened the floodgates – and my congregants came in droves to see me to tell me about their spouse, child, parent, boss, and friends who also struggled with addiction.  I was no longer afraid and ashamed. I had become a real person to my congregants and my relationships with them improved.  I gained the trust of my community.  Today, I do not have shame about being found out.  And I’m here to help you.

—

Rabbi Andrea Cosnowsky provides Alcoholism and Addiction Response and Recovery Support for CCAR members. If you think you have a problem with alcohol or drugs, please reach out to her.  All calls are confidential.  Rabbi Cosnowsky is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Etz Chayim in the Western suburbs of Chicago.

Categories
General CCAR News Rabbis Reform Judaism

13 Ways a Rabbi Can Help Jews Recovering from Addictions, and their Loved Ones

I have just co-lead a class at HUC-JIR in their Pastoral Counseling Course on addictions and how Rabbis and congregations can be helpful to Jewish addicts, alcoholics and co-dependents. For eighteen years, I have been blessed to work with Jews with addictions.  I have learned so much from people in recovery about spirituality, perseverance, healing and hope, about God and t’shuvah (repentance).

Through self-study of addictions and recovery literature, running retreats for Jews recovering from addictions, study sessions around holy days, mentoring rabbinic interns on how to support Jews in recovery, and from a CCAR-sponsored week of addictions counseling and spiritual care training at Minnesota’s Hazelden Addictions Treatment Center, these 13 guidelines/suggestions for Rabbis became apparent:

  1. Be Comfortable with 12 Steps: 12 Steps and Judaism are fully compatible. The 12-Steps parallel Rambam’s Laws of Repentance and Rabbenu Yonah of Gerona’s Gates of Repentance. One can work the 12 steps as a believing Jew!
  2. Show parallels between 12 Steps Spirituality and Judaism: Jewish D’veikut (clinging to God): Jews CAN turn themselves over to a Higher Power. Some Rabbis question the “Jewishness” of the 12-Steps because of the latter’s call that addicts “turn themselves over to the Higher Power” (e.g., to become a servant to God’s Will).  To some, this seems to clash with Reform Judaism’s historical opposition to blind faith. Yet it is not so! To quote Lawrence Kushner’s Perush on Likkutei Yehudah’s citing of the Sefas Emes, Yehudah Aryeh Leib of Ger:
    • To be a servant is more than being servile; it is carrying out the will of an ‘Other.’ It is being the agent, the instrument through which what is supposed to happen, happens.  A good servant is always aware of the importance of his [her] act, and this gives heightened meaning to his [her] life…  Everything we do, and everything we do it with, and everywhere we do it is filled with the Presence of God.   We are free to choose whether or not we will be aware of it, whether we will be servants.  That is Jewish spirituality.
  3. Help remove the Busha (Shame): Each morning a Jew rises to say, Elohai, neshama sheh-natata bi, t’hora hee! – My God, the soul that you have given me, it is pure!  Judaism, when applied correctly, helps lift the shame connected with being in recovery.  We remind ourselves that though as addicts/codependents we may do, or may have done, terrible things with our bodies and minds, our essence (our neshama, soul) remains pure.  This is true, because how else could we rise each morning after a day filled with terrible acts and still say “Elohai, neshama she-natata bi, t’hora hi!”?
  4. Be Amazed at the Spiritual Power of 12 Steps: People who are in recovery are amazing in their spirituality.  They know that they have to turn it over to a Higher Power to recover. God is not a metaphor; the Higher Power is reality in their life.  They know that their Higher Power is saving them from certain death! Wow! Soak in their belief and spirituality.  Learn from it how to speak to others.
  5. Don’t Try to Fix the Addict: If he is in recovery, chances are he got there without your (or the Jewish community’s) help.  If she is an addict, you cannot make her recover.  Rather, listen, and be non-judgmental.  The 12 Steps teach the three C’s: You didn’t Cause it. You cannot Control it.  You cannot Cure it.  The addict has to do the work.  You can be there to be open, listen and accepting.
  6. Welcome them into (or back into) the Jewish community: Many addicts and their families live with shame (see #3 above). Provide them with Jewish resources, including prayers, and Twersky or Olitzky books (Jewish Lights Publishing).  Invite them to study with you.
  7. Buy the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous: Display it prominently over your shoulder. Read it to see how real people find spirituality and God’s help.
  8. Refer to Addiction Recovery and Codependency Help: During Mi Shebeirach d’var refu’ah (words prior to Healing prayer), mention the category of people struggling with addiction and codependency (by category, unless they give specific permission to say their answers) among those for whom you ask for healing.
  9. Open your Synagogue to 12 Step Meetings: Publicize widely, attend if it is an open meeting.
  10. Remember that people in Recovery often “fall off the wagon” multiple times: Be aware of this. Be open to this reality. Don’t be angry when they do; don’t be too hopeful when they are in recovery.  Be non-judgmental.
  11. Know that Addicts lie.
  12. Write a sermon and bulletin article about addiction and recovery every few years.
  13. Read and become familiar with www.JACSweb.org, the website of Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons and Significant Others.
Do you have other suggestions?  Please share them.

Rabbi Paul Rabbi Paul J. Kipnes is the spiritual leader of Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas, CA.  This post originally appeared on his blog, Or Am I?