By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
He’s been dubbed the Rehab Rabbi because he had an alcohol addiction. He also robbed, cheated, lied, gambled, and conned just about everyone he knew. And he went to jail for it all. By the end of his long-running crime spree, even the mafia wanted him dead. But like a biblical story of true redemption, Rabbi Mark Borovitz cleaned up his life.
Now he uses Jewish spirituality at Beit T’Shuvah in Los Angeles to help other Jews recover from their addictions to drugs and alcohol.
Borovitz will be a keynote speaker on March 29 as part of an all-day symposium, “To Life! Addiction and Recovery in our Jewish Community,” at Temple B’nai Torah in Bellevue. With him will be four more experts in the field of addiction treatment and recovery..
The seminar, which is geared for laypeople as well as clinicians, is open to the entire Jewish community because addiction, say symposium sponsors, is an equal opportunity destroyer of lives, and Jews are just as vulnerable to the disease.
“The myth that Jews don’t drink, and that Jews don’t experience addiction, is just that — it’s a myth,” said Eve Ruff, the chemical dependency specialist and addiction recovery coordinator for the year-old Alternatives to Addiction program at Jewish Family Service. Ruff is Jewish and in recovery herself after battling her own addiction to alcohol.
“In one year in this program, it is my experience that addiction continues to be overlooked in the Jewish community,” she said. “This myth is still pervasive and what that does is lead to the disease being discovered later and at a more serious stage.”
The program is modeled after Project DVORA, the domestic violence advocacy and outreach program that has been in place at Jewish Family Service for nine years.
Alternatives to Addiction offers clinical services, substance abuse evaluations, treatment recommendations, and support for Jews already in recovery. The group holds educational forums, celebratory Shabbats, potluck events, and they’ve even started an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at JFS.
According to Ruff, the fear of being seen as a “drunk” or an “addict” and the stigma of being labeled a “loser” causes most Jewish substance abusers to stay under the radar — that is, until a family member seeks help.
“Families call me feeling very powerless and not knowing what to do,” said Joyce Sundin, a board-registered intervention specialist in Seattle who will be a guest speaker at the upcoming event. “I meet with them to define the problem…and then to look at some strategies of how we get through to their loved one.”
Sundin, another Jewish woman in recovery, spends a lot of time with family members talking about their role as “enablers” in the addict’s behavior. It is important, said Sundin, for the family to really get clear about what they want from the individual, so they rehearse their strategy.
“I’ve seen a lot of Jewish people in my practice,” said Sundin. “Some are able to go through with an intervention and some are not. There is still a tremendous amount of stigma and shame for people even seeking help.”
JFS estimates between roughly 1,800 and 3,000 Jews in the greater Seattle area are active substance abusers — about 10 percent of the Jewish population. Ruff estimates that about 65 percent of her clients are abusing alcohol, but she’s worked with heroin addicts, prescription drug abusers, marijuana users, and more.
“The brains of people who are addicted are really different,” said Dr. Andrew Saxon, another scheduled speaker at the To Life! event. Saxon has 23 years of experience as a clinical and research addiction psychiatrist. He is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington and the director of the Addiction Psychiatry Residency Program there. He is also the director of the Addictions Treatment Center at the Veteran’s Administration Puget Sound Health Care System.
“The average person is going to take a drink or two of alcohol, and their body and their brain is going to tell them that’s enough,” Saxon said. “The person who is primed to become alcohol dependent is going to say, ‘that’s really good and even more would be better,’ because their brain and body are reacting differently to the substance.”
Saxon’s approach to addiction treatment involves using medication therapy in combination with behavioral therapy to help patients recover.
“I’ll be speaking about people who have bipolar or depression, or ADHD, or anxiety, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or panic attacks and also have alcoholism or drug addiction,” said Dr. Dan Wolf, a psychiatrist who specializes in addiction medicine. Wolf will also be a guest speaker at the symposium.
In his practice, he commonly sees addicts who are not recovering or responding to treatment in the same way the average patient does. For these people, no matter how hard they or their families or therapists try, they just can’t seem to stay sober. They continue to relapse into their addictive behavior. Those are the patients, he said, that should be looked at more carefully for signs of depression, trauma, or stress.
But, whichever technique is used, all of the presenters echo the same message.
“Don’t feel stigmatized, because you have a disease that can be physically measured, just like heart disease or diabetes,” Saxon said. “This is a medical illness.”