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 parent's 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 twelve-step program first laid out by Alcoholics Anonymous. What does this mean to a Jew in recovery? Initially, it may mean confusion. Although twelve-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.''