AMUDIM Awareness Event 3-4-2017 Menachem Poznanski Part 4 of 5

So our next speaker is someone who is no stranger to understanding helping people both through the addiction process and then as I like to say most importantly post treatment when the people are already in sobriety cuz that's when all the difference is made. There's a program based in Brooklyn called the living room which does all sorts of programming meetings a meetings shabbatons retreats where it actually builds a community a peer support community for people that are struggling to help them. And I'm honored to be a personal friend as well as a colleague of Manakim Pisnanski who's the clinical director of that program who really gives himself the le venees in heart and soul to help people and is expanding what he's doing and is really really grabbing the bull by the horns in this unfortunate battle that we all have to fight. I'd like to ask Manakim Pnansky to address us. Good evening, Shabat everybody. It's a great honor to be here with you. Uh figure out what to do with my hands. Uh great honor to be here with you tonight. Um it's always exciting for me to have the opportunity to talk about this topic even though it's a somber one and a serious one. um because uh I've spent so much of my life engrossed in it and uh to have the opportunity to share what I've experienced is uh is meaningful for me and um but also because uh SI gave me the wonderful opportunity not have to talk about the problem tonight. He asked me to talk about the the hope and the solution a little bit which is uh which is also very excit which is ex um it's not also it's very exciting for me. So, first I want to just express um a sense of u honor uh to have the opportunity to address you. First of all, any of the community leaders that are here um and uh the speakers that are were before and after me. Uh it's a great honor to be here, but also to be in a room of people that are that are doers that showed up. It's a cold night. It's a Saturday night. I'm sure we could all think of something maybe more fun to do. And uh I'm sure there could be if we wanted and if we had as many serious people as there are in this room in the community doubled, we could have double and triple and quadruple the amount of people here. So um not to pat you on the back in a disingenuous way, but it's a great honor to be here with you. People that want to see change and people that want to see hope. Um the other thing is I want to express tremendous gratitude to uh and to Amu and Kazak for putting this event together. Um you know you've heard about addiction and you've heard about drug abuse. I think both of those things are important because they're both very dangerous things right now. It's very dangerous to be a drug addict and it's very dangerous to be a drug abuser. Um, in the past, you know, you've heard the numbers, but I can tell you just practically on a on um on a concrete level, uh, the past year and a half for me personally, I've been to more funerals than I've been in the 12 previous years that I'm running the living room. Uh, which is, like we said, is a community in a clubhouse for young adults in recovery. Um, so this is a serious topic and, uh, it's a great honor to talk about it. So, uh, invariably what happens when I do an event like this, if my if my particularly if my name's in like some kind of flyer or something, a friend will come over to me in shul and he'll tell me about some strange addiction that he has. Uh, there's a there's a television show I heard on on on TV about people's strange addictions, but uh I get I get a whole a whole run of them. So, my friend came over to me the other day. I was in SH on Friday and he came over to me and he told me about his addiction to traveling and he wanted to know if it was a problem. So, uh, so, uh, so I we got to talking about it a little bit and, uh, and, uh, you know, I started to ask him things like, "Okay, what what what is it that you like about traveling, you know, and he says, well, you know, I I come up to the, uh, he works for a large corporation, so he has like a a high status on the airlines, so he says, I pull up to the curb, and the guy comes and takes my bag, and they usher me through the airport, and uh, and then I go right through the check, the uh, security check, and I go right up and I go to this fancy uh, place the first class lounge and they give me drinks and I feel important and I think I'm addicted to that. So I so I said, "Yeah, that's that's kind of what you're addicted to, you know, you finally someone, you know, acknowledge that you're valuable, you know, and uh you know, and he had a laugh, you know, and we talked a little bit about how about how that really occurs in a very significant way in the life of all addicts, you know, because the truth is I heard a wise man once say that addicts are just like everybody else except more. All the stuff that we do, they do except at an extreme. So, uh, you know, and and one of the things we talked about was that, um, you can get so trapped in the thought, you know, that the only way that he was ever going to feel important enough in his life was if he traveled with that concierge status on the on in the airplane, you know, and to be trapped in that dependency that I could my my self- value is reliant upon that. And the human tendency to get trapped in those things and really in a lot of ways, that's really what we see with addicts. They're really people that are suffering, people that are abusing drugs also. They are having fun. They are they are trying to have a good time to experience euphoria, but they're also going through a lot of pain. And uh and they're trying to find a way to feel okay. And uh and we need to consider that especially when we're considering how to take action to try to rectify the issue and save their lives. So, when we're talking about solutions, well, first I wanted to comment this. I forgot. I s asked me to talk about hope and uh you kind of ask yourself, why would you want to talk about hope? You know, do I want to like make everybody feel better? He just gave us a very heart-wrenching speech about how serious this is and we need to get our acts together and we need to take action. And that's true both in this community, I know in Queens, but also the five towns and in Brooklyn and Muny and Lakewood and every in every, you know, from community all over. So why talk about hope? Is that going to lead people to complacency? So I want to give you a sense of why we should talk about hope. Why hope is a very important topic when you're talking about combating drug drug addiction, when you're talking about combating overdoses, drug abuse, etc. So when you're engaging a problem, so to answer that question, why hope is important, I'll give you another question because I'm a good Jew. So that's what we do. So when you're engaging a problem, there's really two ways that you can approach the problem. You can approach the problem with a problem ccentric perspective or you can approach the problem with a solution centric perspective. And I want to talk about the difference between those two things. So a problem centric perspective is that I have a problem. I show up and I have a problem. My human nature tells me I need to get rid of this problem. I need to get rid of the problem. So, what am I going to do? Something's wrong. I have to fix it. Let me figure out where it came from. Let me eradicate the problem and make sure it doesn't exist ever again. Now, that makes sense. It's a logical thing to do. If I have a problem, I want to get rid of it. But there's a few problems with that, particularly when it comes to addiction, because that kind of perspective many times is the result of and the cause of denial. Which means that I think that just because I decided that the problem should go away, it's going to go away. I think that just because I'm going to police the problem, it's going to disappear. That I think that just because I say that it's unacceptable, it doesn't exist. And that's the kind of tendency that we have to fall into. So we have to we have to guard against that. So what do we do? What do we do? We have a problem. I want to fix it. What do I do? So one of the things I thought about talking about tonight is um you know mentioned um AA meetings and any meetings. These are two of the larger 12step uh fellowships that exist in this country. You have some information I think on the uh on the table over there about narcotics anonymous na and there's many 12step fellowships and uh the 12 steps have have been around for 80 plus years and they've mystified everybody around them at their effectiveness, their ability to help people. They are one of the most effective tools at helping people that are addicts achieve abstinence, achieve uh the um being clean and sober and and uh and living clean and sober. So, there's a lot we can learn from them. And this is not meant to be like a um it's not meant to be a uh you know a um a commercial for the 12 steps. That's not my intention. But but without a doubt, if we talk about effective models of recovery, they are some of the most effective models of recovery. Now, the novelty in the 12 steps, people sometimes look at the 12 steps. Well, sometimes people have resistance to the 12 steps, but then they take a look at it. You look at the 12 steps and you find that their wisdom is not new. Their wisdom is very old. We're very familiar with their wisdom. It's very it's very familiar to us. It's it's ancient wisdom. It's logical wisdom. It makes sense. It's common sense. But the real novelty in the 12 steps is in their order. Is in the order in which they take at combating the problem. And I thought it'd be important or maybe interesting for us to just take a minute to just kind of consider how they go about approaching the problem. And maybe it would kind of shift our perspective a little bit and how we walk out of here. Kind of what we do when we walk out of here. So what the steps do is they begin with the obvious. They begin with an admission. Admission of the problem. Right? Now you assume that kind of sounds a lot like the problem perspective that I talked about a minute ago. Okay. I acknowledge there's a problem and now I'm going to move on. But really what they do is they do something very very interesting. They say no no no no it's not enough to just acknowledge the problem. You admit that you need to admit the problem to yourself. You need to admit the problem to your innermost self is a language that they use. Meaning you need to you need to accept the problem as it is and and as it will be. Meaning that I have a problem that's not going to disappear. It's not just going to go away because I will it to go away. It's not going to go away because I decide not to have it. It's here and I need to learn how to deal with it and combat it. So you think, okay, let's get to the problem. What's the source? What's the root? Maybe it's abuse, neglect, emotional problems. Let me get to the problem. But that's not what they do. Interestingly, this is the novelty in them. They say, "No, no, no. First you need to do is you need to spend some time developing some hope that a life free of the problem is possible." Now, why is this important? Why should I develop hope that a life free of the problem is possible? What do I mean? If I just get rid of all the drugs, people will stop dying. But that's not true. It doesn't work. So how can I develop a hope that the why should I develop a hope that the that that a life free of the problem is is possible because whatever I take now whatever action I take at this point whatever I action I take when I've acknowledged the fact that I can live free of this problem won't just try to be managing and containing the problem policing the problem but rather it will inspire me to take action to gain freedom from it to gain freedom from its grips and learn how to live with this problem. And I don't just mean for addicts, by the way. Everything I'm talking about now is not to talk to to the addicts that are in the room. I'm sure there's a number of them. If we look at the statistics, there's probably 15 or 20 of you in the room. And uh but but I'm talking to everybody because as a community, one of the interesting things that occurs, one of the interesting things that occurs with addiction is that it affects everybody around them and everybody starts thinking and talking like an addict. So when we go when talks about sitting down with a group of principles who refuse to acknowledge the problem it's because they are suffering from the same disorder that the addicts are suffering from they suffer from a deep sense of denial that if they stick their head in the sands the problem doesn't exist so we need to look at that we need to look at that as a community okay so what do I do now okay so I have a hope that there's a that there's a sense now is it time to act and they said no no no it's not time to act first you need to develop a sense develop an awareness that there's a power that there's power outside of you that can help you, that there's great power. And for us as as observant and uh as observant Jews, you know, we believe that power is Hashem, right? And that Hashem is here. He's going to help us with this problem that we are facing and that we have to face his problem head on and that we need his help. Now, the interesting thing about it is when you acknowledge that that Hashem is here and you acknowledge that you need his help, you also acknowledge that he has given you the problem and he wants you to face it. But he doesn't want us to continue to to ignore the problem. He wants us to face it head on with his help. So now now if you've done that, you've acknowledged the problem, acknowledge as it is. And you have a sense that there's an opportunity to live outside of this problem that we could overcome this problem and live outside of it. And a sense of meaningfulness and purposefulness that this is a spiritual action that we have to take as a community to to help the people that need help and eradicate the acuteness of the problem. Not that we can eradicate the problem entirely because it's a human problem. But eradicate the acuteness of and provide support for the people that need it. Now we're ready to take action. And the actions that you do in the 12 steps is you further diagnose the problem. You remove blockages and you learn a new way of living. And we need to do that just the same. That's the wisdom that we learn. So really this is the great power of hope. We're readjusted. It re it reorients our thinking towards a solutionoriented perspective. We need to come up with a solution. So first I want to talk about what's happening. We talked about asked me to talk about some some some hope. This is what's going on in the last in the last three years since Amudum um started the work specifically that they're doing. They have referred over 300 people to inatient treatment. 300 addicts who are formerally suffering drug abusers are in inatient treatment and 350 to outpatient treatment. Now that's not the numbers for the entire New York. That's numbers just for this specific organization. I'll talk a little bit about the living room. We try not to really, you know, living room is like this uh operates in a non-distinct building in the middle of Flatbush. We really try to stay off the radar. But I'll give you a little sense of what's going on. So, you would think that the, you know, there's this huge problem, but there's really amazing things going on. We have a population living room of over 150 young adults who are in recovery. We have 35 young couples that come there. Some many of them are people that came to our program and when they were single after rehab and now have gotten married subsequently and established families. Some are people that have that have been married for a period of time and and and were able to come to a place of acknowledging the problem are now seeking help. And we've been able to this year in the last year and a half we've have to adapt our program to provide a specific program for couples in recovery. We provide a retreat once a year with uh with supports and information for them. We're doing something very cool and this is I'm very excited about. This is probably the most exciting thing that that I'm doing and and and I want to share with you because it's it's inspirational and and I get I'm just like a backseat driver for this thing. I had this idea, you know, in Israel, there's a fledging English-speaking recovery community. In Jerusalem, you have a lot of people that are either in in uh in yeshiva there for the year or maybe they're in Colo there for a couple of years that are actively in recovery, you know, and and rec the recovery community spans the entire spectrum of the Jewish community. every level of rel religiosity, every uh denomination, every background and uh but one of the things that goes on in that community is that people are there temporarily because they're there for a year or two years or three years or 5 years and then they leave. So the community is relatively fledging. So I had an idea that maybe we could take people from here that are kind of established a life of sobriety, a life of recovery and we go there and do a mission to Israel but it's very difficult to pay for something like that. So uh so my friend Arya came up with a great idea. He came up with a great idea. He said, you know, everyone you have all the a lot many organizations that utilize the Jerusalem Marathon and they have young people and they raise money to run in the Jerusalem Marathon and they get a free trip to Israel. So he said, what if we get the young people from the living room to raise money to run in the Jerusalem Marathon and instead of spending the money on the organization, we could spend the money on this mission. So we're doing that. We're leaving on Wednesday, next Wednesday. and uh 15 young people and uh they're taking time off of work and and this is this is not this is not a uh a commercial for the organization. Has nothing to do with that. This is 15 young people who were previously as hopeless as described who are now getting on a plane and they're going to spend four or five days in without one break. They're visiting rehabs, visiting me meetings, going around encouraging people because there's hope. There's real hope. If you get ask for help, you can get help. And I wanted to just add one I wanted to add one more metric just uh to to couple with S's metric and uh and the doctor's metric since Russash Shana. So since September we had 55 celebrants celebrate their year anniversary at the living room meaning every year someone in sobriety someone who's in a 12step program or not in a 12step program they come back and the year the day that they got sober they celebrate as a second birthday an anniversary. So we have 55 celebrants this year. Eight of them celebrated a year. 11 of them celebrated 11 two I'm sorry. 11 of them celebrated two years. And we had a total of 259 years of sobriety celebrated this year in the living room. And I mentioned that because there's hope. There's real hope for people that want that want help. And in the greater Jewish community, there's tons of things going on. There's a lot of hope. There's there's uh there's 10 um mental health uh substance abuse institutions that treat specifically the fring community. There's on top of that many many many rehabs who have made a lot of effort as a result of efforts by SE and other people in our community to help them become competent to provide support and treatment for from people that need that need that need treatment rehabs outpatient inpatient recovery support programs. There's two new websites that are being that are being launched just for people in recovery uh message boards uh support programs. This is not anything to do with these things but these things are going on. I was so excited to hear about these things. Books are being published every year. There's two or three books published either about recovery or people for people in recovery. The Jewish community is beginning to respond to this issue. Unfortunately, as we've begun to respond, the issue is getting worse. It's getting worse and it's getting more dangerous. Our population in my program has doubled and tripled over the last four or five years. And of course, you heard about the the dangerous deaths that are going on. The awareness about addiction community is rising and the awareness unfortunately about the kind of abuse specifically sexual abuse that many times is the precursor to a life of drug addiction and uh drug abuse is is is uh is being found out but at the end of the day it's a dangerous place out there. There's dangerous drugs on the street as Dr. Pascal mentioned. There's a normalization of heavy drug use like heroin. When I was in high school and in my early years of my career, kids didn't do heroin. I mean, kids that had gone on beyond the level, had experienced drug abuse and addiction for many, many years would eventually graduate into heroin. Today, I can tell you very quick, very quick, very clearly that young adults particularly will begin to use drugs and within 6 months, a year, they're already using very elicit drugs, cocaine, heroin, dangerous and elicit drugs. This is not the progression towards dangerous and illicit drugs is quicker than ever and and the last thing is people are dying. So what do we do? So what do we do? So I want to share it's mas shabas. I wanted to share a little bit of a of a Torah thought with you just just briefly and then I want to just give some specific uh comments and then I'll be done not to take too much of your time. Okay. So I was reading the other day I was in shul I was before dvening I was reading through the uh the you know before shakus we read the the episode of and it says that Hashem challenged he gave us an heav and one of the interesting things that happens is that Hashem gives au this great nion that he should bring his sons Isaac up to as a as a as a sacrifice and and it describes in detail every step that Aram does along the way. One of the things I noticed is that it doesn't plan it doesn't say that he planned how he was actually going to do it. And if you look at the if you look at the you look at the way that it's written in the Torah and I'm not saying this is but maybe just something that we could think about. It doesn't say that he planned how because maybe he couldn't imagine doing it but God had given him a and he said listen I have to just put one foot in front of the other. I have to put left foot right foot right foot left foot one foot in front of the other. Even at one point says to he says he says here's you know um you know we have all the all the material necessary you know where's the set and says Hashem will show us the so this is a very important thing to think about this very very important thing to think about that even though the the problem seems so numerous but and and we don't know how how we're going to get through it but at the end of the day we need to take steps we need to take steps like this but more and more steps each community we need to acknowledge to ourselves that there is a problem and that it's not going to disappear just cuz we decide it's going to. It might never disappear to some degree because addiction is a human problem. We need to develop a culture of compassion for victims of abuse and sufferers. We need to provide community awareness like this and more. You need to share what you hear tonight with your friends who didn't may have have the courage or the elacrity to come tonight. We need to develop more resources for those who are ready to get help. Crisis intervention, outreach support. We need to support the institutions that are doing that. We need to advocate and support culturally competent treatment. There are treatment programs that are providing treatment. It's our responsibility as a community to reach out to those programs, to reach out to those institutions, political institutions, to make sure they understand how to help our community. And that's each individual community with all of its its little nuances. And finally, we need to embrace those who seek help instead of shaming them. Lastly, I'll say we must accept I wrote this down because I want to just say it the way I I read it. We must accept that Hashem is presenting us with this challenge and we no longer can ignore it or just blame the sufferers or just try to police them. We have to educate ourselves, adapt to the reality and grow, but even more even more so mature as a community. May all these efforts be as for the whole Jewish people to bring us closer to Migula. Thank you very much.