Amudim Awareness Event May 1, 2017 Dr. Norman Blumenthal Part 3 of 5

good evening everybody just serve the Rajah Shiva David Mandela asked me introduce myself it's a new task I never did that before but my name is dawn Blumenthal a disaster chair for trauma bereavement and crisis intervention for whole children's homes and family services and it's a humbling experience to be here tonight and to see the turnout as well I want to thank for three for everything he does David Mindell a special thank you to the Russia Shiva gives me an opportunity to highlight someone who probably is one of the people who've influenced and the influenced me more to be Who I am today other than my immediate family which is the Russia Shiva's illustrious cousin of Ireland crisis that Atlantic live Rafa who really taught me how to think on two occasions I had to go to Mexico Mexico City because of a crisis that occurred there I mean how many of you have been to Mexico City but they have an interesting style of driving and I was being taken around by one particular person on one day and he's weaving in and out of traffic totally no no no we're near the speed limit ignoring traffic signals and the like and I started wondering whether I was really going to make it home from this trip sensing my trepidation he very he turned to me and very delicately said here in Mexico we consider a red light a suggestion there are speeches that I give sometimes there are suggestions perhaps how to be better parents maybe Shalem bias may be how to help children process news those are suggestions tonight it's an imperative tonight it's a red light and again I commend those who organized this actually interestingly and a lot of what I'm going to say is a repeat of already was said the word addiction comes from the Latin word for being enslaved and I understand that in Hebrew the word for addiction is mejor sold and it's very much that's the point and sometime when I'm dealing with clients and you're going to hear later from my colleague Akiva Perlman who's going to talk about the actual treatment I'm really focusing on the risk factors but when I'm dealing with a client and they're trying to struggle and figure out are they addicted or today are they just indulging the answer sometimes I ask them is are you controlling it or is it controlling you and that's really the key difference now we talk about risk factors risk factors is a very tricky area that's because of something that we call in psychology false positives let me give you what might be a sort of silly example suppose you notice that all peach trees have a flower and the fruit hanging down underneath so you'll naturally conclude then that every tree that has a flower must be a peach tree it doesn't work that way because the many trees that have flowers that produce other fruits or don't produce any fruit at all the same thing is true with risk factors we can study those who are addicted and say what do they have in common what what's in common in their background and let's say we identify certain risk factors however there many people have those very same risk factors never become addict the true way to study it which is very hard is to just take a sampling of the population follow them for years and then try to identify who has become addicted and who has not this very hard thing to do there's also very unique math two risk factors let's say I take five risk factors for addiction and we'll talk about what some of those are in a minute and I assign a number to each one I say each one is a value of two as we often say in the field you know five out of four psychologists don't know math so we'll see how I do with this but each one is assigned a two and if you have two risk factors math would say you have a four but it doesn't work that way and risk factors two plus two equals six and two plus two plus two equals twelve and the combination of several risk factors is what often so click so what are the risk factors relevant studied and guess what it's going to sound like a smorgasbord of just about everything that can go wrong psychologically with a person high numbers of children with or adults for that matter with this regulatory disorders sometimes referred to as a DD and those of you don't know what a DD is it's what's afflicting most of you now while I'm speaking and inability to focus impulsive 'ti it's also associated with depression with anxiety with a bit with abuse being victims of abuse there's a strong inherited component research shows 40 to 60 percent of addiction is probably inherited whether it's actually in a tendency to be getting addicted or whether it's these factors that come together but it's the garden variety of all the kind of afflictions that affect us and to echo what was said earlier it really speaks to our having to come to terms with our humanity to come to terms of the fact that even though we are sure mataró Mitzvahs we are also human beings and we are vulnerable to all the ailments that occurs everybody else and if we ignore it if we stick our head in the sand if we figure it's just childish behaviour that goes because that's going to go away it can lead to devastating results you know the there's a by the way just to show you also research shows that only 18 percent of addicts meet the criteria what we would call let's say a psychopath a criminal person which is higher than the general population but it means that over 80% are not criminal amoral types of people but it also said it addresses the problem and we again have can't be emphasized enough we are blessed today with a caterer of mental health professionals Norfolk community I believe relief has a database of like 1,500 sham retirements those who are trained mental health professions in New York metropolitan area we have in organizations like I moved in like oh hell I will providing clinics with low-cost treatment we have if you have to earn the direction of rushing too fast to get the help because the rule of thumb is the earlier you move in too early you remedy any of these kind of problems even environmental problems whereas marital discord financial stressors whatever it might be the sooner you move in and correct it the less devastating it may be and many of you may have heard of this new Netflix film that there's a great deal of coverage about the 13 reasons why those of you who hadn't it's based on a book that was written in 2007 which a girl who died of a suicide and by the way we're getting away from the term committed suicide for Josephine Mae mana no because it talks back to a time when people thought about committing a crime that it was considered criminal but if a girl who died of a suicide and send out 13 tapes the people she held responsible he has now been in made a film without even going into whether there should be a film that young people are watching about suicide whether or not and I think the research shows pretty convincing that there is a contagion to suicide known as the whirter effect but there's another piece about that film that is very damaging there is no reference in this entire film of a competent and caring mental health professional or in any responsible way seeking out help for mental health professionals the few that are featured I haven't seen them but I've heard about it the few that are featured are incompetent and part of the problem is that of the solution that's not reality there's some wonderful caring talents of mental health professionals and we have to learn how to take advantage of their services and we have to know our children it's almost hackneyed by now I'm almost embarrassed to repeat what's probably been repeated just about every parenting class for the last 10-15 years but the research shows convincingly that families that eat dinner together on a regular nightly basis have almost a zero occurrence of substance abuse and addictions and we'd like to think or maybe that's because they said there's a family cohesiveness and there is that's important point in fact some of you may be familiar with some of the research which I call the rat Park research that shows I mean the early studies of addiction put a rat in a cage alone with two bottles one or two feeding tubes I guess one with heroin one with water and the rat just became addicted to heroin but someone later did a study in which he put the rat in a beautiful cage with a lot of friends you know with akela there was an Israel of rats and it was a good of rats you know there was everything up here hey they had a whole business and most of the rats did not choose the heroin so community belonging and feeling part of the community is an antidote to addiction and by the way an interesting aside I mean I think of my Ritalin swinging off is I'm jumping around apologize but one of the groups that is considered at risk and again at risk does mean most but some are gifted children intellectually precocious children because that's a challenge to and anybody who's apart from the society whether they're part because of their deficit so they're part even because of a precocity if you're not part of society you're at risk but the other part about having meals together is that you get to know your child or you get to know your spouse you know one of my favorite Evandro so the rush even with other people who are more deserving my favorite div ratar-o there's a question about beer Co Co Co we call that we have at the end the partial value of the blessings of Yaakov if you look at them they're really don't frostings Yaakov said some very nice things to yahooza to the young man - yo safe Rubin Shipman lady he beats them up and the rest of them it's an evaluation like a snake you're like a donkey and in fact even if those are not Broncos and yet we have retained this concept the birth of Yaakov so I once heard someone say something very beautiful you know the broker is the broker is if you have a father who has 12 children and knows exactly what to say to each child knows which one needs praise which one needs punishment which one needs validation a knows how to validate that child that's abraca to the Broca's embedded and having a parent like a Yaakov but we have to know our child children and each charge enough to tell you the parsha business mo one more thing so important to prevention and I'll try to say this delicately but it's important we need in our community healthy outlets healthy APIs for all the stress and pressure today there is no excuse pardon me for saying it but there is absolutely no excuse for you Shiva not to have a vegetable court not to have a gym or a workout room our boys who have so much pressure on them pressured not only to do well and to excel but to exercise levels of restraint that are almost unthinkable in the world around them and his girls as well but there should be art there should be music for everybody that they're healthy outlet so the outlets won't be drinking etc and then another point which was emphasized and I'm going to say it a little differently now as well but it was emphasized our enormous tolerance for drinking and that's not to say that we can't drink we are not aesthetics the repairs aren't I know them we believe in enjoying the gifts from Hashem that are in this world but it's the emphasis that we place on it I cannot tell you how many times I've heard this version of the story I'm Loeb usually to ship things I hear from sessions but this one I've heard so many times in so many different ways I can share it of a child who indulge ahooo got involved in drugs and substances etc and I always say ask when did it start and they'll tell me that they went out of shul during for the kiddush club or they went to a kiddush and wasn't just that the parents drank but there was such an excitement I got Blue Label Black Label a boutique liquor and you watch this as a child it said I can't wait to be part of this now we learn in process Noah no that says I found out that Noah Rashi says right there when Noah got drunk and was was it was violated it says I found out why she says he made himself coolin because the first thing he should have grown with not grapes his nurse first thing you should have nurtured in this new world was wine should have gone something else we've grown wheat and then then a vineyard we place it we make it in emphasis we make it exciting have a drink I remember as a child my father loved a Shalom used to tell me when to have a look I'm after the fish that the fish has to swim and I picture all these rivers made of bourbon but it was a bahai him of course but not much in such an emphasis in a focus and similarly if you go to an opera and the customs friend gets up to speak and his speech is slurred and he can barely stand on the podium it's not cute it's not funny and it should not on the way to get up there and give him 40 lashes but it's not funny why that boy yeah he'll get it out of his system and he'll become a Russia Shiva shot someday but maybe sitting in the audience is some kid who's teetering on the brink and maybe there's a kid in the audience who's struggling with depression and ADHD or maybe the parents I've gone through a high conflict divorce and he's thinking about it and seeing everybody amused by that drinking will tip the scale for him it's a communal response let me just mention two more points and then I'll hand the podium over to my colleague it's an interesting thing about addiction when someone is addicted or early in addiction and needs treatment they have to be dealt with very aggressively as you'll hear shortly part and parcel of addiction is denial part-and-parcel is not being able there be any kid is anybody adult the child is addicted now I can control my I can stop anytime that's the myth and sometimes and if you you'll hear that a lot of substance abuse treatments are very aggressive for that reason because you have to break through the denial that requires maybe a confrontation or might even require a stern approach but once they make that commitment to be in treatment and once they overcome or in the early stages of recovery they need abundant love and support and respect I've had physicians mathematicians in my office who are celebrating their one-year of abstinence I found this is bigger than your degree this is huge because it's very hard you're combating you by now you're combating a part of your brain you're fighting your the very anatomy of your brain that's bringing you in crave making you crave these substances and at that point we have to be loving and supportive and that in any way trivialize their accomplishments back in the 80s Nancy Reagan who was the first lady had was on a her anti-drug campaign she had a slogan called just saying no many of the people in the substance abuse the work the substance abuse field that the Nancy Reagan has a solution to the homeless problem just buy a home it is no such thing as just saying no it's a remarkable accomplishment and then let but certainly not least if your friend a member of your family if your friend himself or herself is struggling with addiction or have a child who's struggling with addiction please don't judge there but for the grace of God go all of us any one of us can fall prey and we can't look down in a judgemental kind of way again I forgive her being a little bit rabbinic but we know we have the parsha been so Remora in a torah of the miscreant child and if those of you familiar with the Gomorrah the Gomorrah describes the parents of this kid and you think boy these must be lousy parents to raise a child who has to be executed and yet their picture-perfect parents there have no blemishes there's absolutely nothing wrong with them and talk about being coordinate where parents have to be coordinated their voices are identical to the same height you can't even tell them apart what's the Gemara teaching us and if some some home Hirsch says if you have if something goes wrong with your child or something goes wrong yourself self examine search thing maybe they do something wrong but you know what you can be a picture-perfect parent and still have a vent sorry Omar so it's worked together which worked out there's a community let's unite let's not be judgmental and it's a Shem will triumph over this scourge thank you very much [Applause] you