March 19, 2017 Amudim Awareness Event Dr. Yaakov Siegel Part 4 of 4

like we said I'm doing this as ahead full disclosure there's no compensation so what I'm about to say is true comes from the heart nobody put me up to it I just want to thanks V and I moved in for the work that they do from I've been in practice independent practice for over ten years and there are many organizations in our community that address a range of mental health issues all of them wonderful all them do a good job it was about a year ago that one of my clients asked me if I've heard of a Mouton and I hadn't and she said you have to work with them because they're the only organization that really helped me and I got in touch with them and the response the work they do is phenomenal the after getting two notes fee and you know he said almost everything I have to say I think he gave my entire speech today already which is just a testament to his knowledge and his involvement in the field and then his caseworkers and his staff and the more I got to know them these are people see has assembled a staff of people who were involved in helping before they joined I'm with him every single one of them starting from when they were teenagers were involved in helping their friends in a non professional capacity and then getting it involved professionally they're dedicated but to a degree that I have not seen anywhere else as a matter of fact I wouldn't I don't know if I would say this on microphone in Lakewood but I'm a member of a whatsapp group and occasionally occasionally people post I have this relative I have this friend who's suffering comes from a broken home is suffering with addiction or another mental illness does anyone know where I could turn for help and all the organizations pop up and inevitably as somebody who deals with this daily unfortunately I call them privately I tell them you have to reach out Tom mudan because I move doesn't only give a referral and doesn't only care they follow through they make sure the finances are there they make sure there's follow-up likes we said when the people come out of the the treatment they follow up with support and they really see it through until the job is done so I thinks we and I think I moved in for the work that they do I was asked not to speak to clinically when when they asked me to speak they asked me to send a recording of a presentation I had given and it was actually at a professional conference and the whole thing was statistics and research so they said keep it not clinical everybody who's here is here because they want to help they want to know what's going on with addiction and what can we do to help and those are the two questions that I want to answer briefly and maybe at the end we'll take questions the why and what we could do about addiction we have to understand the psychology and the mentality of an addict imagine that we're driving over in the Verrazano Bridge and there's a man standing on the edge of the bridge he's teetering on the edge and somebody calls the authorities and the police come and the fire department comes and they call in an expert the crisis expert comes with a megaphone and he turns it on and he says to the man do you know how you're hurting your family do you know what a shameful thing you're doing standing on the bridge do you know you have to stop this now how could you do this to everybody that never happens that's not what they say they come up the bridge and they say do you know there's a reason to live do you know that whatever problem that you have we're going to help you step down if you're in debt we'll find funds to cover it if you're suffering with depression we'll get you treatment if you're lonely we're going to include you in the community we'll bring you into our houses we'll find you a place where you belong we'll get you into treatment the addict is not so different imagine a child who's coming into preschool every child comes in expecting to succeed they imagine the friends they're gonna make they imagine the skills they're gonna learn they imagine the pat on the back they're gonna get from their teacher and unfortunately for too many somewhere along the way whether it's in preschool or elementary school or high school or beyond they've been rejected they've been told that they're just not good enough some have been treated some have even been abused and they learned quickly that the conventional way of getting to their goals just doesn't work for them and then somebody introduces a substance whether it's alcohol or a pill that actually makes them feel good and nobody wants nobody sets out to destroy themselves I've never spoken to an addict I've been doing this for too long I ran an addiction center in Florida for six years 180 beds I've seen thousands of addicts I've never spoken to an addict who told me that that drugs don't kill I've never spoken to an addict who told me this lifestyle that I live is a great way of life this is what I wanted to be when I grow up I wanted to be using drugs and alcohol it's almost an inevitably because they've been brought to believe that there's that what that the other way of life just won't work for them or even if it'll work it doesn't speak to them the way that that the drugs do it's so hard to study it's so hard to try to make friends when you're being bullied and it's so easy to pop a pill and to feel good and so the solution is not to take - when addict comes into the office to explain to him how terrible addiction is he knows that already the solution is to tell him how much hope there is - tell him that life can be lived you can get what you want and we're here to help you you're not you're not in it alone studies show that with all the prizes all the reinforcers that you could give somebody to motivate them to continue a behavior the number one reinforcer that works the quickest and that works every time counter-intuitively is to tell somebody good job you tell a child or even an adult you know you did a good job strong work that motivates them to come back again more than money more than prizes all the person needs to hear is you're doing well and that's why when you walk into an a a meeting you walk into a 12-step group what's the opening hi I'm Yaakov I'm an and I've been sober for two days and everybody claps I've met 60 year old men who suffered their whole life with drugs and alcohol and their most prized possession some of them have reached the heights of achievement in the world for successful businessmen doctors lawyers but their most prized possession is their one-year little chip that they got from the a a that they were told you know you did a good job you know you really made it for a year and that's really all it takes to pull somebody out of a life of destruction and set them on a path of achievement likes we said it's not only children it's not only teenagers unfortunately there are people with families with jobs with all the trappings of success who drowned their lives and self-destruct on a daily basis with substances and it's because something somewhere they're not feeling good job it might be that they have to learn themselves to celebrate their own accomplishments and that's part of the work that we do to teach a person how to pump themselves up how to say to themselves I did a good job but that's really what it takes to set them on a path of success that happens with therapy individual and group therapy psychiatry medication or ology there are answers for every problem the treatments are there the question is having the person buy-in that I could really live life the proper way I just want to say quickly you know I wasn't I was going to end it here and leave the rest out because after I graduated with the doctorate degree and I did my postdoc and I did my trainings and did my supervision I spent I was living in Brooklyn at the time and I had the opportunity to spend one day a week on Fridays driving one of the the head of the head of the Flatbush best-in one of the big post-game of Brooklyn older man who's been around for a while and who knows a lot and I spent the one day a week driving him and I used to discuss cases with him in life with him he had a lot of insight he told me never speak Mooser never tell anybody what they're doing wrong always build people up it's the only way to get them to change you know I wasn't planning I have to tell you this I was in his soul there's an unplanned story you have to hear the story I was I was in his Sheol I was in his soul on Shabbos shuva that's the Shabbos routine Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur the Shabbos of Mooser the Shabbos when we tell people what they're doing wrong and he got up to speak and he spent the entire time telling his congregation what a great congregation they are he said how holy everybody is what a good job they're doing and then at the end he said him we should do better and he sat down so I went over to I said rabbi you you really missed the boat today he's not it's at today's you know Shabbos shoo it's time to tell people with what they did wrong and he told me no he said moster is telling people you're good be better it was so insightful you can't build from a place of ripping somebody down the way to build somebody up is you're good you're doing good now do better but that being said this weekend and again I was going to leave this out but it's very very insightful this weekend I our community hosted one of the big masha gave him from a major yeshiva my CF is a must urge ient this was a man I've never met anyone like him a regal man he thought before every word he said he was so so the self-control he was so measured so I was in a private conversation with him and I turned to the conversation turned to the subject of addiction and I asked him rabbi to the musters soir him do the does the Torah talk about addiction and he immediately said yes in the ninth Parekh of Mithila see Sharan which was written by Rabbi Luz Otto in the 1700s a Kabbalist he said look over there and when it talks about the trade of laziness he says the following words he says a nanu aldohn bharat smo the person does not have control over himself lassos hepatech he shared said to do the opposite of what he wants when when when he decides to he says that's addiction that when a person it was written in the 1700s when a person becomes accustomed to a comfortable life and when they find something in this in this context the text is talking about a lazy comfortable life and when you get used to comforts and you get used to it coming easy and immediate gratification it becomes impossible in a no other box mode becomes impossible for the person to overcome themselves to do differently when they want to so I asked him that's a very dire prognosis so what's a person supposed to do so he told me that his rebbe reb um live Ovitz who was the mascara in the mirror in Poland who died in 1936 used to say that all it takes to overcome this is to move from the couch to the front lines and he explained what that means is that there are two ways of looking at the world he said some people many today's day this is the way it is some people are looking for a life of comfort and the way that the rabbi said it they sit on the couch and some people understand that the world is a battle and that there are challenges and that it's going to be hard and all it takes to overcome is to move your mindset from the couch the front lines and this is really the work that we do in addiction treatment is you move your mindset from immediate gratification from the couch to the front lines that there's a battle but you could win the battle and then he told me very telling words he said but you can't paint it black the world is not black and he said it's a very beautiful world and you have to tell people that the world is rewarding and that the world is full of light and full of accomplishment and every time that you move that you win a battle it's important to celebrate and say good job and that gives you the strength to forward so to shift the mindset to a world were of accomplishment of a world of light a world of battle a person could pull through you know just one more story a wife once came into my office and she said I don't know what's wrong with my husband he's just acting is something wrong with him mentally we need a diagnosis I think he might be schizo friend I got a bipolar he's acting bizarre and I spoke to her she was crying and then she walked out and her husband walked in I spoke to him for five minutes I said to him you're you're high you're using pot right he said yeah so I said what about what about your wife he said since I started smoking my shawm bias has only gotten better so here she is crying over the destruction that her husband is destroying their marriage through marijuana use and he's thinking that everything got better since I started using marijuana so sometimes there's a disconnect sometimes it takes some times we all see how the person is destroying everything and they think things are getting better so the first step sometimes is pulling them out of denial but through work and through pulling them through and showing them the good job that they're doing and showing them how life could be full of light they could pull out of it and they could live a successful life