Embracing Reality: Supporting the Addicted on the Way to Recovery - Zvi Gluck

[Music] thank you very much for the Rev for inviting us here and thank you very much too yaniv mayor and the entire team of Kazak for once again being the frontrunners in the Queen's community to help make sure that we can address this issue without being embarrassed about it to try to get people the help they need and more importantly to let people know that it's okay to ask for help it's not a secret anymore what's going on with addictions with drugs with alcoholism with the overdose rates in our community with the families being destroyed being ripped apart and unfortunately too many young people losing their lives too soon the time has come that we as a community have to agree to do whatever we can to stop this and whether it's events like this that helps get one person the help they need or 20 people or 100 people that makes no difference each one neshama that we can save each one soul that we can help you say colomac I am NEFAs echoes Kayla Camilla male those are the truest words especially in this line of work I have to say that this community unfortunately has been hit very very hard over the last two years at the same time in this community because of the proximity because of how close the communities are because of how we operate in small groups are also the hardest to deal with when it comes to stigma to being attached and to mount wanting to let people know what our problems and our struggles are and that's the reason why we keep doing more and more of these events people ask me all the time when are you gonna stop speaking about the same type over and over again and my answer always is when there's no more reason to do it that's when we're gonna stop but coming together with organizations such as hosaka nana shul like Bechdel is able to say we are we are ready to embrace that this is a real problem and we're going to do what we can to help that has to be the first step in this direction I'm embarrassed to say how many young souls we've already lost over the last few years too young lives ahead of them in the last three weeks alone we've buried five people under the age of 35 the most recent one was two days ago these are not numbers these are lives these are people's lives these are sons daughters brothers sisters husbands wives fathers mothers this is no more a problem of just teenagers this is a problem that crosses all spectrums all boundaries and then there are those that like to ask me all the time are you making up the numbers it's not so many people it's not so bad so for those people I always say you know maybe you're right maybe the numbers only one does that make you happier but let's be realistic what could we do as a community as individuals as the public to help bring this epidemic to an end so the first thing I always like to say is we need to show support for those that are suffering in all my years in public service I've never heard anybody blame a cancer patient for getting cancer I've never heard somebody blamed someone that got hit by a car for ending up in a hospital and needing surgery yet when it comes to addiction all too often I hear people blaming the addict so we as a community need to accept that addiction is a disease and as a disease it has to be treated as such and once we accept that it's a disease then we can start heading towards the direction of getting people to help that they need now as with any other disease we have to look at a few sides of the coin number one is what's happening right now that we can do to deal with the current emergency so somebody is struggling we need to show them support empathy be there for them be there for their families the next thing we have to look at is what could we do to avoid relapse you know somebody got healthy they're doing well how can we make sure that they stay healthy and then we have to look at what could we do to create better prevention how do we avoid this in the first place any one part of this without the others is going to be a complete waste we need to have all approaches but the first approach is to show support for those that are suffering and almost more important is to show support for those around them so if it's a husband who's using we want to show the wife support the parents the endless if it's a child we want to show his siblings or her siblings or their parents support because creating a healthy environment for all of those that are affected is what's going to be the answer to giving people that strength to be able to move forward the trick isn't getting somebody that's using substances clean the trick is getting them to stay clean that's where it gets hard and that's where a strong support structure will make all the difference in the world to the parents I say show your children love they're not bad they're not evil they're struggling - the spouses I say show your spouses support and the same to those that are coming to us whose parents are addicts you know years ago when I first started I was working that it teams at risk organization and that was what we thought these problems were and we have clients now amudha missing people as young as 13 14 and as old as 70 80 and the reasons for turning to substances is no longer what it used to be you know we used to be able to pinpoint one of the few reasons why somebody became an addict today those reasons are so much more yeah the most important reasons the ones that we see the most of is those that were victims of abuse suffered a major trauma didn't get the help that they needed but now we're seeing more and more cancer patients that are getting hooked onto pain medications from treatment people that were in car accidents and couldn't get the help that they needed people that were struggling people that were outcasts people that were bullied people that had learning disabilities and the list goes on and on and on so what we have to understand this nobody wakes up one morning and says oh I want to be an addict nobody but we have to try to give as much support as we can to those that have it so that by the time it gets to that we can get them the hope that they desperately need you also need to keep in mind that I'm saying this more and more there was a great video that came out a few days ago it's been circulating of ACE it was done as a comedy but it's sadly very true talking about the multi-billion dollar industry of drug rehabs and how everybody's getting rich off of it so I need to tell people getting somebody helped for addiction does not have to put you into bankruptcy now yes there are certain times that we need to raise money for cases because there are underlying reasons why somebody needs to go to a specific program but for the most part between peer to peer support ellinon meetings nar-anon meeting scanning on GAA ama there are so many options out there that do not have to bankrupt you but the key is to know where to turn to to get that support and I always tell people we research doctors because we want to find the best one but nobody goes to the internet and says hey what does the internet say about who's the best surgeon you call a friend you call a rabbi you call a community leader when it comes to addiction related issues and treatment programs for some reason the internet became the number one place and unfortunately bad treatment - sometimes worse than no treatment so extreme crucial if you know somebody who's suffering and you want to get them help please reach out to a reputable whether it's an organization or a clinician a drug therapist a counselor psychologist and try to be placed on the right path in a healthy format 12-step programs are free peer to peer support programs are free al-anon meetings are free and just so you can understand as important as it is to help the person who is suffering getting the support for their family getting them to go to al-anon meetings where they can learn how to live with the addict is just as crucial if not more crucial many times I'm with them gets a call from people and they ask us can you help us get into this in this program and we'll look at the name of the program and we'll try to do an intake and that program just doesn't make sense for the person who's calling us but they heard from their friend whose son went there so it must be the right place please understand when dealing with addiction when dealing with this epidemic we need to be careful to make sure people get the right treatment and there's a few reasons for that you know I hate the terminology that relapse is part of recovery it eats me up alive because relapse is not part of recovery recovery is part of recovery and relapse just means you have a speed bump in the road it's not a part of recovery but what ends up happening is imagine somebody who goes for treatment and then it doesn't work and then they go again and then it doesn't work and then they're finally ready to maybe go the third time but by now they've given up why should they go again so trying to find the right help early on is going to be extremely crucial our staff works tirelessly to make sure that when we do pick a program we try to pick the right one the first time and I can't tell you that it always works but we have to do our best but before we can even get to that level we have to get people to be willing to reach out and ask for help you know just today somebody called me up I need a program for a 38 year old female married with four kids who needs to go for a B and C what do you suggest I said I suggest she calls my office and speaks to someone and discusses it oh she's not ready for that it well then we're not ready to help her yet how can I give you a name of a place if she doesn't want to get help and we had a case not too long ago and I've said the story many times because it just it hits home in such a powerful way where there was a woman in her early forties mother of five children very very very you know reputable family in the community but a serious opioid addiction stemming from a childbirth that caused a rupture that caused didn't have extreme pain she just got hooked on the medications and by the time we got involved she was using so much drugs it was a miracle she was alive and I'll never forget sitting in her house doing the intervention with her of her parents her in-laws clinician and intervention specialist her husband and I remember saying you got to stop we got to get you to rehab and she goes I can't go to rehab if I go to rehab people aren't gonna want to do nothing with my children and I looked at her I said but if you don't go to rehab you'll end up dead and she without batting an eyelash said I know but if I'm dead people will feel bad and my kids will get married because they'll never know what I died from but if I go to rehab my kids will never get your daughter now the crazy thing is this one story Baro Hashem we got her to RIA but she's doing great but I can't say that she's wrong I can't say that she's wrong we are living in a community that the stigma of addiction is what Trump's all so what are we supposed to do so it's events like this that are gonna help us be able to get to that next level and then there's a couple of simple things that I have to tell us and I repeat them all the time if you ever go to a simple a wedding of our Mitzvah a kiddush shul and some guy says to you hey small let's make a look I am which mole says no do yourself a favor don't ask him twice for all you know this person is in recovery and has worked very hard to get there and by you pushing them and saying oh come on it's just one look I am here together you can be the reason for that person to relapse you don't want to take that chance you don't want that arise either you know when we put out our video right around Pesach on called the kiddush Club we got a lot of interesting flack for that video the husbands hated us for it the wife's thanked us for it either which way the video was great in my opinion and hit home in so many ways but a lot of people missed the mark on the video I wasn't saying don't drink we weren't saying you don't want to make the look I am we were seeing be responsible when somebody walks out of shul to make kiddush in middle of the rough speech you're in middle of the of Torah forget about the drinking for a minute what message are you giving the child this alcohol is more important than the Torah this alcohol is more important than the rabbi speech this alcohol is more important than what's going on inside the sanctuary of we're supposed to be to get closer Tasha is that the message we want to give our kids and adding to that there's the hopping home house-to-house afterwards I can't tell you how many calls we get from wives on a regular basis what do I do my husband comes home drunk every Shabbos and people said to me outfits overrated sadly it's nowhere near overrated sadly this is a big problem that we're seeing we need to lead our children by example and that's the other way you know many times people assume the drug addict is the guy that you see when you're coming out of the Yankee Stadium holding that cardboard sign that says homeless veteran I need money and they don't realize that it can be the person next next to you in shul next to you on the street in the supermarket and the table next to you at the restaurant people suffering from addiction do so in silence and do so alone it could be anybody and we need to accept that as a reality now yeah there are those that turn to drugs cause it's fun I'm not going to say not younger ages especially now that the vaping became the new thing or them Lana's becoming legal in so many states so people are like saying well if it's legal it must be okay I mean alcohol is legal - I don't think anybody is saying it's okay the amount of drunk driving deaths that we deal with doesn't make it okay state of Colorado has the highest rate of accident related deaths due to marijuana since it became legal I guess that doesn't make it okay but for the younger generation they think it's okay especially when we're talking about the joules now you know it's the new fad there you know the e-cigarettes oh it's more healthy so let me just say two things about that yes if somebody smokes cigarettes it is probably healthier to smoke an e-cigarette than a regular cigarette but it's not healthier than if you don't smoke at all and the amount of nicotine in one Joule is ten times that that you'd have in one cigarette so automatically you're messing yourself up so much greater just by having that and this is something that we're noticing with high school students more and more and more we also have to remember that addiction does not know the difference between ages genders sexes religion how firm you are not from you or aspired Ashton Oz let's fish a steel dish it makes no difference addiction goes after everybody but I got to tell you something there's a very very close friend of mine Rebecca Roseburg who runs a high school for girls at risk and he told me that not too long ago he was hosting some sort of support group and a mother came to him crying and said you know my daughter's been struggling with drugs for so long I just wish that she would have cancer instead and he's like why would you say that and she goes cuz if my daughter would have had cancer the neighbors would feel bad they would help us they would show sympathy they would be there for us but instead they look at my daughter as some lowlife on the street they could care less about us or them that's part of the message that we must stop this is what is going on today in the reality within our community you know not too long ago I did an event with a bunch of high school principals and I proudly asked them how many of you would let me randomly drug high school students and none of them raised their hands and I said why they said well because if we did so people would know that we would be the school that has drugs I said well if everybody did so then we wouldn't have these issues so why don't we all stand up together and make a stand for it in order for us to truly deal with addiction we not only have to have the parents involved in the communities in the organizations such as Kazakh namu Tim and the shul here tonight but we need to get our schools involved as well we need to get our educators to realize this is a real problem and if they're continuing to keep their head under the rugs we are not going to be able to solve this problem in any way shape or form so we need to put pressure we had a case not too long ago where a kid was putting with let me go backwards one of the best Tommy diminish Eva tripped and fell while holding his morning coffee and a thermos and when it spilled it smelled like alcohol somebody reached out to the principal the principal spoke to me about it it turned out this kid's been drinking six months every single day mixing his morning coffee 50% vodka 50% coffee we call that a functioning addict he was functioning fine this was the best student not always are the signs so clearly there but if we can create better structures in the school early detection things that we can look cool and based learning this is what's going to be there to solve this problem and there's actually studies right now that are coming out University of Massachusetts University of Michigan came out with them that the adolescent brain nicotine itself is affecting the ability for the brain to grow and they're finally realizing how dangerous that is and when you add marijuana to that mix it's actually 10 times more dangerous so a lot of people that come around and they say I'm marijuana is not such a big deal that's becoming legal the University of Maryland released a study that found that adolescents that use marijuana are causing permanent cognitive impairment permanent so what used to be said was a brain cells here and there now again this is adolescence I'm not talking about a 35 or 40 year old that may want to be doing this but there is certainly something to be said about what's going on here so right now before we continue I'm gonna introduce somebody who's gonna come up and speak and share his personal story of the trials and tribulations that he went through and this is the first time that he's sharing his story publicly and he's doing so because he wants to help us break that stigma and be able to help make this world a better safer and healthier place without further ado I'm usually a very very off-the-cuff type of person this is probably the first time I've ever like written notes for speaking publicly so I'll try to stay as close to to whatever end down but most of it will just be what's in what's on my mind or just how I feel about it I feel like the words make it a little more difficult of all I want to thank huzzah and good luck for giving you this tremendous opportunity it's since I you know since the trauma that I experienced has always been my dream and a big part of me to get back I think it's so important to take whatever you've experienced and be able to give it to other people it's to me it's very important to always show to people that there is a way based on what you've gone through be it something really big being something really small so I grew up in a very very hippy type of type of upbringing my mother was a gr s a convert and my father was about two so I grew up diving you know three times a day going ashore and then I would listen to like let's I'm grateful dead in my house for any I don't know if anyone knows there was this rock-and-roll band back in the 70s I know I'm half a generation doesn't even know who that is anymore but so I grew up in a very you know different cultures and different things like that so I didn't grow up in a very strict you know dobbing and learning were very important but you know I'll go camping on the weekend so it wasn't a very strict in that and that kind of sense my family had moved from Philadelphia to to Colorado a couple months before before I had turned 17 and for us it was a very new beginning with show I would definitely get to so that sort of just had to set the stage of you know who I was who I was at the time and the things that were about to follow November 13th 2003 was a day that I think about a lot it was about 6:30 6:45 this was about two months after my family had moved to Colorado from Philadelphia so we were sort of new to the community I had gone picked up someone had picked me up from the dorm in Denver you even though you lived there you have to say the dorm so I was picked up by someone I didn't really know and we were driving to to my house there's history of some health problems within my family so I had assumed that it was maybe my brother my sister so I had asked the person that brought me that was I was taking me to my house I was like oh it was like my brother and my sister okay and the person that was driving me it was very quiet and then he had to order utter the words that mother had taken her own life my mother had committed suicide about a couple hours earlier so we were driving to towards the house and I'm usually very expressive person I understand my emotions very very well mostly intelligent person and the best way to describe the feeling is like taking a brick physical and emotional and being smacked in the face as hard as you possibly could the shock is its unfathomable at least for me for my experience it's there was no I didn't start crying I didn't it was just utter shock I didn't utter a word basically until I got to my to my house we pulled up to my house and there's police tape all around and I wanted to go inside and the police didn't they wouldn't let me which is a good thing because it would have been even more traumatic if I'd they go in so they had told me that my family was down the block so we had walked down the block and I'm still in utter shock I haven't said a word it really hasn't hit yet I walk into these people's the family's house on the block and I see my whole family sitting in by the table and that's why I crack I just I cry literally crumble into a ball I just fall to the ground and lean against the kitchen table and I just I let go I can't it's it's I just can't continue you know the emotion anymore the rest of the night is very is a pretty big blur I've never cried myself to sleep it's a weird thing to say cried like I literally cried and like don't remember falling asleep like you're just crying and he fall asleep the next day was Olivia was going into I was going into Shabbos ice when I spoke at my mother's live I was the only one to speak at my mother's Sylvia and the only part I really remember saying is that my mother there's a Jewish concept there's a firm concept that you know without tourists being like a fish without water and I compared that to to my mother I mean my mother was my everything I did I lived breathed I did everything for her there was no concept of anything like I had no like I didn't do anything for me I had no I ate I slept it was because of her she was she was my everything if you want to if you want to put it that way and the reason for me to describing to you how important she was and how much she meant to me is just to is to give you context and to more or less of things that follow she was she was a very special person my mother but she also was very very sick my mother deal dealt with alcoholism for a very long time I don't remember that much of it I do remember playing basketball my in my driveway and seeing a recycling bin with like those little bottles about alcohol like all over the place and that just seemed very weird like my father even trade law signs on you know Shabbos whenever but not nothing like having little canisters of vodka my mommy and my mother had this interesting connection where I didn't really need to speak to her like we could just be together and I could sort of just understand what she was going through and need to be you know we didn't need to speak about whatever it was going on with her so she had dealt with alcoholism I do recall her going to to rehab once I think when I went out this is when I was younger so I don't really so it's a little funny in terms of how long she went but I didn't know when we had moves from Philadelphia to Denver that she sort of turned a new leaf she's wanted to just beat the alcohol on her own which we we all know it's not it's not really possible she was also manic depressive I don't know if that's a correct technical term of what she actually had but she was severely severely depressed there was always a balance of her being you know extremely happy and then extremely low she would never show it to her children she was very very secretive there's it's a shame that I didn't realize until years later that alcoholics are very good at hiding their addiction they're very good at hiding you know they can at the flip of a switch that and you know switch whatever emotions they're feeling and you know be able to mask it so I never really so I never really must be able to tell now being that and I was so close with my mother you know especially in the first the first a year after she passed away again beam and I was supposed to her I blame myself like why couldn't I do something wasn't I wasn't I good enough to save her why couldn't what what can I do to save this person that cared for me and that I did everything for now I've learned that there's a you know that's there's a hard question to answer and sometimes there are times that those questions need to be answered and sometimes those are questions that don't need to be answered at that time I wasn't denial that unfortunately but every day I do try to you know in the right frame of mind be able to address those questions I was seen the first the first year after my mother passed away I was the worst it was definitely the worst year was the year that I had started to not use drugs as a way to as a in a positive way it was a more of a medication way I didn't want at a time I didn't want to be alive like the person that I'd live for is not here so what what do I have why am i what why should I be here and drugs and alcohol that is a great way to to get rid of those thoughts completely numb you don't have to think about it when when you're on drugs now my preferred drug was marijuana that's just that's just something that I liked it was just a way for me to just escape to go to another world in it where I don't have to think about her so I would mask I would just self medicate myself in that way and thank God people in the community kind of took over right after she passed away so that kind of cut me a little bit more balanced and I was still abusing and being completely incapacitated I don't really remember my days first year it was pretty it was pretty dark and just in general I thank God was the people from that community that had started me they've started finding places for me to go that catered to someone in my position someone that has gone through through that and it was Shiva type of setting but you know sort of drug rehab type of place and that is that's when I really started to start to accept it I don't know if I was such an like emotionally open person before she died but definitely when she did I became more accepting to help from other people I was able to express my emotions to people it may have been before that I was always like that but definitely as I accepted more help from other people the more open I became I can't speak for people that have a hard time opening for I can understand completely how hard it is to open yourself to another person it's probably terrifying like you're gonna take what's when you truly think about yourself and then give that to someone and trust that with someone else I can imagine that's something that's terrifying but the more that I did it the more that I was even even a little bit I mean it happened to be me I was because of what I had gone through it was like you know breaking it down it just all it all came out and there's something very freeing about that something very freeing about being able to just let it all out I had started after she had best way to write I have 10 to 20 notebooks of literally just write of just getting my emotions there's poetry there's songs this but it's all what is in my head onto paper I highly recommend it I think it's a very I think it's a very therapeutic way to just even if you don't even nobody don't keep it even if you can just write it down and you can throw it out it just needs to get out there and once it's out of your head and onto paper then you can sort of think about it even more so that was the first year there's when I really just tried to just try to just be be in it I mean I always I tend to say whenever ice whenever I do meet people that have lost people it could be from addiction it could be from cancer could be from whatever it is to me what I sometimes what I wish people would have told me is that it's okay to be it's okay for it to her there's nothing wrong with you if it hurts that much if you accept that it hurt that you're hurting and you can be in it then you're in it and that gives you the opportunity to get out of it once you accept that it's there that this pain is so real then you can move on it's not easy it's definitely not going to be easy but once you accept that it is hard that gives you a much better chance of getting out of it I would say after the first year then I had gone to a place called kasher in Israel it's a like a hero / r3hab type of place is when I really started to to grow and to sort of be the person that I wanted to be then helped me a lot with therapy they have group therapy so it was a perfect fit for me to sort of slowly but surely get out of where I needed to be I was there for four years and people are surprised like four years of news oh my god that's how much time I needed you want me to be alive right like you the people that I'm speaking to their that care about me they won't you want me to be alive right so is what I needed they were extremely instrumental in me being the person and especially the people that along the way because otherwise I would have made a complete jump from smoking weed you know throughout the entire day till winding up in a gutter with a needle in my arm that's how much it affected me and a big part of how I was able to get out is I accepted help from others I was willing I was willing to take help from people that wanted to help me but a big part of it is about being open to it you have to sort of be comfortable with being uncomfortable it's a hard it's a really hard thing to do but once you open yourself up a little bit and a little bit and a little bit you become more obviously you need to trust the people that you're being open to you don't just want to tell a random person on the street but to really be accepting of other people that they're people that you that care about you really do care about you and they want to help you that was a big part of me being able to get out of the dark the darkness is as I call it sometimes I will never forget my mother I will never forget all the bad and I would definitely not forget all the good but because I remember the struggles and the joy that she brought to my life I learned from both and it's important to always be you know to always be aware of your surroundings of being a lot of other people just saying you know the amount of times that people have just said to me like hey oh you were right I'm like you know what I'm actually not really I'm not doing so well I'm really like and sometimes people like are just asking to be polite and then sometimes people that are asking or asking because they want to help and those are the people that you need to gravitate towards those are the people that you can trust and those are the people that you should be open to so my message is that there is a way out of the darkness there's a way to get out it's not easy but little by little and being accepting of yourself first and then being something of others this is a way to get out thank you first of all I want to say that's very brave of you and while your story is very painful and heart-wrenching we're happy that you here to share it with us the message to those that are here are those that are watching this are those that will watch this later is hope and help is available you just have to want it we're not minimizing the pain that anybody has and we're not going to compare notes or war stories of who has it worse than who has it better because there's no such thing to each person their struggle Israel their pain Israel and what they're living through is real our job is to be there and to be that person to be that beacon of light and to help get somebody through their most difficult times we have to dive in for the day that we no longer need to have these events and that we no longer need to focus on these issues but until then we need all the help and support we can get to get the word out there we have to get well bottom to speak about this topic and shoe on shavasan we have to get schools to be willing to bring in proper education we have to get community leaders to be willing to address this issue and say it's real and this is a battle that we can only fight together I'm going to end with a story that I end most of my speeches with and that is a story about a fellow by the name of Rev Eckstein who opened up an organization called Dariush on dharia charme was opened up after he lost multiple children to a disease called teh sex and he started genetic testing to be able to figure out who shouldn't marry who so that they wouldn't have children that would die from this disease and in the beginning he had a very hard time rap on him put him into a room how are you playing God how are you doing these things you can't be doing it but he kept going he never stopped nothing got in his way couple years ago Kingsburg Jewish Medical Center called him down for a event when he showed up at the hospital they were doing a ribbon cutting for the renaming of what used to be known as the tay-sachs ward because they haven't had a new child brought into the taste export in a number of years he eradicated tay-sachs from within the the Ashkenazi community we need to know that we have the power to eradicate addiction from within our midst as well I'm not gonna say it's easy I'm not gonna say it's going to happen overnight and I'm surely not gonna say that any one person can do this alone but if we as a group and as a community agree that we're going to step up to this and we're going to face this and we're going to do what we can as a group then we'll be able to eradicate this once and for all I look forward to the days that these speeches will no longer be necessary and I again want to thank the Rev of the shield and the Kazakh organization and all the staff that I'm going to make sure to put this event together we're going to now do a narcan training for those who want to receive narcan kits and learn how to use it that's the opioid overdose reversal agent and I will also stick around to answer any questions people may have individually thank you all very much [Applause] [Music] you [Applause]