Fighting Stigmas and Creating Allies
The Jewish Addiction Awareness Network strives to dispel the myth that addiction doesn't affect Jewish communities.
“It Took My Breath Away”
When Marla Kaufman’s son developed substance abuse disorder, she turned to the place that seemed most natural: her Jewish community. But the lack of support she experienced led her family to become unaffiliated for several years. Now in Seattle, Kaufman runs the Jewish Addiction Awareness Network to help Jewish communities better cope with addiction in their midst.
How did the Jewish Addiction Awareness Network get started?
Marla Kaufman: The Jewish Addiction Awareness Network started in Orange County, California, where we raised our kids. In 2006, our older son presented with substance use disorder, which I always like to say wasn’t even a term in 2006. It wasn’t on the front page of every newspaper like it is now. To be honest, I’m very sorry that we have so much company. My son is in longterm recovery now, but starting in 2006, it was really an up and down process with periods of what I call abstinence. I think sobriety and true recovery is different than just abstinence. But all throughout, he was really looking for recovery.
He didn’t want to be doing what he was doing, which I think is something that people just completely misunderstand. They think that it’s pleasurable or they’re just partying or whatever. And they don’t realize the pain actually that people are in when they really have the disease of addiction. So when it came into our family, we were very involved in our Jewish community. I was on the synagogue board for social action. Our kids went to Jewish summer camp. Our whole entire family life revolved around Jewish life. But when this happened, the response — or what I like to say is the lack of response — unfortunately, and the stigma that we experienced, it took my breath away to the point that our family became unaffiliated for four years. If you had told me that we would not belong to a synagogue, would not be very involved in the Jewish community, I would tell you, you were crazy. I’m used to turning to Judaism and my community in times of need and also in times of celebration. And yet for the darkest moment of our lives, the community really wasn’t there and didn’t know how to handle it.
About eight years into our journey in 2014, I read a book called Recovery, the 12 Steps and Jewish Spirituality, by Rabbi Paul Steinberg. And this book completely turned my world upside down. It was merging what I knew about recovery, because I had been going to family support groups, and they were all in churches.
I finished the book, and I called Paul the next day. And I said, you don’t know me, but I have to have lunch with you, because your book has changed my life in a profound way. And we still work closely together. He’s on our advisory board.
I decided to start in my own backyard and went to the board of rabbis there and told my story. Some were familiar with it. They had had more contact with families at this point, even maybe some of them had been to some funerals for overdose deaths. So it wasn’t quite as foreign to them as it was in 2006. We got a grant from our Jewish community foundation to do a clergy and Jewish communal professional addiction education workshop.
About a year after that, I decided I wanted to do something on the national level. My whole idea was just to build the website. I just thought — as a mother who laid awake many nights, wondering if I was going to get that horrible call — I thought if I got up in the middle of the night and had a website to go to, a Jewish addiction awareness network, if I could feel some Jewish connection and read some original blogs and know that I wasn’t alone, I would’ve felt so much better. So that’s all I thought I was going to do: build a website. It’s never just that. We actually started doing the workshops and other programming and teaching other communities what to do.
I’m just sort of blown away that people are still talking behind other people’s backs and there’s still stigma. Why do you think that is?
Well, I think there are several reasons. One is a myth that still persists today in some communities that we are working on shattering, which is that Jews aren’t as vulnerable to this particular malady as other groups. There’s a Yiddish saying, “the shicker is a goy,” the drinker’s a non-Jew. I also think that as immigrants to America, even though many of us are now fourth generation, it’s not wanting to invite more anti-Semitism, to be honest.
On the topic of people becoming more aware, I’m curious if there patterns that people might be aware of. Are there things that might be enlightening for people to think a little bit differently about addiction?
I think that every human being is on the spectrum of addiction, because if you think about it, human beings are designed to avoid pain and seek pleasure. I don’t know of any human being that doesn’t do something to alleviate stress and get out of uncomfortable feelings. That could just be eating an extra cookie, or it could be what they call retail therapy, or it could be drinking responsibly, having a glass of wine, spending a few hours on Facebook or on the internet, just kind of tuning out that way. It’s just when it gets to be interfering with someone’s life and relationships and health when you’ve crossed over into addiction. There’s dependency and then there’s addiction. There’s a difference.
The idea that we’re all on spectrum of addiction is really interesting. And I think that also sort of normalizes the experience, right? Not that this could just happen to anyone randomly, but that we are all vulnerable to it.
I think we’re all vulnerable to dependency. I think that there is a genetic predisposition to actually having the disease of addiction. And I will tell you, with fentanyl, I think it’s easier for almost anyone to cross over into addiction.
How is this going to go away? How is it not going to get so much worse?
There’s no silver bullet here. Going to the root of the problem: the treatment industry is full of bad actors. There are some good ones, but I think a lot of work needs to be done. There a lot more regulations, a lot more clinical and evidence based solutions. Stigma kills people. They have so much shame that it’s very hard for them to reach out for help.
I’d love to hear about some of the things that you’ve done to raise awareness in the Jewish community, and some successes that you’ve had and maybe tools that people could take away.
Well, they can educate themselves. So there’s plenty of stuff here on this website that they can understand addiction better, but we published this “how to be a Jewish recovery ally” guide. If you want to be a recovery ally and you don’t know how to do it, this is in four parts. There’s a learn part, a listen part, and then there’s a show up part. What can you do to show up to be an ally?
What advice do you give people who have a loved one or a friend who is going through recovery, but keeps relapsing? How can we be the best person in that situation when our lives are also being stressed out by that process?
Look, it’s a really hard road when you love and care about somebody who is in active addiction. It’s very hard when you see them relapsing. When I talk to families and loved ones and they say, my loved one’s been to rehab three times or whatever, I just don’t see any hope, a few things: First of all, I don’t think any treatment is wasted. I think they build upon each other, and just like other diseases that go in and out of remission like cancer, this is a disease that goes in and out of remission.
I know a lot of people in recovery and with addiction and the ones that I thought would make it absolutely didn’t and the ones that I thought wouldn’t make it absolutely did. So I always say where where there’s breath, there’s life, and then there’s hope. On the family member side, you must take care of yourself. I had to learn this the hard way. I literally went down into the dumps with my son when this presented. I remember thinking I was never going to smile again and that our family was over now. I was crying all the time. I was just devastated. I learned finally that I had to take care of myself, because I could not be the best support to our son. And nobody can be of the best support to their loved one if they aren’t getting enough sleep, getting nutrition, having their own needs met.
What are some kind of a couple of key Jewish resources that could help? With Christianity, the idea of Jesus saving you can be really appealing to somebody. We don’t have quite the same structure. What are some Jewish tools or resources that somebody could consider?
A lot of times Rabbi Paul Steinberg, who I mentioned before, has asked, what exact text or Torah portion or whatever addresses this? And he always laughs and says, “the whole Torah. All of it.” I find that that’s true. Our whole national origin society, the Exodus of going from slavery to freedom, of going from a narrow place to an expansive place, fits in beautifully with recovery.
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