Rehab and National Healthcare
Israeli Treatment of My Addictions for Seven Years
Hospitalized Twice and Sixteen Months in a Therapeutic Community in the Forest
Zionism — the belief in establishing a Jewish State in Israel — was in my mother’s milk. She was in Hadassah — a women’s Zionist organization — for her entire life. My grandfather took a trip to Palestine to settle the land, but my grandmother nixed it. My parents took me to Israel in 1974. I went on my own at the age of 16 in 1981 to participate in a high school senior contest on the history of pre-statehood activities by Jews. In 1983 and 1985, I volunteered for the City of David dig in Jerusalem. My last trip to Israel as a tourist was in 1988.
I was considering moving to Israel after college, but my first wife rejected that notion. In 2009, I had been divorced for six years, so I applied for citizenship. I first entered the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in late 2009, after I hit my deepest bottom. I managed to stay clean and sober — with no marijuana or alcohol — from January to July 1, 2010, when I moved to Israel permanently. During that half-year, I applied for citizenship, effective when I landed. I did this rather than moving back to New Mexico or California to find a job.
On the plane to Israel, I had drinks. I could not resist the pre-mixed mojitos on the beverage cart that kept enticing me the entire time. I later learned that flying on planes was a “trigger” for me. In my early sobriety, which lasted most of the decade of the Teens, these places were dangerous to my sobriety. As were rock concerts and sporting events. Slowly these places are no longer hazardous to me. I really don’t need to drink to enjoy myself now, but I avoided them strenuously, or only went with somebody from the program as a sobriety buddy.
After I relapsed, I relatively quickly got back into the rooms. This time, it was Narcotics Anonymous (NA) because AA was non-existent in Israel’s periphery. In Hebrew! I joked that it was my immersive language program, but it was. To this day, I speak Hebrew with narcotic addict/gangster slang. I managed to stay clean and sober for another six months. After I relapsed, a friend of mine steered me to the outpatient alcohol recovery service in Be’er Sheva, which receives a lot of government funding. I had practically free weekly sessions with a social worker.
I officially was given a “dual diagnosis,” the term for having both a use disorder and psychiatric treatment for a mental illness. I saw a psychiatrist for my bipolar I disorder and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and a social worker. I relapsed again. This time I was referred to the mental hospital in Be’er Sheva for a month. I paid less than the cost of a free pack of cigarettes each day. This was a locked ward of the mental hospital.
We could hear the wails and moans of the patients upstairs who were in a ward for severe cases. The gates were locked (although people did escape and ran away). We got three square meals a day. Fun activities, group therapy, individual therapy, and psychiatric work were all part of the program, all covered by the Israeli healthcare system. We also spent a lot of time smoking cigarettes and playing backgammon. I managed to stay sober for almost six months. Still, I relapsed despite being in a day program (Monday-Friday, 8–3) after the mental hospital.
This led to a period of numerous relapses on alcohol. I would get clean a lot for a week and get shit-faced on the weekend. I had a few 30 day periods, but I was branded a “chronic relapser” by my “friends” in NA. Luckily I had a couple of real friends who did not give up on me.
I ended up going back to Be’er Sheva’s mental hospital for another 30-day stint. After that, in 2014, I ended up going to a “therapeutic community,” or “kehila,” for long-term inpatient treatment. I went to one of the two communities for those with a dual diagnosis because the “normal” communities did not want a bipolar person on their hands. I went to “Shiluv,” which means “integration,” the idea that the program would integrate us into the workforce as recovered addicts.
Shiluv was run like a boot camp, but I did well the first few months by imagining I was in summer camp. Shiluv was based loosely on the controversial “Synanon” method from California. We learned “boundaries” by ratting on each other for violations of the many camp rules. The person voted to lead the group of twenty-five patients/inmates would decide — with the recovered addicts hired as counselors — any “punishment” that then had to be carried out by the rule violator.
The place ran like the TV show “Big Brother,” where the inmates started getting on each other’s nerves. Making matters worse, each of three work areas had a supervisor, the other patient elected by the crew, and the counselor, whose job it was to “bust” anyone slacking on the job. But we had a staff psych nurse and a psychiatrist who would come by weekly to adjust medications.
I was first assigned to the “cleaning” crew. We would wash the floors in the entire building, then do the windows with newsprint, and finally, rake leaves. It was lighter physical work than the “gardening” crew, so I was picked for cleaning. I spent a little time with the gardening crew cleaning up weeds in the vegetable garden, but that was also mild.
Finally, on my way to the leadership position, I ran the “chicken coop” crew. We had to clean the chicken shit from the coop and let them have a free-range run. We would feed them on the range and care for any injured ones. We raised them from chicks. It was nasty work but most enjoyable. We had daily group sessions based on the Twelve Steps and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). We had weekly therapy sessions with a social worker, and I was able to probe things deeply.
The whole thing was messed up psychologically. I cried more than ever. I chased after someone to try and punch him. I was so out of control. A patient spat on my face when I was the head of the patient population, which made me feel violated. But I managed to celebrate one year clean for the first time in April 2013. In the fall of 2012 and early 2013, I was in Group C. These were patients who graduated from Groups A & B. At this stage, we were to start working for a living.
I had been told I could return to my old job, working for a company that did legal writing. They were holding my assignment for me because they were run progressively. But the leadership of the Shiluv, including the Director, at the time of my stint in Group C, did not want me to work remotely and wanted me to find a place to work in town. I found a lawyer to work for and do my other job. It did not work out with the schedule I had from Shiluv. So they nixed that job. They insisted that I find some minimum-wage job because it would “make me humble.”
That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. After asking to leave by the front door, which they refused to do, I hopped the fence and ran off after 16 months, in May 2013. Despite that, I stayed sober for a total of two years and four months until September 2014.
One day after the NA meeting, after a disciplined life of going to the meetings and working out of my new apartment in Netanya, I relapsed. I had two glasses of wine and a steak. I tried all sorts of moderation, including medically assisted treatment, namely the Sinclair Method. I mostly got drunk for the next three years, including after I moved back to America in August 2017, living in Israel for seven years.
Because of the national healthcare, I should mention that I paid $500/month. That was less than my disability benefit from the government, for three well-prepared meals a day, a three-person room, and occasionally even free clothing. Trips to the beach, pool and a nature reserve were all included, as was vocational rehabilitation.
After two years and four months, I stayed drunk for two years. I fell on my face and chipped my teeth. I was blacking out again. I got mugged one night after I fell asleep in a taxi van and missed my stop. I started smoking weed again after years of abstinence. Finally, back in the USA, I went to AA in Tampa. I had a sober date of January 1, 2018, marking my most prolonged period of sobriety. This time I use weed to help me stay sober.
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