The L’Chaim Downfall – Alan’s Odyssey 2

I truly believed that I had found my calling in life.  I could use my experience to help other Jews by showing them that true salvation is found only with Hashem.  Even my background as an attorney could help my mission: this is a world of lies and for whatever reason people respect graduate degrees.  As an attorney, I happened to own one of the more “respected” degrees.  I wouldn’t be looked at as some nutty “born again.” I was an educated and bright man!

I immediately called my fiance (who is now my wife, thank G-d).  I wanted to share my joy with her.  I remember being disappointed that she didn’t seem to be as happy as I thought she would be. In hindsight, it’s clear why – addiction scared her.  She wanted me to separate myself from anything relating to addiction, even the solution!

Shortly thereafter, I called my Rav to tell him about my experience. I shared with him that I truly thought that I had found my calling and that I had no doubt that G-d was steering me in a certain direction.  My Rav told me that we should never ignore G-d’s messages.  However, he also told me that since I was already engaged and that my fiance agreed to marry me with the expectation that I was going to practice law (I had already stopped day trading), I shouldn’t make any career changes without her 100% support.

I called my fiance and explained my feelings.  She didn’t really like the idea but she told me I should do whatever I felt I needed to do.  I could sense that she wasn’t 100% behind me.  My Rav was clear: 100%, not even 99% would do.  I was a little resentful, but I was committed to following my Rav’s advice.  So I started my career as an attorney and tried to reach out to Jews at NA meetings whenever possible.

I then got married and started the next chapter in my life.  My wife and I were living Torah-true lives.  I was clean and sober for over a year.  I felt great. I felt G-d in my life in a very real way.  Things were better than I ever dreamed possible.

The first month in Cedarhurst, I kept going to my usual NA meetings.  However, since I was now living on the South Shore of Long Island, it was tough for me to make my usual meetings which were all on the North Shore (as I had been living there prior to my marriage).  I thought that maybe I should find meetings closer to my new home.  But I didn’t follow through with it.  I was scared that people in my new life would find out that I was in recovery.  I thought to myself that one day I would have children (G-d willing) and how will they find shidduchim if people know that their father is in recovery?

The Rambam says that when a person does Teshuvah he becomes a new person.  I thought to myself, “I’ve done Teshuvah and now I’m a new person.  I’m no longer a recovering addict, I’m a chassid!”  So instead of meetings and recovery I threw myself exclusively into Chassidut.

A few months later I was at a Chassidic get-together.  The guy next to me offered me a l’chaim. I said no as I had not had a drink in well over a year at that point.  But he persisted.  I thought to myself that I was a different person. I was no longer drinking for the sale of drinking. Instead, I was saying l’chaim to open up my own heart and mind.  So I said l’chaim.  A little voice inside of me told me not to do it.  But I ignored that voice and listened to the loud voice next to me that put a shot of vodka in my hand. The guy that persisted in my drinking turned out to be a shaliach (messenger) of the Yetzer Hara.

For a couple of months I actually did drink “successfully”.  But then it happened.  I found myself locked in my office with a bottle of scotch at 10 in the morning.  On Shabbat I rushed through davening to get to the kiddush where all the guys were drinking.  And drink I did! Heavily!

A few days later, I was in my office.  It was about 4 pm and I was drunk.  Somehow, I was able to track down my old drug dealer.  The guy I used to buy pain killers from.  Next thing I knew, I had a serious oxycontin addiction.

One day, my dealer gave me something “new” to try.  I had no idea what it was, but he told me it was a sedative.  And man did I love those!  I went to the bathroom in my house to try it.  My unsuspecting pregnant wife and two sons were upstairs sleeping.  I then went outside to smoke a cigarette and wait for the “euphoria” to kick in.

The euphoria never came.  Instead, I started to lose my vision and all of my senses.  Somehow, I picked myself up off the ground and ran into my house.  I thought I was going to collapse on the floor and die.  I tried to scream to my wife.  I wanted her to call Hatzalah.  But I couldn’t make a sound.  The thought of my pregnant wife finding me on the floor was too much to bear so somehow I managed to force myself onto our couch.  Hopefully it would be easier for her to handle if she thought I died peacefully in my sleep.

In an instant I was unconscious. I can’t really explain what I experienced next.  It wasn’t a dream and it wasn’t a hallucination.  I felt as though I was only a soul. I no longer had a body.  I felt as though I was in a place that pre-dated creation.  Although I was a soul, I was not a created and separate being.  I felt as though I was in a huge wheel just spinning around in circles.  It was like a huge roller coaster.  I was getting dizzy and nauseous.  I remember thinking that creation had not happened.  There was no world.  I was inside of Hashem, but it was a very, very unpleasant feeling.  I remember thinking that I was never alive and that, therefore, I couldn’t have a drug problem.

Then I saw an image of my oldest son.  I recognized him.  I knew him as my son.  Then I saw the image of my second son.  I recognized him as my son as well (I only had those two kids at that time).  Then I saw an image of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, OB”M.  I recognized the Rebbe as well.  I then knew that I was alive and I had been created.  Then I woke up!

I went upstairs and went to sleep  as if nothing happened. I refused to consider what had happened to me or the meaning of my “dream”.  I kept using drugs for a few more months.

Then on a Shabbat in early Kislev of 2006, I hit my “bottom”. I had no drugs on me.  I couldn’t get in the car to buy some (even though I wanted to) because it was Shabbat and my wife would have killed me.  My wife and children went to take a nap.  I sat on a couch downstairs pondering my life.

How could a guy who was clearly touched by the hand of G-d fall so low again?  This time I felt even worse as now I had a family of my own to care for.  The last time I slipped into the abyss I was a young man with no responsibilities.  But now I was a husband and a father.  But what kind of husband and father was I?  What kind of a Jew was I?  Running to the inner city with my long beard to buy drugs?  What a chillul Hashem!

And then it dawned on me.  My wife and kids would be better off without me.  My wife was still young and as an attractive woman she could easily remarry.  And my kids were so young that they wouldn’t remember me anyway.  Let me spare them the pain and embarrassment of having me around.

I actually visualized taking my own life with a knife to my wrists.  As those evil thoughts were racing through my mind I heard footsteps:  My wife.  She had woken up and she was coming downstairs.  She sat next to me on the couch.  She was oblivious to the hell I was in.  She had no idea.

Deep down inside, I knew that it was now or never.  Either I reach out and ask for help or I die.  But if I ask her for help she’ll surely leave me and take the kids with her.  Before I could continue thinking about it, I heard myself blurt out, “I need help”.

“What do you mean, if you need to go to the office tomorrow I gladly watch the kids.  Don’t worry about it”, my wife innocently responded.

Before I could change my mind, I said, “no…..I relapsed”.

To be continued.