jews d

in
the

continued from page 14

like Jamie’s. Adam, now 27, has been struggling with sub-
stance abuse, depression and anxiety since high school.
(Adam is not his real name — he wishes to remain anony-
mous because he still fears the stigma of addiction.)
“My drug and alcohol use began at a young age when my
friends and I began experimenting with alcohol, often taking
it from our parents’ liquor cabinets,” he says. “The alcohol
made me feel better about myself. It made me more comfort-
able in social situations.”
Adam says he always felt different from his friends. “My
parents were divorced, and all of my friends’ parents were
still together,” he says. “This made me self-conscious in social
situations such as birthdays and graduations, etc. My parents
didn’t know I was experimenting with drugs, but they knew I
was feeling unhappy and insecure.”

“Chemicals did it for me. They relieved
anxiety. They made me more confident,
more sociable.”

— ADAM

Advice From Those Who’ve Been There

Alan Bishop, owner of Mr. Alan’s Shoes, has struggled with
addiction throughout his life. Along the way, he met the love
of his life, got married, had kids and built a business. During
it all, he says, he felt “less-than” and used alcohol to make
him feel more comfortable around others. With the help of
his wife, he was able to stop. But after his eventual divorce,
he started drinking again. “I enjoyed it for many years until I
picked up a bad illness.”
About 12 years ago, Bishop learned
he had tinnitus, and the pain drove him
mad. His doctor prescribed Xanax. “I
asked if I would get addicted. He said,
‘Absolutely, but don’t worry, I’ll supply
you forever.’”
The Xanax helped, and Bishop’s life
improved
greatly for many years; all the
Alan Bishop
while he also drank. “It got to the point
where I always made sure I had enough
Xanax; I would get the shakes if I didn’t have it. I had them
in my coat, in my car, everywhere.”
About five years ago, the siren in his head from tinnitus
came back and the pain was worse than ever. He went to
a facility in California where he found strength to get clean
and carry on. There, he started to go to 12-step meetings.
“I started hearing others’ stories and realized my story was
just the same. I was no different than them.”
Slowly but surely, he got better. “I went home and was
scared out of my mind to be part of the community again
and embarrassed to have an addiction, embarrassed that I
had gone to rehab, and I didn’t want to leave my house.”
He was told for the best chance at recovery he should
attend 90 meetings in 90 days, so he did. “I picked the best
sponsor, a Jewish doctor, a little tough on me but nice at the
time. He got me through the steps.”
Bishop still has tinnitus, but he’s learned tools in AA to
help with the pain. “I live a completely normal life with it. I
meditate, pray, read and refocus myself from the noise.”
Bishop has been sober for five years and, during that
time, he’s helped 10 mostly Jewish men with their sobriety
and he’s also seen a lot of people die. “I see a young person
die once a month from heroin and that’s horrific. My goal is
to help other people. That’s why I’m talking in the Jewish
News. Addiction is not an exclusive disease. It can attack
every family.” He invited anyone to reach out to him at
abishop6983@gmail.com if they want to talk.

16

March 1 • 2018

jn

ROBERT’S STORY

Robert Rotenberg, 63, secretary-treasurer at General Mill
Supply Company, has been sober since June 10, 2014. He’d
been drinking heavily since he was a teenager and tried a
“little bit of everything except heroin.”
His addiction didn’t begin controlling his life until he was
in his 50s. “I knew I was doing things that were not OK, like
drinking late at night, early in the morn-
ing and anytime else. I would say I forgot
something, so I could go take a couple
of gulps from a bottle.”
As his addiction progressed, he began
breaking promises to his family and to
himself. “I would wake up thinking how
long could I go without drinking. It was
7 a.m.”
Robert Rotenberg
He was miserable and lost. Four years
ago, he walked into an AA meeting
where he saw Alan Bishop, someone he had known since
Hebrew school. “I said, ‘You, too?’ He said, ‘Me, too,’ and we
hugged,” Rotenberg says. “I went to meetings for a while
but still had not surrendered.”
Eventually, he became more and more disgusted with
how alcohol had taken over his life and checked into an
inpatient recovery center. It changed his life. “I accepted that
I was an alcoholic and would be until I take my last breath.
I became comfortable sharing my story with family and
friends who’ve always been very supportive. I have no inter-
est in living a lie.”
By sharing his story, he hopes to help young people deal-
ing with addiction and sharing that there is a way out. “Like
Alan, I want to help. I’ve seen too many young people die
since I started going to meetings,” he says.
He says if he could, he would tell his teenage self to do a
reality check. “Denial is a formidable enemy. I was trapped
in it for many years. Most of us were unable to see how
obsessed we were becoming,” he says. “Addiction can hap-
pen quickly. Try to notice the signs.”
He says that if young people don’t want to talk to him, he
knows people in their 20s he can connect them with. “When
all you really want to do is use or only want to be with peo-
ple who want to use, you’re going down a dangerous road,”
he says. “It’s a living hell. There is a way out. But you have
to want the way out, which is being ready to surrender.”
You can reach out to Robert at brote@comcast.net. •

He graduated from a local high school and headed off to
Michigan State University. That’s when he was introduced to
harder drugs. “That first semester was tough. I was unhappy.
I felt inferior to my friends who had been accepted into
University of Michigan. Once I got into a fraternity, I felt
much more comfortable.”
Being a part of a fraternity also accelerated his drug use. “I
was exposed to harder drugs and started experimenting,” he
says. “Once you get to college, drugs are just one phone call
away.”
At first, Adam took the drugs just to party, “but they
seemed to have a different effect on me than my friends. It
was almost as if a part of my soul had been broken and never
healed. Chemicals did it for me. They relieved anxiety. They
made me more confident, more sociable. Nobody would have
known I was struggling with depression.”
He says his drug use picked up through college, and he
began using drugs every day. He maintained a 3.6 GPA. “That
made it worse for me. I was getting accolades. It looked like
my life was on a good path, but I was struggling, and my fam-
ily didn’t know.”
He got accepted to law school in another state. This is
when his drug use really became a problem. He did not
understand how depressed he truly had become. He tried to
get sober on his own when he was 22. “But I didn’t know how
far along I was in my addiction. I started sneaking around,
disappearing for hours in the day, not being connected with
anyone. I was using Oxycontin every day,” he says.
By his second year in law school, he told his parents about
his problem and began seeing a therapist. “I stopped taking
Oxy because it was expensive and started using Xanax more,”
he says. “More commonly, people go to heroin after Oxy,
but growing up in the West Bloomfield Jewish community, I
believed my life would never get to that point.”
After law school, he moved back home with his parents,
saw a therapist, enrolled in intensive outpatient therapy
but didn’t go back after the first session. “I’m thinking, ‘I’m
Jewish. I come from a well-to-do family. I’m successful. People
in my position do not have drug problems.’ I struggled with
accepting the problem I had.”
He got a job at a law firm, but his drug use was an everyday
thing. “I was in a haze, using Xanax off the street.” He tried to
quit cold turkey and suffered a mental psychosis. “I was will-
ing to go to rehab but was not ready to get sober,” he says.
The shock factor kept him clean for two months and then
he started taking Oxy again. “No one knew,” he says. He began
to use heroin. “However, because I was not using it intrave-
nously, I was in denial about the depths of my addiction.”
Eventually, his drug use progressed to a point where he
was no longer functioning and things such as his work and
his social life had begun to deteriorate. This is when he quit
cold turkey and became deathly sick, prompting him to ask
his parents for help. He was sent to an inpatient facility in
Florida for two months. He got out in October and has been
sober for six months.
Adam’s family is very supportive and play a vital role in his
continued sobriety; however, the shame is something both he
and his family still deal with. “Everyone’s parents talk about
how great their kids are, how they’re succeeding,” he says.
“My family was in a dark place and couldn’t reach out. It’s the
pressure of living in West Bloomfield, I guess.”
Adam attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and is in
group therapy, trying to understand his addiction and the
shame that comes along with it.
He stresses that he could not recover without the under-
standing, love and support of his friends, community and
family.
“The only reason I am here today is because of my sup-
port system and their belief in me,” he says. “I want people to
know that in order to recover, you need to be able to ask for
help. The biggest obstacle to recovery for me was my inability
to ask for help because of the unfounded stigma that exists in
our community.
“God-willing, I hope I hit my rock bottom,” he says. “But
this is a chronic disease and I’m sure things could get

continued on page 18