My name is David. I’m 25 years old, and I came to Retorno three and a half years ago to treat my addiction to drugs and alcohol. I thought drugs and alcohol were my main problem in life, but really they were a nice solution to other problems that I had.
I grew up in a modern haredi household. My father is a businessman, and I come from a good, solid home. I was the sandwich child. I started abusing drugs and alcohol when I was fourteen. Eventually, I left religion. My whole life I strived to be the best at everything I did, so when I became secular I wanted to stand out. I entered the world of parties, women, drugs and alcohol. I started with soft drugs and ended up using hard drugs, too.
I reached Retorno after I crashed from very hard drugs and my life hit rock bottom. I had reached the point of submission. It wasn’t that I submitted myself, rather that my reality submitted me. A person who is using drugs doesn’t really have a choice; he just realizes that he is sick of his way of life and then prays to God to help him.
I came to Retorno with no emotional awareness. Suddenly, the people there started talking to me about very strange things, like what I feel, which is something I had never thought of before. The first week I was clinically depressed and I just wanted to leave. I don’t understand how I stayed, really. Even when I ask myself that question today, I don’t know how it happened, because it is against my nature to conform and stay in a place where they tell you to go and rake the leaves. My entire life I dropped out of frameworks, especially from places where I felt uncomfortable. For some reason I stayed at Retorno. It’s God, it’s definitely God. You don’t have to be religious to realize that. It’s very obvious.
So the first week I sat in the corner by myself, alone and depressed, until someone came over to me and said, “Listen, give it just one month, and give it all you’ve got.” After a month, something loosened up inside of me, but it wasn’t enough; I was permanently expelled after a month and a half for a certain violation. I went home for two weeks, and I met my friends who were using drugs. Because I was already clean, I was able to see for the first time what it looked like from the sidelines, and suddenly I understood. I saw how disgusting it was and how it wasn’t really as fun as it seemed. God was with me the entire time, that’s what I believe.
I decided to fight and return to Retorno. They didn’t want to take me back, but my ego told me that no one closes the door on me. I once heard that God doesn’t take away our masks at once, rather he removes them in stages, because each mask serves us for a particular purpose until we no longer need it. My ego was a useful mask for me at that point in time.
I was admitted to a detox facility for a month, and finally something started to move inside of me and reconnect. I came back to Retorno for three months, and again I was sent to a detox facility for a month. It was a long and difficult process. The problem was that I was coming with a lot of logic, not emotion. I was a very emotionally detached person and I felt very smart. I wanted to question everything and understand why, and I wasn’t able to accept from anyone. My ego made me believe that I was different from everyone else and that the treatment they were receiving was not for me. Eventually, I was able to get over that.
When I left Retorno, I encountered the real world and I realized that I was not the same person as before, and that the defenses I had erected were no longer necessary. I had grown used to living with the world and the people around me wearing a certain mask, and suddenly that wasn’t me anymore, and I had to learn how to live from scratch, like a child.
I got a job at a store in Beit Shemesh, and I excelled at what I did best: competition. Within one month, I was their best salesman, but then my satisfaction ran dry. I left my job, frustrated and depressed because I wasn’t able to cope with the real world. Here I was, wanting to do something serious with my life, but I had nothing to offer, because the things that always sold me were meaningless now. After two or three weeks of lying in bed and doing nothing, I got a call from someone I knew who worked at Retorno and he asked me if I wanted to work there. I eagerly accepted.
I’ve been working at Retorno for the past three years in the outreach program, lecturing at prevention and empowerment seminars. I was at a lecture in Jerusalem recently, and a kid came up to me and said, “Thank God I’m not an addict. I told him, “Thank God I’m an addict.” Because I can’t just go through life ordinarily. The sensitivity I have doesn’t permit me to simply survive life, even if I wanted to – and sometimes I do. I don’t have the “privilege” that regular people have of just letting things bounce off them and moving on. I have to face my emotions and deal with them.
That is what we talk about in our seminars. This so-called “privilege” of normal people is not really a privilege. Pain and emotion are things that everyone has, regardless of his skin color or family background. We try to connect people to their true selves, to help them figure out their feelings. The problem is that things become habitual, and we live day-to-day without feeling and appreciating. A normal person can live without stopping to ask himself if he is feeling fulfilled, but an addict can.
Today, I feel I’ve come full circle. I got married last month, and I want to build a loving and religiously observant home. I also completed my first year of studies toward a degree in social work.
A short while ago, Rabbi Eckstein and I were flown to an air force base for a seminar, and on the way there I asked him whether his enthusiasm and fulfillment did not sometimes run low. At the end of the day I understood. I realized that something amazing happens, that if one pilot goes home and gives his son a hug and a kiss and is able to talk about his feelings, then that is an accomplishment. We are changing a home and making it a happier, more loving, more accepting place. We are changing lives.
