I grew up in Brooklyn, NY. I’m the youngest of five siblings. Both my parents are Bal Teshuva. On the outside we seemed like we mostly fit into the community, but I felt like I didn’t. I grew up confused. We didn’t have a TV but watched movies. I don’t have any religious relatives except for one that lives in another country. Growing up, I wasn’t a bad kid, I didn’t make too much trouble, I wasn’t rebellious or anything. I was just a kid trying to fit in. I went to one Chasidish elementary school and struggled tremendously with both Hebrew and English studies. I was always beaten up by my Rebbes, most of the time there was no reason for it. When I got home from school my mother used to ask, “So how was your day?” my answer was always the same, “Good”. I remember the struggle and pain of trying to do the homework. I had a ton of tutors, but still was never up to par.
When it was time for Highschool the elementary school I was in had a high school. When my parents applied, they told my parents that I wasn’t up to the level that the learning was and to find another school. I ended up going there for a few months. I couldn’t stand being there. Every day after school I’d come home and say I must leave. After Succos I went to a new school. I liked it a lot. Except the kids in this school were troubled and rebellious, I wasn’t, I just didn’t fit in. I wore a long jacket and Bibber (Chasidic) hat. I didn’t want to be Chasidish, but again I wasn’t rebellious.
After a few months I started being “more me”. Started going to school late, not putting tefillin on everyday (mostly because I was lazy). My parents didn’t like the school because they felt like it wasn’t for me. I ended up going for a ton of interviews but didn’t get into any schools. To make a long story short, I ended up going to six high schools and struggled throughout. At a certain point my parents and I decided to change my long jacket and hat to a short jacket and an up-hat. I remember feeling more of who I was on the inside but still not who I really was. Later on, into high school, maybe 11th or 12th grade I started drinking socially with friends, and a little bit later I started to smoke weed. In no time I was a full-time stoner and got drunk pretty often.
Shortly after, I got married. Again, everything seemed fine on the outside, but something was still wrong on the inside and I couldn’t figure out what it was. In the beginning, I kept my using down because “I was now a married, mature man” … Sure enough it didn’t take long for me to go back to my old ways of coping with just being alive, using drugs and alcohol. I used to tell my wife that I need to go out with “some friends”. What that meant was me going to self-isolate and use drugs till late at night, sometimes almost till the morning. After a while I had to find creative reasons to “go out”.
To make a very long story shorter, there was only that long that I was able to keep this up for until my wife was sick and tired of what I was doing, which was getting high ALL the time, from the moment I woke up till I went to sleep. She kept on trying to get me to stop using but nothing she did or said made a difference. It got so bad that when my wife was giving birth to our daughter, I was getting high in the delivery room. I have many stories of the crazy things I did to get drugs and continue using them, from flying with my family out of the country and bringing along drugs, to finding ways to do drugs at my grandfather’s funeral, to throwing my stash in to a dumpster after a car accident only to go back and jump into the dumpster to get it back.
After many failed attempts by myself, my wife, family members, and therapist to get me to stop using and eventually me hating myself and my life, I had no idea where to go or what to do. Someone had mentioned something about going to meetings and I started going (obviously I was high).
Ultimately, I was sick and tired of my life and decided to do what worked for other people that had a problem and nothing they did or tried worked other than joining the rooms of recovery. It’s been over 4 years now since I last used any drugs and alcohol. I no longer must chase my dealers or live with the anxiety around that. I was able to show up and be present when my wife gave birth to our second child. I could go through extremely difficult situations in life without drugs or alcohol even crossing my mind. I sometimes don’t believe the life that I have today! And yes, I’m not perfect, and neither is life always perfect. But I get to live a life beyond my wildest imagination, and I wouldn’t change it for anyone or anything!
-M
Wow wow wow 👌 👏 😍 👍 🥰 ☺️