Substance abuse stigma among Jews leads to group

For 20 years, he saw every Jewish holiday, big or small, as a convenient excuse for a drink - lots of drinks.

"I had this knack of trying to make a celebration out of a lot of things nobody else did," said the Norfolk man. Yet as a Jew, the last thing he wanted to see himself as was an alcoholic.

Now he is launching a chapter of the organization that helped lead him to sobriety: JACS, which stands for Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons and Significant Others. Jewish Family Service is supporting the initiative.

JACS is a support group for Jewish substance abusers whose addictions traditionally carry a heavy stigma in their faith community.

"We can come in and talk about how we relate to addiction and recovery from a Jewish standpoint," said the man, who requested public anonymity, a basic premise of JACS and all 12-step recovery programs. "The point is, there's a place for Jews to go."

Historically, Jewish communities implied that only gentiles could be substance abusers, said Jonathan Katz, an administrator at JACS' New York City headquarters.

"This is a very strong myth in the Jewish community, going back many years, that Jews don't have alcohol and drug problems," Katz said.

He said Judaism's ritual use of wine in everything from Friday Sabbath dinners to holidays such as Passover and Purim gave the impression that Jews were very disciplined about alcohol use.

Jewish culture not only denied substance abuse, it ostracized any Jew who acknowledged a drinking problem, he said. As a result, many Jewish alcoholics refused to seek help out of shame and fear.

JACS was founded around 1979 in New York and now sponsors retreats as well as support groups for the entire Jewish spectrum, from ultra-Orthodox to the barely religiously observant.

Katz said JACS complements, rather than replaces, 12-step recovery programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and other rehabilitation treatments.

"A network of people who share your Jewish identity, religion and cultural and social involvement is a great way to reinforce your sobriety and recovery," he said.

Mark, a Virginia Beach Jewish man and recovering drug addict, said a short-lived local JACS chapter in 1995 helped him.

"You don't hear about the Jewish people who have substance abuse problems." JACS, he said, "let me know I wasn't the only Jewish person out there with an addiction problem."

The Jewish premise of JACS also means participants don't have to explain customs that might sound strange at a regular, non-Jewish 12-step meeting, said the man behind the new JACS chapter.

"You can't walk into a regular meeting and say, 'I got drunk on Purim.' They'll say, 'What's Purim?' Then you'd have to explain it's a religious holiday, and they'd ask, 'You drink on a religious holiday?' "

Rabbi Michael Panitz of Temple Israel in Norfolk is among local Jewish clergy who endorse JACS, which he said has a record of success.

There may be less substance abuse among Jews than in the general population, Panitz said, "but there's still enough to warrant this kind of attention."

Steven G. Vegh, (757) 446-2417, steven.vegh@pilotonline.com