We’re all familiar with 12-step programs for alcohol and drug addiction recovery (see box). But many Jews feel that Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step recovery groups are just for Christians.
So Rabbi David Glickman of Congregation Beth Shalom is teaching a class sponsored by First Call, Alcohol/Drug Prevention & Recovery, to banish that feeling among Jews. He says Jewish people who are struggling with addiction in a 12-step program like AA, Narcotics Anonymous or Gamblers Anonymous often feel spiritually alienated from these groups because when Christians talk about God as they understand Him, they have a Christian conception of God.
“The basis of the 12 steps is about having a relationship with a higher power as you understand that higher power,” Rabbi Glickman said. “And I believe the basis of the 12 steps is very closely related to the Jewish idea of teshuvah, which is translated as either repentance or returning. Judaism has a tradition that’s based on the premise that we can improve ourselves, that we can be better.”
Rabbi Glickman said addiction affects the Jewish community in the same percentages as the general population. He wants Jews to feel comfortable attending 12-step programs and getting the help they need.
The 12-step program is specifically God as we understand God — not as other people understand God, he said.
“I believe that it’s not only completely kosher for a Jewish person to participate in a 12-step group, but if it’s going to save that person’s life it’s an imperative,” he continued. “This group I’m running is not an official 12-step group, but it is a Torah study group that looks at the Jewish spiritual connections between ancient Jewish texts and the 12 steps.”
Liz Gilbert, director of marketing and communications at First Call, says the idea is to start a dialogue. She said First Call reached out to Rabbi Glickman about talking to the Jewish community and making sure they knew where they could get help if they or a family member were struggling with a substance abuse disorder.
“Any opportunity for people to learn about recovery in the context of there being no shame around it, no stigma around it, that we’re talking about it, but it’s not something that’s discussed in hushed tones, we are in favor of that,” Gilbert said. “So it’s not so much necessarily the content of it, but that Rabbi Glickman is just talking about it, talking with his constituents and his congregation and anybody else who is interested.”
The study group meets from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. on the first Wednesday of the month in Rabbi Glickman’s office at Congregation Beth Shalom, 14200 Lamar Avenue, Overland Park. Although the group began in September, new people come in every month and it will meet through June 2016.
Go to firstcallkc.org and click on “Events” at the top of the page. There you’ll find more information on “The 12 Steps through a Jewish Lens” and you can RSVP if you plan to attend.
“This is an issue that’s very close to my heart, and First Call is an organization that I care very deeply for, so this was a way for me to be able to give to the community in a unique way,” Rabbi Glickman said.
The 12 Steps
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
