In the Crack Den

Jason started doing drugs in high school. As always, it started off with the 'lighter' stuff – alcohol and under-age cigarettes – and then quickly ramped up to weed, LSD and then heroin. All of Jason's 'friends' were in exactly the same boat, so it didn't even cross their drug-addled minds that things could be – or should be – different.
 
One day, Jason's clean-living brother, Simon, tracked him down, and came to see him in his drug den. He was absolutely disgusted and heart-broken by the squalor, and the waste of human life and potential that was going on around him.
 
No-one could be bothered to tidy up the house, so half-eaten plates of mouldy spaghetti lay in the sinks, which were themselves full of mouldy, foul-smelling water; everyone's life revolved around their habit, so the conversation in the crack den was exclusively centred on, a) how to find the money to buy more drugs; b) who had the best drugs; c) how all those people who didn't do drugs were completely 'abnormal', and not living in the real world.
 
Simon challenged his brother: "Jason! What happened to you? You used to run every day, you used to look after yourself, you used to have goals, and ambitions and dreams. Why are you wasting your life like this? Can't you see it's killing you?"
 
Like all addicts, Jason got extremely defensive and angry: "Who are you to come here, so holier than thou, and start judging me and my lifestyle? Keep your preaching to yourself! Everyone today is doing drugs, e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e. And you know what? I have so many profound insights into myself and humanity and everything when I'm high. I understand things that narrow-minded people like yourself couldn't begin to grasp in a million years. I thought you came here because you care about me, but all your preaching is just pushing me away."
 
Simon was heartbroken. But he was also a G-d fearing man, so he started praying that 'something' would happen to spring Jason out of his prison of lies and self-deception, and help him see just how bad his life really was.
 
A few weeks' later, one of Jason's 'friends' died from an overdose, and Jason found him dead on the floor. Jason showed up at Simon's door, shaken to the core. "How do I stop?" he wanted to know. "How do I get 'out', when my whole life is drugs?"
 
The first thing to do was to ask G-d for help. The next thing to do was to make a commitment to truth, and to recognise that using drugs – any drug – was bad, and would lead to a bad outcome. Then, Simon advised Jason to start looking for good role-models, who had gone through similar experiences and could encourage Jason, and guide him to finding a path out of his addiction.
 
With G-d's help, Simon's love, and Jason's own commitment to truth, within a few months, he was out of his druggie lifestyle, and was holding down a job and studying accounting part-time at his local college.
 
But then…. he met one of his old 'friends', Danny. Danny had never been such a serious drug user as Jason, but he still spent his whole day pleasantly stoned. He still had a job (kind of – the boss was increasingly unhappy with his lack of focus, lethargy and unaccountability, and was looking to fire him); he still had a relationship (kind of – how long can you stay with someone who really isn't 'there' in any sense of the word?); he was 'OK', mostly, from the little bit of his life he could actually remember or relate to.
 
"Hey, Jason, what happened to you? I haven't seen you for ages!"
 
Jason gulped. "I've gone clean. No more drugs. No more parties. A whole new life."
 
Danny sneered at him. "So for sure now you're on some preaching mission to convert everyone else to 'drug-free', right?" Jason blushed. "Just because you messed up so badly, and couldn't handle what you were getting in to, doesn't mean you have to start being all 'holier than thou' to everyone else. Most people in the world just use drugs to relax a bit, and add another dimension to their lives," Danny continued lecturing him. "Don't make your problem everyone else's. You always were an extremist."
 
Danny walked away, and Jason was in turmoil. He knew exactly where Danny was coming from. When he was immersed in the drugs' culture, he was also making excuses for himself, and putting down the 'anti-drug' squad for being out-of-touch, preaching, fanatics.
 
Drugs were the way of the world. Full stop. Once you were in, it was impossible to get out, and that's just the way it was.
 
But now, Jason knew that was a big, fat lie. Whatever hard situation people were in, whatever addiction they were up against, if they started to be truthful about what they were up against, and to stop lying to themselves that it was 'OK', and they started to talk to G-d, and to really include him in their lives, G-d would find a way to spring them out.
 
And the same holds true for all us, too.
 
 
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Check out Rivka Levy's new book The Happy Workshop based on the teachings of Rabbi Shalom Arush