Rabbi Benyamin Bresinger is the director of secular addiction counselling centre Chabad Lifeline, housed at Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital.
When the trip ended, Bresinger parted ways with his Budapest cohort and ventured alone all through Europe and Asia Minor, ending finally in Jerusalem. He’d spend four years there, discussing the Torah with other scripture-passionate young men.
“At Concordia I was interacting with political science students and political science teachers, and the whole idea of learning was aroused,” he says. “In Jerusalem, I just applied what I knew and took that love of learning to the next step.”
In 1991, he returned to the new world, pursuing his religious studies at the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown, N.J.
It was only then that Bresinger became interested in addiction counselling. Many of his New Jersey congregants were in Alcoholics Anonymous, and Bresinger, as a way of getting to know them better, asked them to share their experiences.
Soon, both the insights that counselling offered into the human condition and the similarities he saw between the 12-step program and certain Judaic teachings fascinated him, and he devoted himself to the field.
A lifeline for those in need
Under the executive directorship of Rabbi Ronnie Fine, Bresinger is now the director at Chabad Lifeline, a non-profit addiction treatment centre housed in Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital.
Despite its name — Chabad is the transliteration of a Hebrew acronym meaning wisdom, understanding and knowledge — the centre is non-sectarian.
“We look at addiction as the human condition that needs sound clinical practice to address,” Bresinger says. “Anyone who needs help, we help, without any religious agenda whatsoever.”
As part of their outreach to youth program, Lifeline recently offered counselling to a 14-year-old girl rocking her drug-addicted mom to sleep every night. The girl now comes in twice a week for sessions, and her mother is attempting sobriety under the centre’s auspices.
“We found there is a segment of the population that no one is noticing or serving, and that’s the children from homes with addiction,” Bresinger says.
“They’re not misbehaving. They might be doing well academically. But they’re coming home to chaos, and no one knows about it.”
The centre is also working with educators around the city to train them to spot kids who might be dealing with this and offer them safe, nonjudgmental assistance.
Au contraire
Since its services are free, Chabad Lifeline must find a way to cover the costs of treating its 16,000 yearly visitors. Montreal's Au Contraire Film Festival on mental illness designated one of the festival’s four nights to addiction and its ticket sales went to Lifeline.
Bresinger is responsible for the lion’s share of fundraising and estimates that profits from the event account for about 10 per cent of the centre’s annual budget. The remainder is made up through the generosity of donors.
“The healthy sign of any society is how it treats its most vulnerable. When you have people, especially kids, suffering in silence, you need to get the message out there that it’s okay to come for help,” says Bresinger.
“Ultimately what’s underlying every human being is a need to connect. Helping someone connect in a healthier way, that’s one of the ways we see best works to treat addiction. It’s the disease of the disconnect.”