Ben Heldfond -Accountable in Recovery & Love

Drugs and alcohol may have dulled the pain of Ben Heldfond’s youth, but they did not make the pain go away.

In recovery he learned lessons about accountability that finally helped him process the pain – lessons which he would apply to all aspects of his life.

“Our Happy Divorce,” the book he co-wrote with his ex-wife, Nikki DeBartolo, about their journey to successful co-parenting and a lasting friendship, was published in October 2019.

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One of my favorite sayings is, Pain is mandatory, but suffering is optional.

Life has its bumps and bruises and people get banged up. And it's just about what we do with that.

Getting through that pain is a process.

And unfortunately I'm not wired for process. I'm not wired for going through things. I've always been wired to go around things.

My first reaction is, What can I do? What can I take to get through this quicker?

And that, that's not the way that life works. There's no like 26.5 miles, whatever a marathon is. Like,if you run it, you're going to be done.

In every experience in my life that I've had a hard time, there's been no timetable. But eventually I get through it.

My story of using alcohol and drugs, luckily, wasn't that long because I got involved with heroin in my late teens, and that brought me to my knees very quickly.

I entered my first rehab when I was 21 years old. Didn't stay sober, but eventually at 22, I ended up staying sober. And I'm sober today 25 years later.

So my dad moved out of the house a couple of weeks before my bar mitzvah. And at 13, I was a little confused on what exactly that meant or what was going on in their marriage. I do remember at my bar mitzvah was the first time, since he had moved out, that my parents were together. And it was a really awkward feeling, for myself,but I think everybody involved, because when they were together taking pictures, you know, there was a palpable feeling in the air that everybody felt.

And unfortunately that feeling, or that tension, lasted for 30 years, and all the way through growing up. And I think at the end of the day, they handed us-- me and my brothers and sister-- a huge emotional bill to pay, in something that we had no choice in.

I don't think they did it intentionally. You know, this wasn't a premeditated, How are we going to screw up our kids? Let's plan this out.

But, you know, resentment, anger, fear, blind people to their actions. And I think that's what happened to my parents.

I have always been a person who's been able to stuff their feelings. And I think that that happened from an early age, and being dyslexic, and not getting the stuff as quickly as the other kids.

And so my parents' divorce, you know, it's a very, very uncomfortable position to be in when your moms -- or dad --are talking so badly about the other one, that you just sort of have to sit there and take it. Because, you know, if you say anything, it's going to make things worse. It's going to throw gasoline on the fire. And so you just sit there and take it, where if anybody else were talking like that about your parents, you'd probably get a punch in the face.

I stuffed that just like I'd stuffed every other sort of negative thing in my life, and thinking that it went away or – just pack it down deeper. I was like a trash compactor, you know, just pack all those feelings down and, and...

But what happened with drugs and alcohol is they didn't make me feel those feelings anymore -- whether it be my parents' divorce, whether it be, you know, my low self esteem, the dyslexia and not feeling smart enough -- every single fruit salad of emotions. I didn't feel them anymore.

The end of my drinking and using, it wasn't because of an overdose, which I had had. It wasn't because of arrest, which I have had. It wasn't because of a car crash, which I had. I just woke up one day and I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was done.

One thing I've learned as a parent is one of the most important things we can teach our kids are consequences. Every action has a consequence. And, and growing up, my mom was always there. My dad was always there to bail me out of trouble.

It wasn't premeditated. They weren't doing this because they were trying to screw up life or you know, stick a needle in my arm or whatever. But they were doing it because they loved me and they didn't want to see me get in trouble. So when I got arrested or I got in trouble in high school and almost didn't graduate, somehow all this stuff just went away.

So I didn't really ever face consequences growing up. And I'm actually grateful for all that because it's taught me so much about life, and it's also taught me so much about parenting.

And it's also taught me so much about, you know, my divorce, eventual divorce to my ex-wife because everything happens in life for a reason, you know? And if we just are able to take a step back, and be open and aware enough to what those experiences mean, we can learn from them and not repeat them.

I think, you know, my story of marriage and then unfortunately, divorce is a tale of two sides.

One side of that story is a Ben who doesn't take care of himself and do what he's supposed to do in order to be spiritually grounded. And by that I mean, helping out other people, going to meetings, being honest.

I was abstinent from drugs and alcohol, but I would say I wasn't sober. And I actually caused more wreckage with people around me than I did when I was using drugs and alcohol.

I had become a miserable person.

So I got sober, November 3rd, 1994. I met Nikki I think around '97, '98. You know, looking back on it, it was always trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. We wanted to make it work. We'd been dating for a couple of years, and society sort of tells us, okay, we're in our mid twenties. We been dating a couple of years, let's get married.

I, I kind of knew that it wasn't the right thing. And, and if you had asked Nikki, she probably would've said the same thing.

But you know, again, this was at a point where I had slowly started doing less and less, sort of auditing recovery. That's when decision making gets skewed for me.

We get married. We move to Tampa, Florida. You know, a couple years go by. We have a beautiful son, but it's always this square peg round hole. I think what happened was we kept on trying, but at the same time we're getting madder and madder that this square peg won't fit in this round hole.

I was not going to meetings at all. I was not connected at all. Behaviors, the truth telling it was nonexistent.

It was not a great way to end a marriage.

The other side of that is the story of the Ben who at some point during our separation reached a point of honesty, and I could see for the first time in a long time, the person that I actually was.

And that was not a very good person.

I wasn't drinking, using drugs, but it still was somebody who needed to get back to basics, and have the humility enough to realize that I was broken. And could potentially do the same thing as my parents did and stick my son with this huge emotional bill.

You know, luckily I just had enough program in me, or enough foundation or whatever it was, to get back to basics. And I simply did that, started going to meetings and started working with another man, and we got to the root of some of my issues.

And at the end of that process, it was very clear I wouldn't want to be married to me either.

Our marriage was over. We finally were honest enough to both realize that we were not put on this earth to be husband and wife. But we were put on this earth to have a beautiful child and to be best friends.

The other part of this process is getting right with the person that you've harmed. And so I asked Nikki to coffee.

First thing out of my mouth was I told her I loved her.

And I also then went into my amends. My part. Period, hard stop. You know, I'm sorry for what I did. And I went through, you know, all this stuff, and became accountable for my actions. And there wasn't, But you did this. Or, If you hadn't done this, I would....

But it was just my side of the street. I needed to clean up my side of the street.

And she then in turn apologized to me.

Twenty-two years we've known each other, it's the first and only time that either of us have said we're sorry to each other!

That was a turning point in our relationship. And we then turned from, you know, two people who are bitter, hatred, resentment -- just sort of like my parents -- to a road of trying to do something different.

I'd asked her, I said, "Do you have any problem with joint custody?"

She said, "Of course not."

I said, “Nikki, all the other stuff can be worked out then.”

Our relationship going forward was built on a foundation of accountability, love, and forgiveness.

I am now 46. I've been sober for 25 years. And today I am remarried, with two other kids.

My son Asher's now 15 years old, and I co-parent him with my ex wife who just happens to live five doors down.

Pain is in life whether you're sober or whether you're not sober -- you're going to go through it in life.

We all have the capacity to be happy. And we all have the right to be happy.

The common thread of happiness is being present and accepting the moment exactly as it is.

Once I start living in the past, or in the future, I have lost my ability to be happy.

And so, you know, one thing that I really try to work on today is being accountable, and the admission that I'm flawed.

And we all are flawed! And we're going to make mistakes along this road of life.

But being able to clean up at least your side of the street makes that road life a little bit easier.

My name is Benjamin Helfond, and this is my story.

Isabel Landrum -Working on Myself

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Photo courtesy Isabel Landrum

“This is what addiction does. It takes everything from us.” In recovery since, 2015, Isabel Landrum is working on getting her life back as she helps others at a detox and treatment center in Southern California.

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Being an addict is -- it’s just, it’s, it’s hard. Like people don't understand. Like, I wasn't born and I didn't grow up thinking, Oh, I’m going to grow up to be an addict --that’d be great!

No, it just -- it ruins lives, you know. It ruined my life. It took everything I loved from me. I didn't have a relationship with my family, with my mother, like I will go months without talking to my mom. And it, it was very hard for her. And it was sad.

I've been hospitalized three different times. I've been in a coma. I remember when I was taken to the hospital by the ambulance, one of the nurses there, I turned around and I looked at this person, and I grabbed this person, and I said, “Please don’t let me die. I have 3 kids and I don’t -- I don't want to die.”

And I remember when I woke up, he was there. And he said, “Oh, you’re still alive, I didn’t let you die. I didn’t let you die.”

I was tired. I was sick of doing drugs. I wanted a way out.

So back in 2015, I had somebody come to me and ask me if I wanted to go to treatment. I wasn't getting any younger. And I said, “I do. I need help. I want to go to treatment.”

So my clean date is October 10th, 2015. And that was it for me. I’ve, I’ve never looked back.

I wanted to have a life. I didn’t want to be in the hospital all the time. I wanted to have a relationship with my children again. Like, I wanted to have my kids in my life.

Now I talk to my mom every night. I have a wonderful relationship with my mom. I’m working on seeing my children again because my kids are the most important thing in my life, and I haven't been able to see them for a while now.

I have to work on myself, and I have to get myself better before I can have that chance again to be in my kid's lives. I am working towards that right now.

I never used around my kids, you know, like when they were there, I never used around my kids. But, like as soon as they would go with their dad, like I would get high just because there's so much pain there to just see my kids go. I’d just get high because it just numbs you, like you can’t feel anything. You just don’t want to feel anything with all the pain, you know.

I have a boy and two girls. And they are fun kids, you know. My girl, my oldest one, she looks just like me. And I look at their pictures and stuff, and I just, I so want to be part of their life again, you know.

I know I have to like take little steps to get there. But I am doing it. I'm doing it now. And if I was still out using and stuff, this would not be happening. I would not be on my way to see them again, you know.

It’s hard, and I know it’s going to take a while, but this is what addiction does. It takes everything from us.

So now, it's my turn to give back to people. I found what I like to do, and that's help others to recover from addiction. It’s such a good feeling when you know that you helped someone not pick up that drug, you know, like just if you can stay here with us, stay just one more day -- it's going to be okay, you know, just…

That’s what God put me on this Earth to do -- be a mom, of course --and help other people recover from addiction.

And my name is Isabel Landrum and this is my story.

Dr. Faye Jamali -Doctor in Recovery

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Photo courtesy Faye Jamali

In 2007, Dr. Faye Jamali broke her wrist.  What happened in the next few months jeopardized her career as an anesthesiologist and made her understand pain in a new way.

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I don’t want to say it’s unusual but for me it was unusual -- because never in a million years did I think I would ever find myself addicted to opioids.

I had never had issues with heaving drinking, using drugs. I even graduated Berkeley without even trying pot.

It was scary how much raw talent I had for being an addict. For someone who had had no history of it, I showed great skill.

At age 40, this is after I’d been an anesthesiologist for almost 15 years, I broke my wrist at a birthday party for my children. This was back in 2007. Had a couple of surgeries. Had some pain. The surgeon, who was actually a friend,, prescribed me a big bottle of pain pills. And back then it was not unusual to do that. We were taught in medical school, in residency, and even in my clinical work place, that we had to treat pain very aggressively, and that if patients were being treated for surgical pain, the chance of addiction was minimal. That was what we were taught. So to me, it wasn’t unusual that he prescribed me a whole bunch and he also said, “I don’t want you to have to call for a refill. Here you go.”

And I took the pills as directed -- every three to four hours when I had pain. Funny thing happened. I noticed that when I had those pain pills in my body, things didn’t bother me as much. I was just less stressed out about everything.

At that time, I had two small children, a two-year old and a five -year old. Life was pretty stressful. I was a full-time anesthesiologist. My husband was a full-time surgeon. Hectic life. But I found out that hey, if I took one of these Vicodin pills, it just smoothed the edges. I just felt like Oh, this is kind of cool – and it’s prescribed!

So I just started slowly taking things once in a while when I was stressed out. But it muddied the water for me.

I also have a long history of very severe migraines that I had gotten all kinds of treatments for. Botox injections in my scalp. I would occasionally find myself in the ER having injection of a narcotic. I was at work when I had a very bad migraine. It was towards the end of my shift. And at the end of the shift as an anesthesiologist, whatever leftover narcotics we have from the cases we’ve done, we waste them. As I was in the bathroom just dealing with this really bad migraine at the end of my shift, I thought, Oh my god, I have this narcotic. This is the exact same medicine they’re going to give me in the ER. And I don’t have to wait. And I don’t have to do anything. And I’m a physician. And I can inject. Let me just do it!

I did it. The headache went away. But I felt so guilty. I felt like I had just crossed a line that should never, ever be crossed.

The next day I got a migraine again. I tended to get them during my period. And I thought this time, Oh, I know exactly what to do. I went and injected myself again. This time though, I felt a rush of euphoria, not just pain relief. It was a euphoria that made me stop, and think, and be angry at myself for having had access to this amazing drug all these years and I never used it!? I mean, what kind of idiot was I?

Over the next three months, I just was chasing that euphoric feeling. And within a three-month period, I had increased the dosage of medications I was taking by close to tenfold. I was terrified. I kept thinking, Well, this is wrong but no, no, no, I’ll stop. It’s just really stressful right now. I’ll stop.

But something would trigger it, and I would just like I just want to feel good again. And I would find myself doing it and feeling worse afterwards because no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t quite stop myself. But I kept thinking, Look, I’m a smart person. I’m a doctor. I have good will power. I can beat this.

Nobody knew. Nobody. No, I did not tell my husband about this. He had no idea. I never used when people were around. It was always in private. And I would use on the day that I wasn’t working. Children were at daycare or at school. I hid it pretty well. I also didn’t know how to ask for help. I felt so ashamed. I kept telling myself, But I can’t be an addict. I’m a doctor. I’m a soccer mom. This is not addiction, this is just some phase.

But I -- I was scared. Anesthesiologists died from overdose but I never thought that that would be me. And I was afraid that if I overdosed and died, I would leave two small children without a mother.

So I had this brilliant idea one day. I would inject into my arms. So I put my daughter’s name on my arm where the vein was, and my son’s name on the other arm where I used. And I told myself, Just think of it, next time you’re injecting there, just tell yourself you’re injecting into their eyeballs. You would never do that, would you? But the craving would hit and I would rip that Band aid off, and I would inject, and I would feel a thousand times worse, because what mother does this? What mother would do this?

The worse I felt about myself, the more I needed relief. And the more I did it, the further down I would get. I would go two or three, four, five days without using and I would see the light. Like, okay, I am crawling out of this crevice, and then fall back down again further.

I had a fight with my husband one night, and I drove to the hospital, went straight into the recovery room. It was like 8 o’clock at night. Said hi to the recovery room nurses, went to the narcotic machine, just picked a random name, a patient’s name, and checked out narcotics. Went into the bathroom and injected. And I woke up, maybe a couple of hours later. I still had a needle in my arm. There was blood. I had vomited. I had urinated on myself. I was horrified. Horrified at my husband for having made me do this. I was angry at him. This is the depth of the change that happens in your brain. The addiction in you does not want you to call it addiction because it’s an existential threat to its existence.

My workplace – they called me one day. They said, “We need to talk to you.” I walked into a conference room. There was like ten people sitting around this large conference table, and they just had all these records of medications that I had checked out that had nothing to do with surgery or the operating room, just a random patient, a patient who had actually died two days earlier who was still on the list and I had checked out a medicine under his name.

I just didn’t even have the presence of mind to say anything. I just said, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” I just didn’t know. It was shocking. They said, “Turn in your badge. You’re under investigation. Until the investigation is done, you’re on suspension.”

And I remember walking out of the hospital wondering, Now what? Oh my God.

And that evening actually we had a marriage counseling session because our marriage wasn’t doing so well at that time. We went home, put the kids to bed. And after things were quiet, my husband said, “Faye, do you want to tell me something?”

And I just looked at him. I thought, Okay, this is it. This is the lowest point in my life. This is how it just completely falls apart. I didn’t even say anything. All I did is I rolled up my sleeves – I used to wear long sleeves all the time -- I rolled up my sleeves, just showed him my arms. And then what he did, was he just picked me up, hugged me and said, “Sweetie, why didn’t you tell me? We’ll get you help.”

And I have never loved him more. Because to be that low, and to have someone offer you help -- it is the world to you.

And also that moment taught me no matter how hard the situation is, the truth is actually easier.

So the next day I called up my hospital and I told them. And I saw this physician who is a psychiatrist at my hospital who is an addiction medicine specialist actually. He had treated me years ago for depression, post-partum depression, so he knew me very well. He’s my angel. He said, “Faye, it’s going to be a long, rough journey, but we’ll take you through it. We’ll walk you through it.”

And I’ll never forget the first day I showed up at the recovery center. I had dressed nicely, wearing a nice pearly necklace, and I sat down and this guy next to me said, “So, hey, what are you here for? Alcohol?” And I’m like, “No, I shoot up drugs.” And he was shocked. Like I didn’t fit the profile of someone who injects. But that’s who I was.

I was extremely fortunate. I had a job where they gave me the opportunity to take a year off. I had insurance that would pay for my recovery program. I was in a physicians’ support group. I had therapy. I had group therapy. I went to AA – I just felt more comfortable in AA versus NA – but just like a 12-step program. I really immersed myself into recovery.

But at the end of that one year, the hospital said, “You can either come back to the job you had before, as an anesthesiologist, or you need to sever your ties with this hospital.” And I was terrified. I didn’t know whether I could go back to being around narcotics. So we came up with a plan for me to come back slowly, be monitored. For the first three months there was another physician with me on every case. I took naltrexone, an opiate blocker. I told people in my group, my anesthesia group, of what had happened. I wanted them to be part of my safety net so that if something looked off, that they would be there and notice it. So we had a big program set up and I was able to return to work.

Most states, except for three, have a physician health program. If a physician has problems with substance abuse, they can be referred to this program, and as long as they abide by all the program rules, like going to meetings, having therapy, urine testing – as long as that is going on, the medical board doesn’t plaster their name on the internet, as long as they are in recovery.

Unfortunately in my situation, California is one of only three states that to this day, does not have a physician health program. So what happens is that if you have a problem with substance abuse, the medical board reviews you. So the medical board took two years before they got to my case – not because they are lazy, because they are backlogged. I was already back at work practicing for a year before the medical board came down on me and said you are under probation for five years. During that time I had to get tested four times a week. I had to take an ethics course because according to them, it’s an ethical failing. I had to take lots of continuing medical education in addiction medicine which was great.

I don’t think being a doctor is a right – it’s a privilege. I was willing to do whatever to do this. But any patient who wanted to could go on-line, put in my name, Dr. Faye Jamali, and what does it say? It doesn’t say I’m in recovery. It just says that I am this addict. That’s hard as a physician. And I don’t think it does the public any good because now physicians go underground if they have a problem.

Who wants their problems on the internet being broadcast? Physicians in recovery actually do much better long-term, 80% recovery rate vs. the general population. Also we have access to good insurance. We have the means to get the recovery we need. The general population, unfortunately, doesn’t.

But in 2015, I was able to finish my probation. During this time of recovery, it’s not like life was peachy. Pain happens. What I learned from recovery were all these tools to deal with life and pain that is inevitable in life. I think prior to that I had wanted to become numb to the pain. I think as a culture we want to do that. We want to numb ourselves. It’s almost makes things worse because rather than actually dealing with the problem, we never address the problem because we just numb the pain. And pretend it’s not there.

I will forever be an addict in recovery. There is no cure for this disease. Your brain has changed. It is not a moral or ethical failing on anyone’s part. And just like a disease we need to have a treatment plan. And recovery is a treatment plan and we should support that, and there should be money toward that.

You know, I always think of this thing when someone is trying to quit smoking, everybody is rooting for them. They’re like, Good job! You can do it! Why can’t we treat it like that? Why can’t we say, Good job! You can’t do it! and be the support that they need. And that’s what I want to be.

We need to have good policies in place, have people buy into it, to realize that this could happen to anybody. Hey, if it can happen to a 40-year old woman physician with no history of this, it can happen to anybody. And, you know, it is happening to everybody.

There is something going on in the brain, a neurochemical disease. It is no different that any kind of other chronic disease. And we have to approach it as a disease, take the stigma away from it, and that way with facts and science, we might have a chance.

My name is Dr.Faye Jamali and this is my story.