Milwaukee native Elissa Rosen, 39, began running away from home at age 14 and finally left for good at 17. Raised in Bayside, Rosen described her life as “tumultuous” and said her parents divorced when she was 12 or 13.
Now living in Los Angeles, Rosen told The Chronicle she traveled to L.A. via a circuitous route that included the East Side of Milwaukee, Madison, two stints in Atlantic City, N.J., and Utah, settling on the West Coast about 10 years ago.
Rosen was always passionate about music, but didn’t have the energy to pursue her own singing. Working to support herself and battle several addictions sucked up most of the ensuing 22 years.
Now “clean and sober,” healthy and spiritually grounded in Judaism, Rosen has emerged on the other side of life-threatening alcohol and drug habits. She recently told her story in several telephone interviews with The Chronicle.
With a genetic predisposition to addiction, Rosen began using alcohol in her teens and said she became an alcoholic by her early 20s.
She made her living, at first, working in restaurants and then in a bar in Madison for six years. Later, in Atlantic City, she was employed as a hospital health unit coordinator.
By 32, Rosen had succumbed to a food addiction that caused her to become dangerously overweight. At five feet, three inches tall and weighing more than 330 pounds, she underwent gastric bypass surgery, began eating right and working with a trainer.
A couple of years later, she started using opiates (which were initially prescribed for a medical condition) and became dependent.
Then, about two-and-a-half years ago Rosen reached a dramatic turning point in her life. Strung out on Vicodin, Norco and Dilaudid, she hit bottom.
“I got to the point where I would wake up in the morning and take a handful of pills just to get out of bed. I was not even getting high anymore,” Rosen said.
That, she said, is what it means to be “strung out. Your whole life revolves around the drugs. It becomes a hopeless situation.
“I was miserable and I couldn’t see ahead in my life. It was a frightening terrible place. I wanted to die.”
Desperate, Rosen called a cousin living in the area and told her she didn’t think she could go on. The cousin, some 10 or 12 years Rosen’s senior, and an uncle took her situation seriously and got her admitted to Kaiser Hospital where she went through a 2 week detoxification process.
Though that ended the physical addiction, Rosen, who now makes her living working as a mentor in a private residential drug rehab facility for adolescents and young adults, said that addicts need more guidance and support for a longer time. “The longer the time in treatment, the better the chance of success.”
Emerging from detox, Rosen, then homeless, investigated rehab options suggested by her cousin. One of those was Beit T’shuvah the only residential Jewish addiction rehabilitation program in the United States.
Though she identified culturally and ethnically as a Jew, Rosen said, she was not connected religiously.
A member of Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun growing up, she became a bat mitzvah there, but she described her family as “High Holiday Jews.”
At first, she recoiled from the idea of Beit T’Shuvah, whose stated mission is to “return lost Jewish souls to themselves, their families and the community.”
But one conversation with Harriet Rosetto, Beit T’Shuvah’s founder and CEO, was all it took to convince her that she would go there. “[Rosetto] sounded like somebody I could look up to,” Rosen said.
“Beit T’shuvah saved my life,” Rosen said of the therapeutic and spiritual community that is based on the integration of Jewish spirituality, 12 Step recovery and psychotherapy.
Now after some two-and-a-half years in the program, Rosen has progressed to the third and final stage of the center’s recovery program, independent living.
She rents an apartment — a private room and bathroom with a shared kitchen and lounge in a group home, or “community” with 22 others, owned by Beit T’Shuvah. She expects to move out into a completely independent residence soon.
Even then she will continue to be part of the Beit Tshuvah community, which is made up of members ranging from 16 to 60 years old. This is where her religious life is centered and where she sings in the choir, performs in the center’s play “Freedom’s Song” and helps other addicts as a peer counselor.
At Beit T’Shuvah, Rosen has found her voice in more than one way. Two months ago, Rosen auditioned and was hired as a back-up singer in a 1930s swing band, “Vaud and the Villains,” whose music is described on the Craigslist Web site as “swingin’ folk/hot New Orleans/sexy blues.” She performs with a male lead singer, and two male and another female back-up singer on Sundays at Club Fais DO DO.
Rosen’s recovery has been much deeper than meets the eye. Not only has she put a long-term stop to her own addictive behavior, she has found spiritual health.
Through daily Torah study, prayer and service to others, as well as the unequivocal support and teaching of Rosetto, Rabbi Mark Borovitz, the spiritual leader of Beit T’shuvah, and the community’s cantor, who has served as her personal counselor and friend, she has come to understand, she said, that she is truly made in God’s image.
Reaching this understanding has consisted more of gradual progress than sudden epiphanies, Rosen said. She remembers Borovitz talking about the importance of believing in one’s own self worth. “How do I do that?” she asked.
He responded that, for now, Rosen should just believe that he believed in her self worth. “I held on to that, initially,” she said and eventually she was able to believe it herself.
Rosen said Rosetto, a woman in her 70s, has also been pivotal in her recovery. “She is a person I can go talk to about anything: sex, relationships, life issues, school … she will listen, and impart sound and solid advice.”
Though Rosen is drug-free and helping other addicts everyday, she says she is “never that far away from alcohol and drugs.” Her highest priority is staying sober because without that she loses everything else. “And my sobriety is contingent on my spiritual condition.”
Rosen said that she has learned that God wants us to live “our authentic lives — our own Torah. We must find our purpose and our authentic selves.”
And Rosen is not bitter. On the contrary, she feels great gratitude. “Through the struggle comes great freedom,” she said. She believes that the path she has taken has been necessary for her to find her way to where she is now. Part of her blessings, she said, is her parents’ and siblings’ support.
“I live a more genuine life than I have ever lived. I am very grateful. I am well cared for. My life doesn’t lack anything.”
Loading ...