What does it mean to love someone? The joy and pain of love. The lessons that love teaches. Self-love. Tough love. Unconditional love. The very fact that every human being needs love in order to survive yet so many feel unloved. Those that suffer from any mental health issue especially substance use disorder, do not even feel worthy of love. We need to change this!

June 30th, 6 years ago, TJ told me he was addicted to opioids. You know when you have a day that you will remember every moment from it. June 30th is that day for me. I remember where he told me, I remember how he told, I remember why he told, and it wasn’t because all of a sudden, he decided to come clean. I remember having this visceral feeling of my breath being sucked out of my body. There was me, TJ and there was another me overlooking the whole situation. I remember asking some questions because I didn’t get it at first. I had no idea what he was talking about. What do you mean you are on medication and you are detoxing from it? SO, after a few questions, I became very clear of what I was dealing with. That is when I really thought I might pass out. I kissed him on the forehead and said I will be right back. I knew I need to catch my breath; I needed air. I went outside and that is when I remembered the heat of the day on my skin and I chuckled to myself because how did I think coming out here was a good idea? But somehow, being outside of my home felt safer. The problem was in my home and for a moment I needed to breathe. I sat on the last step of my patio stairs and questions…What now? What do I do? I knew I had to make sure TJ was safe and I had to call Jimmy. How do you start that conversation…Hope you guys are having fun in Lake Placid, hope Christina is doing great, by the way TJ is upstairs detoxing from drugs we had no idea he was taking the last couple of months? I was not looking forward to that phone call. I also knew I had to call somebody to make sure TJ was safe. So, I called Jimmy and then I made two other calls to people I trusted completely, one of them being a medical doctor who from what I was telling him assured me TJ would be safe to detox at home. You see I was afraid to take him to a hospital.

Let’s face it…the stigma is real, and it exists whether we want it to or not! I let TJ detox at home that day because I was so afraid if I brought him to the hospital there would be a record of this and people would find out. So, we allowed him to detox at home and that could have been dangerous. The doctor only knew what I told him and trust me, I didn’t know much 6 years ago. I hid a human being for 28 days from family members, even his own brother didn’t know the truth until 6 months later. That was only because we had to explain to him why TJ would not be spending Christmas with us that year. Jim and I thought we have this under control, nobody needs to know. TJ will get the help he needs, come home and it will all be OK. How wrong we were! How naive and ignorant to the disorder of substance abuse! It is not something you fix. It doesn’t go away overnight or in 28 days. This is a lifetime. It is lifetime for those that suffer. It is lifetime for their family members. Addiction is a family disease which is why Jimmy and I are so committed to having an integrative rehabilitation center right here in Bergen County. You need to heal as a family.

1.3 million Americans were admitted to hospitals this past year for opioid addiction. That is scary! Once you step on this ride, it is a roller coaster and it does not always end well. We have lost too many in Bergen County. It is not only our youth that is affected, the elderly as well. We go to a hospital for every other ailment that we have, why not for addiction, why not have a state-of-the-art center affiliated with the best hospital where individuals can heal, with love, support and family. This is our goal.

Together with my other partner in crime, my sister-in-law Debbie, we co-facilitate a support group, Women Supporting Women, for mothers of children suffering from addiction at the Debra Simon Wellness Center. In the very beginning, Debbie shared with me that addiction is like the perfect storm! There’s not one way anyone falls into it and oh boy was she right. There are like 42 million reasons and whether they are social, emotional or chemical, together they create a perfect storm. I’ve learned that some storms come to warn us, some shake us up a bit more and others leave devastation in their wake. However, after every storm, if you are willing to see it, there is a ray of light and that light is hope. We are praying this center will be that hope for every family and their loved ones.

~ Caryl Kourgelis, Co-founder