 Why Israel
The drug rehab and alcohol treatment Therapeutic Community in Israel offers an exceptional opportunity for addicts and alcoholics living in the United States to achieve lasting sobriety. Because the treatment takes place in Israel, the addict or alcoholic will achieve his sobriety as a result of social-educational processes that can happen only in Israel.
Living far from familiar people, places and things, and by simultaneously being immersed in the Hebrew language and culture, the addict will reexamine his often too smoothly told repetitive life narratives. His inevitable struggles with the Hebrew language and necessary adjustments to Israeli culture will facilitate challenging his old rationalizations and stories.
Ancient Israel was the place where the two most significant Western religious/cultural movements found their inspiration and were formed against difficult odds. Over the past 100 years, the State of Israel and its citizens have continued that tradition also against difficult odds with the help of some original social inventions such as the Kibbutz.
The Kibbutz was a unique social invention established by Jewish settlers in Palestine in the 19th century and proved to be a critical structure in the establishment of the State of Israel in the 20th century. Self-enclosed cooperative rural communities were formed throughout the country for the purposes of settlement, security, and agricultural development. "Making the deserts and swamps bloom" was largely the miraculous results of these communities. The Kibbutz was founded on the principles of hard work, honest cooperation, and mutual support. It is no wonder that the international Therapeutic Community movement, which is only 40 years old, found fertile ground in Israel, already prepared by its own Kibbutz experience of the past century.
In our residential drug and alcohol treatment program, the addict and alcoholic will be a part of the Kibbutz culture and thereby reinvent himself. He will compose a radically new life narrative as a direct result of living and working in this supportive drug rehab and alcohol treatment therapeutic environment under the guidance of trained Israeli drug rehab counselors, many who are either former or current soldiers and officers in the Israeli army. For these Israeli men and women dedicated to the drug rehab and alcohol treatment Therapeutic Community, 'miracles are a daily reality' and success is necessary for survival.
Combating addiction and alcoholism is a life-long struggle. The motivation to enter a drug rehab and alcohol treatment program and manage this struggle rests on the formation of a solid core of healthy group identity and spiritual motivation that is achieved in the Israeli Therapeutic Community. |
Dr. Bellin, Founder, Tekuma Recovery GroupDr. Bellin, the founder of the Tekuma Recovery Group, is a graduate and former faculty member of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. He completed his undergraduate work in political science at Dartmouth College and then studied medicine at the University of California in Los Angeles. Dr. Bellin completed his medical internship at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, followed by a psychiatric residency at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.