Why Israel?

Because the treatment takes place in Israel, the person will achieve his emotional health and freedom from dependency as a result of social-educational processes unique to Israel and its miraculous history. We say that if you don’t believe in miracles, you are not realistic. Living far from familiar people, places and things, and by being introduced to the Hebrew language and Israeli culture, the resident will reexamine his often too smoothly told repetitive life narratives.

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 programs that are located in therapeutic communities, 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. For these Israeli men and women dedicated to the drug rehab and alcohol treatment Therapeutic Community, ‘miracles are a daily reality’ and success was necessary for survival.

Combating addiction, alcoholism and other dependencies is a life-long struggle. The motivation to enter a drug rehab and alcohol treatment program and manage this struggle must rest on a solid core of group identity and spiritual motivation that is achievable in the Israeli Therapeutic Community.