IT was several months later at a family simchah, and Shevy was with her in-laws for the Friday night seudah. They were ready to start the meal, but her husband was sleeping. He’d had too much to drink at the pre-Shabbos toameha spread and was still sleeping eight hours later.

“Oh, don’t even bother waking him up,” one of his sisters commented. “We always start without some of the guys because it’s impossible to wake them up when they’re drunk. Welcome to the club! This is what they do around here.”

“I was shocked.” Shevy relates. “What in the world was that supposed to mean? The truth slowly began to sink in: Yossi had a serious drinking problem, and it wasn’t anything new. When I got married, I had no idea that my husband, a serious ben Torah with a sociable, refined personality, was also addicted to alcohol.”

It began when Yossi attended a mainstream yeshivah in Eretz Yisrael. He spent many Shabbos meals with his young married relatives in the popular American neighborhoods. The bochurim brought wine along, so there was always plenty to drink. The young couples never monitored how much the boys were drinking, and at a certain point, the boys realized they could bring the wine straight to their dirah. If a boy was having a hard day, especially the bochurim who were dealing with shidduchim, they’d turn to alcohol as a way to relax. By the time Yossi returned home from Israel, he was what could loosely be called an alcoholic.

The mispallelim in his family’s shul saw it. His aunts, uncles, cousins, and neighbors saw it.

“And they all said nothing,” Shevy says. “It seemed to be a group effort by his family to cover it up. But I can tell you today that if someone knows that a bochur has a serious drinking problem and says nothing, the blood is on their hands.”

Shevy soon realized that her in-laws’ family were heavy drinkers, and that some of Yossi’s brothers had serious drinking issues. The highlight of every Shabbos and Yom Tov was the drinking. On Simchas Torah and Purim, they’d really let loose. This was especially jarring for Shevy because no one in her family ever got drunk to that extent.

Shevy contacted Mrs. Bodner*, her kallah teacher who was also an experienced, licensed therapist. When Shevy called to hesitantly relate what was happening, Mrs. Bodner immediately sensed the severity of the situation. Sometimes newlyweds call with complaints about their husbands, but in this case, Mrs. Bodner knew Shevy wasn’t overreacting.

“Shevy,” she said, “I think we need the face the fact that you’re married to a young man with a severe drinking problem. It has nothing to do with you, you caused nothing, you did nothing wrong in your marriage. We’re going to have to navigate this.”

Driving the Trend

“The kiddush of yesteryear was a bottle of schnapps, some herring and kugel,” says Dr. Yosef Posy, a behavioral psychologist in Brooklyn and Lakewood who also serves as director of Children’s Services for Interborough Developmental and Consultation Center. “Those quick shots were usually not a problem. That kiddush was not something planned on Tuesday afternoon and nothing about it was glorified. But over the last fifteen years or so, things changed. When self-worth becomes dependent on the alcohol one serves, this culture becomes problematic. Thirty years ago, a forty-dollar bottle was ‘wow!’ Now, chas v’shalom someone should put it out at his simchah. It’s been replaced with a six-hundred-dollar bottle of single malt scotch. And this glorification is the most disturbing part.”

Dr. Posy has seen how these misguided perspectives can lead to future problems, and not only with alcohol. “I’m less concerned about a kid getting drunk once or twice a year on Purim or Simchas Torah, than him developing a value system of glorified drinking. Our community’s value system seeks to glorify rabbanim, chesed, and Torah, and not a forty-year-old bottle of scotch. When people are not fulfilled, they need to fill up with other things. On a societal level, I’ve seen that the more meaningful things people have in their lives — such as regular shiurim and chavrusas — the less they need to drink.”

Dr. Posy has seen many drinkers spiral out of control. “Some men start out drinking because of anxiety or because they want the high,” he says. “But the research shows that as dependency grows, the motivation for drinking becomes drinking itself. So now it takes more and more to get that feeling, resulting in a person with a drinking problem.”

As anyone who attends social events knows, the standards of alcohol at a kiddush or simchah have crept up over the years, the array of kosher high-end wines has exploded, and even fundraisers for organizations vital to Klal Yisrael make use of alcohol because it’s enticing. This industry has been cultivated by our society because the demand is there.

Rabbi Shragi Malinowitz, rav of Khal Shearim B’tfillah in the Hampshire Hills neighborhood in Jackson, New Jersey, sees peer pressure as driving the trend.

Yet, always looking for underlying positivity, Rabbi Malinowitz, who is also the founder of Toraso B’Umnaso, an organization that works with hundreds of businesses and thousands of balabatim, is quick to defend Klal Yisrael, pointing out that it’s their inherent achdus — a unique and beautiful thing — that’s actually a contributor to the trend. “We feed off each other, which is really a positive and special middah,” he says. “But when drinking becomes the norm, people go along with it and it turns into a runaway train.”

And it’s not only about the sticker price on the liquor bottle. One young man in a Monsey kehillah, a first-time 25-year-old father who made it very big, very fast, prepared a lavish vach nacht celebration (the night before the baby’s bris, when the newborn is in need of additional spiritual protection), complete with $20,000 of alcohol (and a $3,000 designer diaper bag).

Yet even with all that alcohol, no one starts out intending to get drunk. It usually starts with a shot, and then another shot and another.

Of course, there are many factors that lead to getting drunk regularly, not even addressing a full-blown alcohol addiction. And one of those factors, says Rabbi Malinowitz, is the increased stress factor in our lives.

“Someone comes to a kiddush, takes a drink and the buzz feels good,” he says. “The alcohol is like laughing gas that helps him disconnect from the stresses of his life. Once he sees how drinking can serve as a reprieve from life’s pressure, he does it again and again. And then it’s not hard to lose himself — without realizing it he’s gone overboard.”

Rabbi Moshe Rotberg, the rav of K’hal Zichron Yechezkel in Toms River, a noted psychotherapist and halachic coordinator for Hatzolah of Central Jersey, and author of Hospitals and Refuah (Israel Book Shop, 2024) and other seforim, shares what he sees as one catalyst for the drinking culture. In the last decade, people have been moving out of the larger areas and creating smaller, more homogeneous communities.

“These communities are saving people,” says Rabbi Rotberg. “People who never felt they had a place are now part of a close-knit community. They’re connected to a shul, connected to a rav. But there’s also a downside to these tight-knit chevrehs. Today the shuls are made up of similar people doing similar things, all within the same age bracket and background. The same achdus that’s pulling people into a Daf Yomi shiur is pulling them together for a kiddush. There are also many more simchahs and events hosted by generous people. That, combined with a lack of stigma about drinking, has become a toxic mix. They’re sitting together, drinking expensive bottles with an ambiance that lends itself to heavy drinking.”

Rabbi Rotberg adds that one of the most troubling parts of this trend is the status associated with drinking. “The drinkers are the ones with the larger-than-life personalities,” he notes. “They’re the most fun and popular. It’s almost like a status symbol to be connected with the people who are drinking. In certain circles, we have somehow taken away the stigma of being drunk, and replaced it with the stigma of being the uptight sober one.”

ASthe bar mitzvah of her oldest son approached, Shevy was grateful that she had a refined and caring husband during the week — they had some really beautiful times as a family. But Shabbos was a different story.

Her son began asking her how his father could possibly stand next to him the entire time when he leins, when he hadn’t done that in years? Will he sit through his pshetl, or be drunk and interrupt? Instead of her son being worried about making sure he knew the trop, he fixated on the plan to avoid embarrassment at all costs.

“Shul had become all about the alcohol,” says Shevy. “Right after, or before Krias HaTorah, some of the men would join together in the basement. The sponsors of the kiddush club were also the wealthy supporters of the shul. The rav, two floors up, was not fully aware of what was going on behind closed doors in the basement. He accepted the fact that they wouldn’t be returning for Krias HaTorah and Mussaf, although he didn’t see the full devastating effects of the alcohol, or maybe he just felt he was limited in what he could do.

“The person sponsoring the kiddush doesn’t always understand the reality — he’s not an addict, but there are young people who are, or men on their way to becoming one. He sees the pleasant side because drinkers are pleasant in the beginning, laughing and schmoozing. It’s a geshmak vibe. Some of the best divrei Torah come out then, especially when the drinkers are generally more reserved. But he doesn’t see the father coming home, screaming at his wife and kids, and then falling into bed for hours to sleep it off.

“The full effect of my husband’s alcohol didn’t set in until he came home from shul and started yelling at our four-year-old for not sitting straight at the Shabbos table. Or he’d yell at another child about a poor test grade. When Yossi was drunk, he made fun of the kids, lost his temper and all of the secrets came out in an exaggerated, contorted way. My kids knew that anything confidential they’d tell Tatty when he was sober would be used against them when he was drunk.

“At times, Yossi returned home from shul and said, ‘I have a splitting headache and I need to lie down. No one is to touch the cholent or kugel until I come back!’ But he’d fall asleep for hours, and the kids were hungry. I was torn. I’d sneak some cholent from the pot, hoping that I wasn’t being mechalel Shabbos. It was terrible for the kids to witness this.”

When there was a shalom zachor, her sons refused to go with him, because Yossi wouldn’t return home until way after midnight. In fact, Shevy never knew when Yossi would come home. Sometimes he’d forget the combination and pound on the door so loudly that the neighbors would wake up. Then, he’d walk into the house disoriented, go into the children’s bedrooms, and wake them up to say hi. Shevy had to wait up to ensure that her husband came in and went straight to bed.

“Shabbos and Yom Tov turned into a nightmare,” Shevy relates. “It was easier at my parents’ house because I had their support and protection. They wouldn’t let a trace of alcohol into their house, using only grape juice for Kiddush. Once, Yossi bought his own bottle of whiskey to the table, and one of my sons quickly hid it in a secure spot. He was angry, but I had learned what to do from Mrs. Bodner. With a poker face, I said, ‘I have no idea what happened to it.’ ”

Weekend Bender

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hile someone with a Shabbos-only alcohol problem might not consider himself an addict, Rabbi Rotberg says that, “The weekend drunk is the same addict as any alcoholic, and at times even worse, because he’s spending his whole week waiting to get to the weekend to relieve the week’s pressure.”

That said, Rabbi Rotberg agrees that the majority of the men at the kiddush clubs are not going to become alcoholics.

“These are men who are having a few too many shots, but they basically remain coherent, they eventually get over it and no one dies. To insinuate that every single person drinking too much at a kiddush will become an alcoholic is simply not true.”

What is true, he says, is that yes, some of them will become addicted to alcohol. “It’s a small percent, yet it’s still very scary because we don’t know who will be incapable of stopping, who will end up in rehab, and whose marriage will be destroyed.”

Yet there’s a more pervasive problem, Rabbi Rotberg stresses, and that is the culture created by kiddush clubs.

“When we only focus on the problem of alcohol addiction, we’re ignoring the larger and much more prevalent issue,” he says. “Instead of focusing on the addiction part, let’s instead focus on the quality-of-life part. That is a far more honest conversation. Even if someone is not a clinical alcoholic, he can still have a drinking problem. We’re creating a culture that enables problematic drinking to fester, and it’s dragging people in. This culture is decimating the most precious opportunities for connectivity — a family’s Shabbos meal. When someone is drunk, he is not present, neither physically or mentally, and he loses the connection with his family.”

Unfortunately, says Rabbi Rotberg, some people use drinking as an escape from their families. “And that’s the scariest part, because they’re not dealing with the real issues. They’re escaping from the pressure of their home or a bad marriage by self-medicating with drinking.”

Rabbi Chaim Cohen* is a rebbi from Lakewood who learns with boys at night. He was tutoring a mesivta bochur one Thursday evening, but the boy was unable to concentrate.

“This bochur seemed to have the perfect life,” Rabbi Cohen relates. “He had everything going for him. Beautiful, Torahdig family. Well-respected parents. Gorgeous house in the right neighborhood. Great friends and chavrusas. And yet he looked as if his life was crumbling.”

When Rabbi Cohen asked if everything was okay, the boy answered, “Yeah, fine.” He was quiet for a few moments until he whispered. “It’s just that I hate Shabbos.”

Each Friday afternoon, his father stopped at the liquor store on his way home from work and purchased an expensive bottle of whiskey. By the middle of the Friday night meal, his father was totally inebriated, despite his mother’s pleas. The seudah was a miserable affair with fighting and yelling. The next morning, Shacharis was followed by a few kiddushim and another miserable seudah. On Shabbos afternoon, when the bochur went to shul and saw the fathers learning with their sons, he felt absolutely miserable, because he knew he’d never have that.

And so, this 16-year-old boy is left with deep-rooted hate for Shabbos.

“The bedrock of the Jewish family is spending Shabbos together,” says Rabbi Rotberg. “Kids are left frustrated and the women are miserable.”

Over the years, Rabbi Rotberg has met a lot of kids that dread Shabbos.

“Some men drink on Shabbos because of the past trauma they experienced with Shabbos,” he explains. “They have memories of uptight, miserable seudos, so they try to recreate Shabbos by medicating themselves through drinking. What they don’t realize is that they’re also creating Shabbos trauma for their own children. They are perpetuating the same mesorah of Shabbos being an awful day.”

Another issue, says Rabbi Rotberg, is the example being set for the bochurim.

“You have a father who drinks excessively. There’s one of two ways a kid will look at his father: either humiliated or impressed. Both are frightening. For a boy to be humiliated by his father is terrible. And if he’s impressed, that is also terrible. I don’t know which one is worse.”

Rabbi Rotberg says that in some circles, bochurim learn by example that drinking is actually admirable. A bochur was once going out with a girl and came to speak to Rabbi Rotberg about the shidduch. When describing the girl’s family, the bochur stressed what a great guy the girl’s father was.

The bochur told Rabbi Rotberg, “I was schmoozing with her father — he’s such a chilled guy, so machsiv Torah, a real balabos, mamish Torah u’gedulah. On the third date, he said to me, are you a scotch or bourbon guy? I said neither, that I’m more into tequila. ‘Really?’ he said, ‘I know you’re driving, but I just got this new tequila, and you’ve got to try it.’ ”

And the bochur actually took a shot before the date,” says Rabbi Rotberg. “Now, this story only came up as a by the way, but I was horrified. This boy is about to drive the man’s daughter on a date, and he gave him a shot of whiskey? I thought that was nuts. But the saddest part is that the boy didn’t even recognize that. He saw it as a maileh that the girl’s father was chilled and geshmak.”

ON Purim, things spiraled out of control, and sometimes it was difficult to take away the car keys. One Purim, Shevy’s mother was frightened. She told Shevy, “You and the kids are not leaving this house,” although they were supposed to attend a seudah with the other side. “We’re putting Yossi to sleep and you’ll stay here until the end of Purim.” When Yossi fell asleep, they hid his cell phone and let him sleep until Purim was over.

When he woke up, he was furious. “Why didn’t you wake me?” he demanded.

“We kept trying, but you wouldn’t budge,” Shevy said calmly.

One Shabbos, Shevy’s friend lent her their summer home. Her sons were really excited about it, because that week, there was a bar mitzvah in the bungalow colony and her sons were friends with the boy. But there was also an extensive amount of high-end liquor. Yossi overdrank, and the family’s long-awaited vacation turned into a disaster.

“I tried to wake him up on Sunday morning,” Shevy recalls, “but he was very angry at me. We couldn’t go anywhere with the kids, and they were devastated.”

After that miserable Shabbos, Shevy never again accepted a bungalow colony invite because she felt that the drinking culture in some bungalow colonies is particularly intense. She learned that the bungalow colony language of, “I don’t need to cook because the shul makes a big kiddush” is a code word for, “There’s too much alcohol so there’s no point in trying to make a seudah.”

As with other families in a similar situation, the anger and resentment that built up among both Shevy and her children became deep.

At an Al-Anon support group for family members of alcoholics that Shevy was encouraged to attend, one of the Jewish women shared that her teenage son grabbed some bottles of wine and screamed, “These are ruining our lives! I want to smash them all in Tatty’s face!”

Shevy relates, “There were times when I cooked a beautiful Friday night meal, but Yossi came home drunk and went to lie down for ‘five minutes.’ Often he’d sleep until late the next morning. Sometimes he’d wake up at three a.m. ready for the seudah. Despite my exhaustion, there were times when I pushed myself to go to the dining room with him.”

Then there were times when Yossi got so drunk that he forgot it was Shabbos. “I can’t describe how painful it is for children to see their father on his cell phone on Shabbos,” Shevy says. “There was one Friday night when I saw Yossi opening the porch door. ‘Where are you going?’ I asked. He answered, ‘I’m going out to chill.’ I saw he was holding his phone, which was turned on, and I began panicking. My next-door neighbor was making a shalom zachor and I was imagining their dozens of guests watching my husband, a fine, respected man, illuminated by his cell phone on Shabbos. I began shaking him. ‘YOSSI! IT’S SHABBOS!’ He just stared blankly at me and said, ‘Oh, I forgot.’ ”

The hardest part about living with a weekend alcoholic was the confusion. Shevy was living with two different people: her kind husband and a weekend drunk. Shabbos was a painful nightmare. But Sunday was usually calm. Yossi had a bit of a hangover, but then he’d go to shul and to his Daf Yomi shiur. He had a schedule, chavrusas. He was a good husband during the week.

But several years into the marriage, it wasn’t only the weekend anymore. Yossi began drinking at vach nachts, bar mitzvahs, and weddings — any chance he had when it was socially appropriate to drink. If he knew there was a lot of expensive alcohol at the simchah, he would go, even if he wasn’t particularly close with the host. At simchahs, Yossi knew exactly how much time he had from when he drank until the jarring effects of the alcohol would set in. He calculated in his mind, careful to be home before the full effects set in in public. And so, the crowd saw Yossi dancing in the center of the circle at keitzad merakdim — he was always the life of the party with his alcohol high. Everyone would clap around him, but they didn’t see what happened when he came home: the horrible temper, the mean-spirited snapping, and ferocious vomiting.

No Problem Here

“Adults set standards,” says Rabbi Chanoch Posy, Rosh Mesivta of Torah Temimah and rav of Shaar Hashamayim in Flatbush (and a brother of Dr. Posy). “They have to realize that the boys are carefully watching and following them. When an adult talks during davening, it shows the bochur that it’s okay to talk during davening. Alcohol has become normalized — and even glorified — to the extent that many bochurim see that social drinking is not only acceptable, but it’s what you’re supposed to do. Drinking has become an emphasis and an understood part of simchahs, Shabbos, and even Erev Shabbos toameha. They see that you can’t dance at a wedding without drinking. It’s setting a terrible pattern for their life and giving a misguided definition of what simchah really is.

“Plus,” he continues, “It’s one of the worst things for shalom bayis. The wife prepares a seudah, but when her husband comes home, he can’t even come to the seudah because he needs to sleep it off. He can’t learn on Shabbos. It ruins the Shabbos for his family and wreaks havoc on the whole week.”

I spoke with Rivka*, the wife of a heavy Shabbos drinker, but all she had to say was, “It’s just too painful. My Shabbos is such a lonely, miserable experience.”

Shani* is part of a social circle where the men drink on Shabbos morning and then sleep it off for hours afterward. Because everyone around her is going through the same thing, she accepts it as “just part of my Shabbos.”

“Some men have successfully convinced women how normal it is,” says Rabbi Rotberg. “That it’s part of the ‘with-it’ circle. Some women are okay with the drinking and sleeping on the couch for hours. And that’s the scariest part, because there is no voice in their heads telling these husbands that it’s not okay. They’ve lost their moral compass, and nothing is stopping them.”

Rabbi Rotberg shares a story of a young man from Monsey who attended an upscale fundraising event. His wife kept calling, but he was drinking with his friends and having a great time. He didn’t want to feel nudged by his wife and didn’t want her to know that he was drinking in the middle of the week. So he ignored the calls for hours.

He missed 14 calls from his wife.

In the meantime, she had gone into preterm labor and was taken to the hospital by Hatzalah. She had a very traumatic birth, and he missed the entire thing.

“It was a horrible story that wreaked complete havoc on their marriage,” says Rabbi Rotberg.

He tells of another fellow he met while, wearing his therapist’s hat, he was speaking at a rehab center when a man, tattooed from head to toe, came over to him.

“Hey, Rabbi,” he said, “I see you’re one of us. It was the kiddush club that did me in. I worked all week and on Shabbos I’d drink like crazy. I was basically angry all week because I wasn’t drinking, and I wasn’t coping. Then I was totally out of it over the weekend. I lost my wife, my kids, my job, and my Yiddishkeit.”

“Once we were driving home from a wedding,” Shevy recalls. “Yossi promised that he wouldn’t drink. And sure enough, I saw him at the end of the wedding, and I could sense that he’d kept his word. He was sober, and I was very relieved. What I didn’t realize is that right afterward, he went back into the hall and had several quick shots.

“It’s hard to describe how frightening it is to sit in a car with a drunk driver. He was swerving like crazy, driving over sidewalks. I was literally scared for my life, but all I could do was desperately say Tehillim. It’s hard to take away the keys from a drunken man, especially when he’s already behind the wheel. But I finally put my foot down and made him pull over so I could take over. Reluctantly, Yossi agreed, but then spent the rest of the drive yelling at me, ‘I’m fine! I can drive! Why are you being so paranoid?!’

“When we finally arrived home, Yossi vomited outside our house and on the public sidewalk. I knew that my neighbors would be upset. He then entered the house screaming, waking up several children. So I had a drunken husband, crying children, and my heart was pounding as I imagined the neighbors coming out in the morning and seeing the disgusting mess. I texted Mrs. Bodner. Can you talk?

“She called back several minutes later, and I filled her in. She said to me, ‘Don’t clean up the vomit. Don’t take ownership of it. Pretend you know nothing about it. Your job is to take care of your children and get them out to school in the morning with everything they need.’”

True Respect

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hat began as a normal l’chayim or two at a kiddush has shifted. Once drinking became the norm, the act of drinking itself mushroomed into its own status symbol, and how much a person drinks, what they’re drinking, and who they’re drinking with have all become part of the status.

“It’s everywhere,” Rabbi Malinowitz says, “with cars, houses, and simchahs. The kavod is a tremendous player here. When society tells you that it’s respectable to have nice schnapps at a simchah, or that in order to be into a certain crowd you need to drink, it pushes people in.”

Rabbi Malinowitz says that our society needs to make a mindset shift. “The admiration that one gains from drinking is short-lived and hollow,” he says. “There is a stark difference between a person who can make a respectable l’chayim versus someone who drinks excessively and talks and acts in ways that he wouldn’t want to. When that happens, he loses respect from the people that matter most, namely his wife and his children.”

Deep down, says Rabbi Malinowitz, people understand what true recognition is. “It’s like the class clown. Everyone laughs and enjoys his company, but they don’t have real confidence and respect for him. It’s so integral for a father to have his family’s trust and respect. By going down this path, they’re actually losing that image of the proud, strong father who generates safety, confidence and love for his family. Because if one can’t be trusted with a bottle of whiskey, how can they be trusted with anything else?”

Still, is there a practical way to curb the trend?

“We can’t say no alcohol because it won’t work,” says Rabbi Posy. “The government tried that 100 years ago with Prohibition and it didn’t work. I think that in every kehillah, the rav and the mature balabatim should set the tone. In my shul, for example, there are no kiddush clubs and people are proud and respectful of that.”

Rabbi Posy says that most rabbanim, in fact, don’t allow heavy drinking in their shuls. “I’ve told parents that they’re doing damage to their sons by davening in a shul with pervasive drinking,” he says. “Any shul with a drinking problem probably does not have a rav.”

Rabbi Posy points out, though, that boundaries in shul don’t always solve the problem, because many men are embarrassed to get drunk in shul. A lot of the kiddush clubs are happening in private homes after davening, and in summer homes in the bungalow colonies.

Despite Yossi trying his best to cover up his drinking problem in public, the truth began slipping out. Shevy’s older brothers grasped the severity of the situation, and they were very worried about her. The situation continued to spiral out of control until Yossi was faced with several wake-up calls.

Shevy learned to set firm boundaries. She refused to get into a car with her husband at night, because it was too frightening. She wouldn’t go on date night and wouldn’t attend a simchah or siyum, even when everyone else’s wives were there.

And then there were several frightening run-ins with the law, in which Yossi recognized how differently they could have ended. He finally recognized that he needed real help.

“Yossi’s been participating in an intensive outpatient recovery program for several months,” says Shevy. “It’s emotionally draining, but I’ve learned how to accept help, primarily from organizations that cater to people in my situation. No addict can fully recover and there is always a fear of relapse, so my story will never really end. But in the meantime, we count each day of sobriety and hope and pray that it lasts.”

Almost a Tragedy

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abbi Malinowitz describes what he divides into four groups when discussing the drinking problem in our communities. Those in Group One generally do not drink; those in Group Two have an occasional, respectable l’chayim, and they drink responsibly; those in Group Three drink excessively, but they don’t even realize that it might be turning into a problem; and those in Group Four are those with a full-blown addiction.

Rabbi Malinowitz says that those in Group Two are the ones who need the most protection.

“Groups One and Two should look around, see what’s going on, and stay out of it,” he says. “It’s very challenging because it looks geshmak from the outside. And you may think you can start drinking a bit, but it’s very challenging to stay in it in a responsible way. See the pitfalls and enter at your own risk. Realize that significant harm can come from excessive drinking. The Mesillas Yesharim says that someone who lives a life without zehirus is like a blind man alongside a river bank, at risk of falling in at any moment.”

That being said, he qualifies that drinking is not inherently bad. “And if you do get into it, it should be with clear boundaries that are never crossed. Have someone that will be on top of you, and recognize that it’s a challenge, even for incredible people.”

For Group Two, the ones that drink responsibly, “Protect yourself with clear gedarim so you don’t fall into Group Three or Four,” Rabbi Malinowitz warns. “Realize that they all started out in Group Two, drinking responsibly, before things spiraled out of control.”

For those in Group Three, he says, if you’re drinking in a way that you don’t want to be, recognize the issues and get help.

“You are not terrible, chas v’shalom. You are part of an unfortunately large group of people. Reach out. There are many who’ve been in your place and managed to get out of it. Do it before you end up slipping into Group Four,” he says.

Rabbi Rotberg shares a terrifying story he was involved in: On Shabbos afternoon a father was on his way home from shul with his three-year-old daughter. He was drunk, and as he passed a bench, he sat down to rest and quickly fell asleep. The three-year-old wandered away. The minutes, then hours passed, and eventually a police officer found her.

“This little girl had been wandering the streets by herself for hours,” says Rabbi Rotberg. “This turned into a very serious case with the child protective services, but the scariest part was that the child could have been hurt or even killed.”

There are many shocking stories of near tragedy, but perhaps the saddest stories are the more common ones that are happening every week.

“It’s the story about the father who comes home for the Shabbos seudah, but is not the best version of himself,” says Rabbi Malinowitz. “He went to a kiddush with regular, good intentions, yet had a few too many drinks and is not present for his wife and children. How can he run a seudah if can’t run himself? So much is lost. He is losing his family, and he’s losing Shabbos, two of the most priceless gifts.”

Faster Than You Think

Moishy Felder*, a Lakewood real estate investor, says that many offices today have fully-stocked bars.

“I was recently at a real estate closing, when they brought out several bottles of expensive whiskey for a l’chayim. When I asked how everyone would get home afterward, the broker laughed. “They’re high functioning drinkers. They can drive perfectly afterward.”

Even if that was technically possible, the legal ramifications can be severe. Rabbi Rotberg shares the story of someone he knows who had a few shots at a friend’s house. On the way home he was pulled over for speeding. The police officer asked him if he was drunk. The man answered honestly, “Of course not!” — the fact that he drank a few shots with his friends completely slipped his mind. The officer decided to do a breathalyzer test anyway, and the results showed that he was just over the legal limit. Since it was his second DUI offense, he lost his license and is facing jail time.

For drivers under 21, there is zero tolerance. Any amount of detectable alcohol can lead to a DWI charge. For drivers 21 and older, the legal limit is a blood alcohol level (BAL) of 0.08 percent or lower. Still, an officer can charge the driver even if their BAL is below the legal limit, if the officer has reason to suspect that the driver’s ability has been impaired by alcohol.

Research has shown that many fatal DUI accidents have occurred when the driver had blood alcohol levels well under the legal limit. A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that 15 percent of drivers involved in fatal crashes had BACs below the legal limit of 0.08 percent. Even at a BAL of 0.02, some drivers experience loss of judgment.

After two drinks, a 150-pound man will generally have a BAC of 0.05 and after three drinks, his BAC will hit 0.08. After two drinks, a 200-pound man will generally have a BAC of 0.04, and after three drinks, 0.06.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1081)