“I make amends every day for my actions. I question my behavior every day. So, Yom Kippur…It’s like the Super Bowl of that for so many people. For me, I’m that way every day of my life now. I have to be.”
Brother Gregg Schorr’s (Maryland, 1986) road since graduation from college and AEPi’s Delta Deuteron chapter at the University of Maryland hasn’t always followed the path that he anticipated but now, nearly 40 years since graduation, and with the steadfast support of his family, friends and fraternity brothers, Gregg is on a more stable road.
After a brief stint working in finance in Manhattan following graduation, Gregg moved with this family to Boca Raton, and he began working in law offices. “I went to the JCC to work out…this is 34 years ago…and I met the woman who became my wife. She’s stood with me throughout this journey.”
The couple now have two daughters, one who works in New York and a 24-year-old daughter who has been battling leukemia since her diagnosis when she was two and a half years old. Dealing with this event triggered something in Gregg and he began to surrender to his demons. “About six months after my daughter was diagnosed, I made a decision in a liquor store parking lot that I was going to open a bottle before I even got home. And that’s basically where it started. Nearly 10 years later, I thought I was almost dead.” In 2013, Gregg committed himself to the public mental health unit in Delray, FL. “I tried to commit suicide. I had no insurance. I was exactly where I needed to be at that moment.”
“My wife has been a preschool teacher at a synagogue in Boca for almost 25 years and she supported me. In fact, the caterer there took me to my first AA meeting and that turned my life around. I haven’t had a drink since 2014.”
“Unfortunately, I turned into a dry addict. Many people give up the addiction – the substance itself – but the underlying causes or behaviors haven’t been addressed. So, your susceptibility to relapse or falling into a different addiction is much greater.”
In 1980, Gregg had been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and arthritis. Three years after graduating college, the arthritis required him to have a bilateral hip replacement. Through all of the surgeries, he was never prescribed or took pain medications. “I don’t know why I didn’t take them…I’m glad for that because that would have just woken the devil earlier. I most likely would have died.”
In 2018, Gregg was in a car accident (He was sober and had nothing in his system at the time) that fractured his pelvis, broke his left hip and foot. During the resulting six weeks in the hospital and a rehab facility, he was introduced to fentanyl and quickly became addicted to that.
“I’m not proud of this but I absolutely adored opioids. I became a junkie. Fortunately, my wife called the Jewish Community Center and spoke to the drug counselor there, Sharon Burns Carter. Sharon was able to get me into a government program a little north of where we lived. The Recovery Research Network saved my life. Again, I was exactly where I was meant to be. That program gave me purpose. Because I was in a government program with others who were either going to be on the street or in prison.”
Gradually…painfully…Gregg crawled back to sobriety and found a purpose in his life.
“When I was in the program and I started talking, a lot of the kids in there with me kind of gravitated to me because of my life experience. I became an unofficial mentor for many of them, and it started to give me a purpose.”
“I am one of the few people who could find humor in rehab. I was in a Suboxone program (a prescription medicine used to treat opioid use disorder which, coupled with counseling and behavioral therapies, can help reduce opioid cravings and prevent withdrawal symptoms) and was required to take regular tests to ensure I was staying off of opioids. My test came back positive, and I was freaking. I had no insurance. I didn’t go to that program because I wanted to. I was there because I was destitute, and I had no other place to go. I thought I was going to get kicked out of the program and I knew that I had not used drugs. I couldn’t figure out why my tests were coming back positive.”
“I was sitting at the kitchen table talking to my wife and I looked down and I asked what are all of these black dots all over the kitchen table. I took the test on Monday but the day before we had a whole bunch of people over for bagels and lox and I had a ton of poppy seeds. That’s what was doing it! It was just like a Seinfeld episode!”
Since recovery, Gregg has had several surgeries for various physical ailments, including having teeth removed (due to his alcoholism) and having his hip replaced (a replacement after his first hip surgery 35 years prior). But he refused pain medication for all of them. “Alcohol does not scare me. Opioids scare me.”
Gregg’s recovery continues as well as his rediscovery of his passions and purpose.
“I had to learn to find the goodness that I had lost. You got to figure out what’s going to work for you in your program — make your own program and develop your own code and your own philosophy. Recovery taught me to be the teacher and to be the student, to use the material that you can identify with.
Either your mind’s going to betray you or your body’s going to betray you. And take it from somebody who’s been in both situations, it’s much easier to rehab the body than it is to rehab the mind.
But the payoff from that rehab is much greater. Oh, my G-d. The energy, the love, the gratitude. I’m seeing life now from a totally different perspective because I’m back to where I probably should have been when I was a teenager, before life wore me down. My story should only be used as a reference. But, going forward, you have got to have the confidence in yourself.”
Fate has stepped in several times for Gregg along the way, possibly something more.
“The first night that I was in the hospital with my daughter, right after she was diagnosed with Leukemia, I ran into a girl who had been on a USY trip to Israel with me 25 years ago. Her son had also been diagnosed about a week before. There are eight billion people in the world, and I ran into someone who I had spent six weeks with in Israel almost 25 years before! We helped each other at the right place at the right time.
I’m also grateful to the Jewish Federation and the JCC. The Kosher Pantry has been there for us. Jewish Family Services has helped us pay bills as we have fought through this. JFS provided my wife and I with couples counseling because I needed to reestablish trust with my wife. Our therapist saved my marriage and my life.”
Gregg’s AEPi brothers have been there for him along the way. “I remained active in AEPi throughout all of college. I still communicate with a lot of those guys. One of them happens to still be my best friend. After I disconnected from life for about 10 years, I reached out to make amends to five friends. One of them was an AEPi – Jon Sherry – and he has remained by my side and my best friend. He’s the guy who was at my father’s funeral. He is who I called when my children were born. He was the person that I wanted to tell when my daughter was diagnosed. That’s more than friendship. That’s brotherhood.”
Gregg is now opening up about his journey, his redemption. He’s working on becoming a public speaker and wants to talk with college students about the importance of mental health. “If I’m going to be struck down by a bolt of lightning, I want to make sure that I’m at the plate swinging, not with the bat on my shoulder. I’m trying something now, trying to make a positive impact. For 20 years, I was a placeholder. I woke up every day and just ran into the next one. And now that I’m 61 — and I’ve made it this far – I want something more.”
On the heels of Yom Kippur, with the melody of Avinu Malkeinu still ringing in our ears, Brother Gregg Schorr has found redemption through teshuvah, forgiveness, and looks to build a brighter world for himself, his family and his community.
#ProudtobeaPi