The veteran helped others stop drinking, but didn’t help himself until the hypocrisy became too great

Editor’s Note: Across New Jersey, hospitals, clinics and treatment centers serve thousands of active military personnel, veterans and first responders struggling with mental health issues. This is the next entry in an ongoing series about heroes who sought help with their problems and are now actively helping others.

Bilal Abdullah finally reached the day when he could no longer endure the hypocrisy he was living.

He had counseled addicts and alcoholics for years while he himself had a serious alcohol problem.

“I started working with addicts because I had been through the same thing myself,” he said. “It made me a great addiction counselor but a bad addict. I repeatedly denied that I had a problem while working with people struggling with addiction issues.”

That day he made the commitment he had asked others to make. It was a long journey.

Bilal Abdullah had his eye on the Air Force as a youth, but the Chicago native decided to go to college before he could fulfill his dream.

Born and raised in a Muslim household where there was never alcohol, Abdullah discovered it in college.

“The more I socialized with my classmates in college, the more I was exposed to alcohol and the more I loved it,” Abdullah said. “I’m usually quiet by nature, but with alcohol I discovered I was an extrovert.”

Abdullah admitted he “dropped out of college” and joined the U.S. Navy in 2000 at age 27.

“I thought I would see the world,” Abdullah recalled of his first days in the military. “But the first ship I was on ran aground.”

He chose a shore posting rather than living on a ship and eventually took naval security duties. He later secured a civilian job as a police officer at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, first with the Air Force at Langley Air Force Base and then with the Army side at Fort Eustis.

A constant in Abdullah’s life was drinking.

“I never crossed the line and did anything like hard drugs,” he said, but admitted he drank more and more.

Abdullah had set his sights on becoming a social worker. By the time his family moved to Cleveland in 2015, he had earned his master’s degree from Norfolk State and became an addiction counselor at the Matt Talbot for Men Addiction Center in Parma, Ohio.

Despite all these successes, Abdullah still drank – heavily.

It came to a point where he could no longer hide his decline.

“I drank alcohol like it was water,” he said. “The whole time I thought I had it under control. In general, I wasn’t dysfunctional, but I wasn’t functional either. My manager began to think I was drinking. I asked myself why I thought I needed alcohol to stay balanced at work and decided I didn’t need it.”

That was the day he decided he could no longer tolerate the hypocrisy of counseling addicts while living as an addict himself.

“Every day I felt like a hypocrite, so I knew I had to change. My marriage was on the rocks. I had a daughter and didn’t want to lose her or my marriage. In 2016 I decided to stop.”

And he did that – entirely on his own.

He acknowledges his family’s help. “My family is very spiritual,” Abdullah smiled. “We have a lot of pastors in our family.”

Once cleaned up and back on his feet, Abdullah came to the Recovery Centers of America in Raritan Bay and applied for a position in the facility’s RESCU program. The RESCU (Resilience, Empowerment, Safety and Care for our Uniformed Heroes) program is an addiction treatment program for active military, veterans and first responders.

The program essentially introduces patients to a community of military buddies and first responders who have similar life and work experiences. The program focuses on helping patients recover from substance abuse by addressing work-related barriers that may impede their recovery. The program promises patients complete anonymity.

“I interviewed at RESCU based on my military and police experience,” Abdullah said. “At first I wasn’t suitable for the job because I didn’t have the required license. I received the license (making him a Licensed Clinical Alcohol and Drug Counselor), but the position was not open at the time.”

However, RCA found a position for Abdullah as an alcohol addiction counselor in March and today he is one of RCA’s main therapists.

“You have to commit to recovery,” Abdullah said. “Recovery requires a certain level of trust. You have to be vulnerable and willing to admit your problem. Why did I commit? I didn’t want to lose my family and that was a real possibility because of my drinking. Now when I see alcohol, I say, “You don’t need that.” I became confident in who I am. I learned to be happy with myself.”

Today, in addition to his work at RCA, Abdullah has his own practice based in West Orange and remains heavily focused on supporting people with mental health issues. He preaches a philosophy of self-care.

“Self-care is crucial,” he said. “Self-care means disconnecting from work, family, and friends. I detach myself from the stress of the world around me. You can’t be a parent 24 hours a day. Sometimes you have to step away from parenthood to take care of yourself. Self-care must be implemented if a person struggling with mental health issues can cope successfully.”