Life is filled with a series of contrasts and juxtapositions. It makes life colorful and it gives it character. Josh A. is someone you meet and instantly think, “This is a good guy.” He grew up in a middle-class, Jewish household in Tampa, Florida. The oldest of two brothers, he had parents who were very involved in his life and loved him dearly. He remains someone with good character and a kind heart he loves to share with his community. Attributes you can experience in him whether it be playing basketball at the park, rapping at Shabbat, or performing in Freedom Song are fun-loving, active, and creative. Even with all this being true, Josh’s story really begins in middle school, and the way it starts sounds just like Ray Liota’s in Goodfellas, “As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster…”
In middle school, Josh had an agreement with his parents that if he brought home straight A’s, he would get a fresh pair of Jordan’s (the it sneaker). Josh brought home A’s one day to find out that this deal was no longer on the table. His mom let him know that they didn’t have the money they thought they would, and Josh heard this as “We don’t have money.” A very literal person. One time Josh’s parents explained to him how drinking was bad and he took it as “all drinking was bad,” and proceeded to not drink any liquids for the next two days. His mom later explained that she was just talking about alcohol. After learning about the rocky finances at home, Josh resigned to never ask his parents for money again. Also at this time, Josh had become infatuated with gangster movies, gangster culture, The Rat Pack, Frank Sinatra, and so forth. Not wanting to become a drug dealer, but wanting to tap into this lifestyle somehow, Josh started to gravitate to the gambling and casinos he noticed in the movies he was watching. The World Series of Poker was also a very big deal on ESPN, at the time. The allure of this gangster lifestyle and the popularity of competitive poker led to Josh deciding to educate himself in the art of becoming a great poker player. Studying theory and how to tell when someone was bluffing, Josh was on his way to becoming what he admired on the silver screen.
It should be noted that Josh’s first love was basketball, then baseball, then football and he maintained that love for athletics and competition throughout his life. However, in his Junior year of high school, he broke his leg playing backyard football. He knew that the recovery time it was going to take to heal all but ruined his chances of playing collegiate baseball. So he shifted gears. He decided to take on leadership. He became the class president his junior year, (a role he was re-elected to his senior year). Josh was adapting to his circumstances, with the caveat of now having a lot more free time. Free time which he said was taken up, “by smoking cannabis, hanging out with friends, and really just escaping the financial strain that was going on in [his] house.” This is also when Josh started sneaking into casinos underage—so it begins.
Fast forward to college. Josh was able to get into the school of his choice, the University of Florida, where he got active in a fraternity right away. While still self-medicating a lot with cannabis, he was not gambling as much. Although gambling did not bring him to his knees in college, during sophomore year a bad precedent was set. One weekend, he was able to turn his last $50 into $4500. Eureka! Josh’s first big win. Somehow, this didn’t send him over a cliff into destructive gambling behavior that would leave him desperate and broke. It left him with a feeling he stored away, a feeling he would later take out and explore.
College ended and Josh got involved in a sales role that allowed him to travel, make money, take it all to the casinos, and rinse and repeat. Josh described this as, “the best of times and the worst of times.” All his money was being spent on cannabis and at the casinos, and the rest of his life was paid for by this job. He was isolated on the road for two years living a life that allowed him to develop a pretty serious gambling problem. “Black Jack really kind of brought me to my knees and made me realize I was a compulsive gambler.” It started with sneaking into casinos underage and maybe winning $400-$500 at the end of some nights, to losing tens of thousands of dollars in the span of an hour or two at blackjack tables.
At 23, Josh realized he was a compulsive gambler. He knew things needed to change but wasn’t able to enact anything sustainable for the next chunk of his life. His 20s were filled with sales jobs, short bouts of sobriety, some wins, and more losses. By the time Covid was around the corner Josh was now 30, recently suffered a failed business venture landing him in six figures worth of debt, and was not ready for the next storm about to crash over his life.
At the beginning of Covid, Josh decided to start DoorDashing and quickly learned, he could make three to four grand a week. Being sober from gambling and substances, Josh began to gamble in other ways. Josh began putting everything he had into crypto, leveraging collateral to throw even more into crypto. When the market crashed, he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. “This was probably the best thing that could have happened to me,” according to Josh.
In October 2021, Josh arrived at Beit T’Shuvah and stayed until September of 2022. He was hoping to be one and done, and in his words, he was a “model citizen.” Ran the marathon, performed in Freedom Song, rapped at Shabbat, wrote music, went to 12-step meetings, and, in all ways, looked like someone who was going to make it long term. As it goes, Josh planned, and God laughed.
Josh managed to get around two and half years of clean time, but when the New Year’s Eve ball dropped on 2024, so did the second shoe. “I was not spiritually ready.” His grandmother died of pancreatic cancer, his girlfriend’s father committed suicide and he had to put down his dog and long-time companion all within the span of four months. The relapse started with Adderall and moved to cocaine. On the casino floors, he started losing little sums of money often and large pieces of himself he was scared he couldn’t salvage. His only hope? Coming back to Beit T’Shuvah.
Since returning, Josh has found a way to connect and create relationships with everyone. He is back at Beit T’Shuvah to give life to the opportunity offered on the sign when you walk into the front lobby, “Recover your passion. Discover your purpose.” Josh went on about the things he loves most about BTS, and besides Freedom Song, he said “The way Beit T’Shuvah is able to incorporate 12-step recovery with Jewish principles, is something I really lean on.” He now starts his morning with a simple prayer—a tool he has put in his box this time around that he feels he did not have before. The prayer goes, “Please give me the strength and courage to find purpose and meaning in all my affairs.”
Josh’s story highlights something very important about Beit T’Shuvah, and that is that the staff here knows the journey of recovery is rarely linear. Sometimes, you need someone to take a second chance on you and allow you the space to live outside the shame and guilt and all the unproductive emotions that will keep you from moving forward. Sometimes you need a place that allows you to be a Gangster in recovery. A place that wants to nurture the best in you. A place where, when people ask you about Josh A, you say, “You’re gonna like this guy. He’s all right. He’s a goodfella. He’s one of us.”