2018 NJ State PBA
Main Convention
Proof of Positives
Florida House Experience enhancing impact PBA is making
in providing help for members battling addiction
■ BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
Sitting at picnic tables outside the café
at the Florida House Experience in Deer-
field Beach, leaders of the NJ State PBA’s
Peer Assistance Team discuss the power
of positives transforming members who
have come here to conquer their addic-
tions. Between hits of espresso, Mau-
ro Farallo, chair of the PBA Peer Liaison
Committee, Director of Clinical Services
Dr. Gene Stefanelli, Sherief Abu-Mous-
tafa, CEO of Florida House and his team
laud the dignity, hope, strength and con-
fidence to overcome that this oasis of
healing has facilitated for first respond-
ers.
Moe and Dr. Stef have taken the short
excursion from the PBA Convention in
Boca Raton to Florida House to check on
some of the first responders currently in
treatment and tour the facility that seems
to add upgrades for patients every week.
There is, of course, a stop to see the neu-
rofeedback platform which identifies ar-
eas of the brain that are dysregulated due
to trauma, stress, anxiety and addiction,
in order to treat the issues.
This dynamic approach to treatment
the American Society of Addiction Med-
icine developed and that Florida House
is at the forefront of providing is helping
PBA members who have realized that
they don’t – as Dr. Stef says – always need
to wear the Superman outfit. The healing
power of the approach has added to the
positive feedback about what getting help
can do and why more and more members
are doing so.
“It’s gotten to the point where we have
services now and we have State Delegates
and presidents who know what to do in a
crisis situation,” Dr. Stefanelli states. “We
have a state-of-the-art facility like Flori-
da House. The total environment is very
positive. Members come back and tell
me, ‘Doc, that’s a great program. I don’t
have the desires anymore.’ Cops don’t
ever say that.”
Farallo smiles when hearing such a
statement. He knows what members are
feeling, having conquered his own ad-
diction 11 years ago. He knows that the
greatest benefit at Florida House is its
First Responders Program, in which they
live together, do therapy together and
support each other in an environment
48
NEW JERSEY COPS
■ OCTOBER 2018
A meeting with representatives of the NJ State PBA Peer Assistance Team at the Florida House Experi-
ence during the convention in September included, from left, Jeff Weinstein, Florida House National
Outreach Coordinator; Florida House CEO Sherief Abu-Moustafa; PBA Director of Clinical Services Dr.
Gene Stefanelli; Craig Ewing, Florida House National Outreach Liaison; Anne Weymouth, director of
the Florida House First Responder Program; and PBA Peer Liaison Committee Chair Mauro Farallo.
separate from any non-first responder
patients.
“They have that bond, that officer
bond, that brother-in-blue bond,” Moe
declares. “It absolutely makes a differ-
ence when you are going though some-
thing like this because you feel like you
are with somebody you can connect with.
You are not alone.”
Treatment and the environment are
state of the art to meet the trepidation
that had been preventing care for so long.
And so is the support.
Dr. Stef salutes how Florida House re-
assures patients with the confidentiality
that will prevent them from winding up
on what he used to call the rubber gun
squad. Additionally, Florida House ac-
counts for all the paperwork to employ-
ers and health insurance companies to
ensure that first responder patients don’t
have to worry about risking their jobs and
funding their care.
All of it leads to the most important as-
set patients leave with, and the one that
Sherief says lights him up every day.
“Hope. We’re able to give them hope,”
he proclaims. “What they’re dealing with
is real, and we can really help them get
back to their jobs, to their professions,
to their families. We’re giving them hope
that they can get better.”
The positive feedback Dr. Stef and Moe
have received on this visit comes from
members who are about to complete
their treatment at Florida House. They
talk about the tools they have been giv-
en to continue to battle their addictions
and the post-care that has been set up.
They have reveled over the seamless con-
tinuum of care that began by being taken
to the airport by a brother or sister, met
in Florida by a first responder and going
through treatment among other first re-
sponders. When they go back, there will
be no going back.
“Their health is being restored, their
jobs and families are being restored and
their dignity is being restored,” asserts
Craig Ewing, a former first responder who
is the National Outreach Liaison for the
Florida House First Responders Program.
“They go back a better asset to their com-
munities. They go back as stronger men.”