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COVER STORY
Editor's Note: In the wake of the most recent NJ law enforcement
officer committing suicide, Dr. Michael Bizzarro, a clinical
services provider for the NJ State PBA, agreed to do the following
interview with David Matthau of WKXW 101.5 FM. Here is a
transcript of the interview:
We told you about the ever-present problem of police officer suicides in New Jersey... 19 New Jersey police killed themselves in 2015.
Top law enforcement officials point out many cops face repeated
exposure to the darkest situations and the most dangerous elements
of society. It's little surprise many have trouble processing what they
experience in a healthy way.
We bring you the story of one former police officer who nearly took
his own life. Dr. Michael Bizzarro is currently the Director of Clinical
Services for First Responders at Princeton House Behavioral Health.
Bizzarro said that when he was a kid, he used to fantasize about being
a doctor and a police officer. By the time he was 21 years old; he had
taken and passed a test to join the Port Authority Police Department.
Bizzarro described himself as a social drinker at that time. But
soon, things changed.
“At the end of the shift it was common for a bunch of officers to
always go to a local bar, and we would drink and talk and wind up
spending quite a few hours there,” he said. “If you had a rough night
you'd typically want to talk to the guys about it.
“Very seldom would you go home and discuss your day. You wanted to protect your family from the stuff that you dealt with while you
were working, so you really didn't share much - which really creates
a disconnect with your significant other and your family.”
The pattern continued. His problems began to mount.
“There's an imaginary line for some of us,” Bizzarro said. “Not
everybody who drinks has a problem, and not everybody who has a
problem drinks, but at some point I crossed this line, unbeknownst
to me, until I tried to get back, and I couldn't. I couldn't stop.”
Even at that point, Bizzarro didn't think he had a drinking issue.
“I couldn't make the connection between things not working in
my life, and me not feeling really good about myself as being a result
of the alcohol use,” he said. “I wound up losing my career. I lost my
family, my wife, my son - everything that was important to me was
literally being taken away from me, but I still couldn't connect the
dots that it was the alcohol and the drug use that was causing the
problem. My mind, which at one point was an ally, turned into the
enemy.”
Bizzarro described the experience as “constant self-loathing and
self-criticism, the torture of that mental anguish of just not feeling
good about yourself, a cocktail for disaster.”
He said in his darkest of moments, he saw no hope, no way out
from the pain.
One night, in his apartment, he pulled down the shades. He
remembers “sitting on a bed with a 9 mm next to me, loaded, one in
the chamber, and pointing to my head and keeping it there and just
saying, 'This is the only way that this pain is going to stop.'”
Bizzarro said he felt totally alone, disconnected from the world and his mind felt like a recorder.
“It was continuing to re-play the same message that 'Your life is
worthless. You're worthless. There's no hope. Your life is never going
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APRIL 2016
“It's secrets that keep us sick.
It's easy to talk about what
we want to talk about.
It's really hard to talk about
the things we don't want to talk
about, and I think that's what
happens in the law
enforcement community.”
to change. The best thing you could do is end it. You'll do people a
favor if you take yourself out of this world.' And it just continues to play
and you can't stop it, you can't shut it off. You drink or you drug or you
do whatever you can to try numb it or stop it, but it just keeps playing.
“A thought popped into my head that said, 'If you do this, you're
going to stigmatize and scar your son for the rest of his life.'”
Bizzarro said in that moment he realized “this is not the way out.”
Shortly thereafter, his cousin, a Newark police officer, gave him a Narcotics Anonymous book that he read. In what he described as “another moment of divine intervention,” he found a 12-step meeting in
West New York. His life did a 180.
“I found purpose. I found hope. I came to peace with the
emotional pain and the self-image that I had of myself, and the dialogue that began in my head was not one of loathing, but one of
acceptance and love.”
Bizzarro said he knew there were others like him who were suffering, and he was determined to find a way to help them.
“It's secrets that keep us sick. It's easy to talk about what we want
to talk about. It's really hard to talk about the things we don't want to
talk about, and I think that's what happens in the law enforcement
community,” he said. “Stuff could be going on with a police officer.
He could be riding right next to you in a car and you'll have no clue
that he's in pain. That is the dynamic sometimes that occurs.”
Bizzarro said he believes the law enforcement community has
done a remarkable job in getting the word out to members of its
family that suicide is an important issue that must be addressed, and
help is available. His message to officers in crisis is simple:
“No matter how dark and deep the hole of despair may be in your
life,” he said, “talking to another fellow officer or a professional can
create the ladder that gets you out of that hole.” d