Ben’s Friends Talks Substance Abuse in Hospitality Industry, West Coast Expansion
CHARLESTON, SC (FOX 24 NEWS NOW) – They say if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. But when it’s your passion and career, you stay, you work hard and self-care is put on the back burner.
This is where pressures within the hospitality industry reach a boiling point, giving way to addiction. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, employees in restaurants and hotels had the highest rates of substance abuse out of the entire American workforce, but there is a place to get help.
Veteran restaurateur shares personal battle with cocaine, alcohol — and talks new Charlotte support group for industry
Restaurateur Steve Palmer battled his addiction to alcohol and cocaine for 10 years. He showed up to work one day and was given two choices: clean out his office or go to rehab.
Today, the founder of The Indigo Road Hospitality Group has 17 years sober. He’s created a restaurant empire with 18 locations and nearly 900 employees. In Charlotte, Palmer operates concepts such as Oak Steakhouse, O-Ku and fast-casual sushi restaurant Sukoshi in uptown.
Charleston Wine + Food adds Ben's Friends yoga event for chef participants
Last year Ben's Friends, the sober support group started by Indigo Road's Steve Palmer and Charleston Place's Mickey Bakst, sponsored a Chill Space at the Atlanta Food and Wine Festival. The intention of the space, the idea of writer Kat Kinsman, was to provide chefs and beverage participants not interested in the typical food fest party atmosphere with an area to relax, and it was a huge success. The newly sober Chef Sean Brock told the New York Times that it was "the safest I’ve ever felt."
In An Industry Rife With Substance Abuse, Restaurant Workers Help Their Own
Where alcohol is eschewed in most places of employment, it's a constant in restaurants. And the late night culture means that most socializing happens at bars after work hours. "We're an industry that's a little bit different," says Mickey Bakst, general manager of Charleston Grill in South Carolina. But this also means restaurant employees are at serious risk for problems with substance abuse.
Bakst is a recovering alcoholic. When he first started attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in 1982, he didn't see another person from the restaurant industry. "Nobody knew what it was like to go home at one in the morning and be so wide awake that I couldn't sleep," he recalls.
But in 2016, after Charleston chef Ben Murray killed himself after struggling with addiction and depression, Bakst and restaurateur Steve Palmer decided to start a support group of sorts to keep it from happening again.
Ben's Friends puts "safe and restorative" programs on Wine + Food schedule
Sitting in quiet meditation isn’t always the ideal antidote to late nights of repetitive manual labor and intense professional stress, according to the instructor who will lead Ben’s Friends’ first yoga session for Charleston Wine + Food Festival participants.
“Being still is super intimidating,” says Ashley Bell, owner of Reverb Yoga. “It can be stressful in and of itself. Sitting on the ground can be one of the less comfortable things, so I always encourage people to lie down: This is less party trick yoga, and more about creating a practice around functional mobility.”
Sober in a Party City
It’s hard to believe that the man who built the successful Indigo Road hospitality group—Oak Steakhouse, O-Ku, The Macintosh, and Indaco, to name just a few of its 18 properties in four Southern cities—was once crippled by alcoholism and drug abuse. Here, Steve Palmer shares his personal battle with addiction, how he was saved from an out-of-control spiral, and how he’s paying it forward to help others in the food-and-bev community, here and throughout the Southeast
Saturday, November 3, 2001
I’m lying facedown on my apartment floor. I have been told my liver is failing, and my body shakes as I hallucinate that things are flying out of the wall. My wife has just left me, and her last words, “As long as I stay here, you will stay sick,” are ringing in my ears. I am an alcoholic and a drug addict, a fact that I can no longer ignore.
I have done all the usual bargaining of “I’ll only drink wine... I won’t do shots... I will only smoke pot...” that all addicts propose when holding onto the last hope that we can still manage our lives. That’s the thing about the disease of alcoholism: It is the only disease that tells you that you don’t have a disease.
The hopelessness and desperation are all-encompassing, and I cannot see a life beyond this because it is all that I have known for 20 years. I have tried to quit time and again and have broken every promise I made to myself and others about “never again.” But the truth is that I cannot quit alcohol and cocaine. I have given up hope that my life will be anything other than this and realize that I am going to die.
Busy Living Sober Visits Charleston, SC
Busy Living Sober Visits Charleston!
When it comes to recovery, the South – specifically Charleston, South Carolina – is ahead of the curve in helping people fight addiction and changing the stigma.
I am in awe and envious of all the resources available to the students at the College of Charleston, and to the employees that work in the food and service industry. When I visited this past week, I had the pleasure of spending time with two of the most innovative and dynamic gentleman that are spearheading these efforts: Wood Marchant and Steve Palmer.
Wood Marchant invited me to come to the College of Charleston and speak to the students involved with the Colligate Recovery Program (CRP). Approximately ten students were in attendance and they all were there for one purpose – to stay sober and be active in school. The members of this small community were passionate and energetic. They shared the common goal of getting through life's ups and downs without the use of any drugs or alcohol. That is an enormous undertaking, given that college is historically known for partying. CRP Director, Wood has given these students a safe a comfortable place to go to be with like-minded individuals in a warm and inviting environment. Students are able to connect on a deeper level with Wood because he himself went to the college and he is also in long-term recovery.
Do you have to leave foodservice to stay sober?
In this in-depth investigation, NRN looks at how restaurants can recover from a culture of substance abuse.
Scott Crawford has been executive chef at some of the Southeast’s finest restaurants, and for nearly 14 years, he has done it sober. He’s now chef-owner of Crawford and Son in Raleigh, N.C., and the head of the city’s chapter of Ben’s Friends, a support group for food and beverage professionals who struggle with substance abuse and addiction.
Crawford started drinking and using drugs at an early age, “and when I got into food and beverage, I would say that not only did the industry and my mentors and the people around me enable my use — I don’t blame them; we were all in it together — but it was just really encouraged.
“The whole lifestyle — you’re in a place that has alcohol. There’s always alcohol in the kitchen, behind the bar, and after the adrenaline of an awesome service, it was typically followed by chasing that buzz with alcohol, and then usually cocaine.”
Alcoholism was a progressive disease.
“I progressed from someone who could be pretty functional to losing control,” he said.
Eventually, at age 30, he wound up in the intensive care unit with Type 1 diabetes. The autoimmune disease usually occurs in children, but Crawford said his body rebelled against the abuse.
“My body attacked itself and killed my pancreas,” he said. “I nearly died.”
It still wasn’t enough for him to get sober.
Ben's Friends host alcohol-free after parties during Charleston Wine + Food
If there's ever a time when it's easy to get caught up in some hard partying, it's during Charleston Wine + Food, and that applies to both the guests and the crew putting the events on. For those working on their sobriety, that pressure cooker environment can be too much.
That's why the founders of Ben's Friends, Charleston Grill GM Mickey Bakst and Indigo Road managing partner Steve Palmer, along with Scott Crawford, are hosting two alcohol-free sober after parties.
"It's going to be Friday and Saturday at Macintosh beginning at 11 p.m. and we're going to be meeting on the patio in the back and have a jelly bean bar to mix 'cocktails,'" says Bakst. "We want to provide a place where people don't feel compelled that they have to go to a party, get drunk, get hungover. It's a new environment where people in the restaurant industry can feel comfortable not having to party."
Beyond AA: Where restaurant workers go for help
In this in-depth investigation, NRN looks at how restaurants can recover from a culture of substance abuse.
Thirty-five years ago, when Mickey Bakst walked into his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, he realized he was the only hospitality worker in the group.
“It was all doctors, lawyers and housewives,” he said.
The general manager of the famed Charleston Grill credits AA for keeping him alive over four decades. But to survive in an industry where illicit drug use is rampant, he and fellow recovering addict and Charleston, S.C., restaurateur Steve Palmer had always talked about creating their own restaurant support group.
But the idea faded until 2016, when one of Palmer’s chefs, Ben Murray, committed suicide.
Murray, who worked at Town Hall in Florence, S.C., was a graduate of The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. He ended his life after a long battle with addiction. Bakst and Palmer, managing partner at The Indigo Road Hospitality Group in Charleston, were hit hard by Murray’s death.
“There’s no longer an excuse. We have to do something,” Palmer said.
Ben’s Friends was born soon after. The fledgling support group held its first meeting at Indigo’s Cedar Room, in Charleston’s historic turn-of-the-century Cigar Factory.
The group’s mission is simple: provide a safe haven for restaurant workers looking to get or stay sober.
Unlike AA, there is no set agenda at Ben’s Friends. Attendees simply riff on whatever is on their mind — namely the unrelenting pressures of hospitality work.
More than two dozen servers and chefs showed up to the first meeting. Their stories were similar.
Bakst said many talked about nearly “losing their shit” while dealing with an uptight chef or serving an obnoxious guest. The instant camaraderie was palpable.
Creating a Safe Space
Richmond’s 2018 Elby-winning Chef of the Year has something he wants the city to know, and it has nothing to do with charcuterie or making better pasta.
In February, Joe Sparatta won the award for the second time, chosen by national journalists and chefs. Sparatta is co-owner of both Heritage and Southbound.
What most in attendance did not know was that only three months earlier the chef had suffered a personal low, when, in November, he checked himself into an outpatient program for alcoholism.
Today, Sparatta is going public to raise awareness in the community of chefs and restaurant workers, many of whom, he says, are in the midst of similar battles with their addictions.
Sparatta told me he had been sober for two years before he relapsed. “I had never drunk and tried to cook,” he said this morning, in a long phone conversation that the chef described as “freeing.
Sober, serving and giving support
Scott Crawford wants to eliminate the shame of alcoholism or drug abuse by providing a safe space for those struggling with addiction.
Crawford, of Crawford and Son restaurant in downtown Raleigh, started a Raleigh chapter of Ben’s Friends, a support group for people battling addiction in the hospitality industry.
“We have lots of people who want to change their lifestyle and feel like they have to leave the industry to do so,” Crawford said. “We want to shatter that notion. I want to speak as loudly and clearly as I can if you are working in this industry and struggling there is a place you can go and there are people that can help you.”
Hospitality and hope: Charleston restaurateurs help those struggling with substance abuse
Behind the smiles of those who work in the food and beverage industry is pain as many struggle with alcohol and substance abuse.
The long hours, constant flow of alcohol and high stress levels create a risky environment that makes the road to sobriety tough to navigate, according to Mickey Bakst, the general manager of The Charleston Grill, and Steve Palmer, a managing partner of The Indigo Road Restaurant Group.
The two men are incredibly successful in the industry and sober. They’re using that platform to help others struggling with alcohol and drug abuse.
Ben's Friends, Steve Palmer and Mickey Bakst's addiction support group, expands to Raleigh
So proud of our friend Scott Crawford for starting a chapter of Ben's friends in Raleigh
Four months after Indigo Road's Steve Palmer and Charleston Grill GM Mickey Bakst started the addiction support group Ben's Friends, Chef Scott Crawford of Crawford & Son has expanded the program in Raleigh.
Crawford, a close friend of Palmer and Bakst, says starting his own branch of Ben's Friends was part of the plan all along, he just had to find the time after opening his new restaurant.
"I was in those early conversations with Steve and Mickey. I remember Steve saying, 'I want to do something.' I said, 'I want to do something.' Mickey said, 'I want to do something.' Finally Steve said, 'We're doing it.'"
After participating in Charleston's Ben's Friends meeting while Crawford was here for Charleston Wine + Food, he says he couldn't wait any longer.
"I walked out of that meeting so inspired," he says.
Chef Crawford wants safe space for those struggling with addiction in restaurant industry
RALEIGH
Chef Scott Crawford knows firsthand the challenges of working in a restaurant while battling – and recovering – from an addiction that constantly wants to pull you apart.
That’s why he wants to bring together people in the food and beverage industry who battle substance abuse and drug and alcohol addiction. While Crawford has been sober for 12 years, he wants to keep others from being forced to exit the kitchens and restaurants they love.
“For some people, if it’s life or death, it’s time get away from it,” said Crawford, 44, an acclaimed chef who owns Crawford and Son restaurant on Person Street and has made his career in fine dining.
Indigo Road’s Steve Palmer wants to help Atlanta restaurant workers battle substance abuse
The restaurateur, who created support group Ben’s Friends, hopes to launch a local chapter
The Indigo Road Restaurant Group’s Steve Palmer, an Atlanta native, owns fifteen bars and restaurants in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia—including Atlanta’s Oak Steakhouse, Colletta, and O-Ku. Palmer says his most important work, though, is for Ben’s Friends.
The 501(c)(3) is named for chef Ben Murray, Palmer’s friend and colleague who battled addiction and depression. Murray ultimately committed suicide last year, and Palmer founded Ben’s Friends soon after.
“At its core, it’s a group of people who have a common goal of trying to stay sober,” says Palmer, who has himself been in recovery for 15 years. The group meets every Sunday at an old cigar warehouse in Charleston. “It’s a safe space to talk.”
Locals lead fight against substance abuse and other life-threatening issues in F&B industry
Mickey Bakst did just about everything during his working years that were swallowed up by addiction. He did alcohol. He did drugs. When he was trying to prove to himself that he wasn’t an alcoholic, he did three bottles of NyQuil a night.
The only thing that Bakst didn’t do was die. It’s a miracle the Charleston Grill general manager attributes to the conviction he developed, around the time he woke up in a straitjacket, “that if I were to drink or drug again, I would kill myself.”
F&B Support Group For Addiction Starts This Sunday
Two of the biggest names in the Charleston food scene, Indigo Road’s Steve Palmer and Charleston Grill’s Mickey Bakst, have come together to help food and beverage workers who may be struggling with drug and alcohol abuse. Both Palmer and Bakst are very open about their past addictions while working in the industry, and they want to help others who might be struggling.
Steve Palmer and Mickey Bakst start F&B support group for drug and alcohol addiction
Sober Support
Posted by Kinsey Gidick on Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 9:46 AM
At the height of his addiction, Charleston Grill General Manager Mickey Bakst would wake up, pour a tumbler of Stoli Vodka, top it with grapefruit juice, and do a five-inch line of cocaine. "Then I'd go to work," he says. That was 34 years go. When his heart had to be resuscitated after a binge, it seemed like he might clean up his act, but Bakst fell even further. "I woke up in a straightjacket in an insane institution in Detroit," he recalls. It was after that, that Bakst finally sought help.
"AA saved my life," he says.