Michael Roth has taken a stand against alcoholism after 25 years and spent his life insurance money on a walk-in centre for other booze victims.
The centre tries to keep victims active and busy so that they do not have the time to drink
For years he has been training in addiction counselling and hopes he will be able to open a similar walk-in centre in Malta.
Mr Roth, 69, founded Zensis, an addiction and recovery walk-in counselling centre in Frankfurt in 2010 to “help people become sober”. A former advertising company CEO, his alcoholism addiction saw him develop polyneuropathy, he recalls.
During his recovery in 2004, someone suggested he would be the right person to start a counselling programme, he told Times of Malta.
He soon attended clinical psychology lectures at the University of Frankfurt as a guest student and social pedagogy lectures at the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt, and practiced counselling at a clinic. He also followed the Professional in Residence programme at the Betty Ford Centre in California between 2008 and 2010.
Following his first post as a social worker for assisted and sober living, he built what he calls a chronic multiple-alcoholism programme for relapsers.
Meanwhile, he opened a walk-in centre in Frankfurt to keep addicts from relapsing between their intoxication and rehabilitation treatment.
Mr Roth’s centre also helps victims stabilise themselves if they cannot get back on track after spending time in rehab.
The services offered by the family therapist, spiritual counsellor, psychologist and doctors at the centre are free for the victims, but have cost Mr Roth his life insurance.
“Forget fees, we work on a voluntary basis and help each other out. All the team (some eight people) have one mission: breaking the stigma of alcoholism and discrimination of victims.
“Alcoholism reaches everyone: the unemployed, doctors and architects. It could reach all of us,” he said, referring to his career in the German Air Force and in the advertising sector.
Mr Roth is the former creative director of FCB (Foote Cone Belding) and the advertising CEO of James Walter Thompson.
“This walk-in centre is my passion, my heart. We work to get them back on their feet and back to their jobs.
“The centre tries to keep victims active and busy so that they do not have the time to drink.
“The cherry on my personal cake would be to found a special counselling centre in Malta, which I would call March – short for Malta’s addiction recovery counselling house.
“It also stands for marching away from alcohol and into a new life,” he said, adding it would be a good idea to have it at the University of Malta campus so that post-graduate students could gain experience before venturing out in the job world, similar to centres in Sweden, UK and Berlin.
Mr Roth has been visiting Malta for the past 15 years.
Last month he was the main speaker at a seminar organised by the Counselling Department at the Faculty for Social Wellbeing.
The seminar focused on addiction counselling, an area where Malta is lagging behind, Head of Department Dione Mifsud noted.
During the seminar, Mr Roth spoke about the chance of finding a partner in Germany to start a course in Malta about addiction.
He gave an overview of his therapy and the department is now evaluating local interest to start an addiction counselling course.