Addiction support group for hospitality workers returns

Ben’s Friends, an organization of support groups aiming to help people in the food and beverage industry dealing with addiction problems, is relaunching an Asheville chapter.

Mickey Bakst, co-founder of Ben’s Friends, is just as passionate about its mission today as he was when he helped begin the group in 2016. He told the Citizen Times that the epidemic of addiction in the food and beverage industry has roots that are best addressed in a community of people who understand the intensity of the work. 

“We provide them not only a place where they are with others that are suffering from their illness, but they are with others who understand their lifestyles, their way of life, their careers,” Bakst said. “So we create a community of food and beverage people, bartenders, line cooks, servers, waiters, hosts, who all share not just their addiction, but the commonality of the restaurant industry, and the pressures that go along with it.”