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A book`s moving tribute offers guidance for healing
Many people approached Frank L. Greenagel II this year as they sought to process and respond meaningfully to the sudden death of Greenagel's close friend, nationally prominent mental health advocate and trainer Eric Arauz. Greenagel, a clinical social worker and addiction policy advocate, offered some ready advice: “You can write me a story.”
Having studied grief and how writing can serve as a tool for understanding and remembering—and great writing skills aren't required—Greenagel had found in his addiction counseling work that daily writing helped patients cope with unresolved emotions. His request generated 80 stories about Arauz, who died in March at the age of 47. Many are included in The Book of Eric, a tribute to a charismatic leader with whom Greenagel shared a military background, a recovery history and a mission to save others.
“He did such a good job connecting people,” Greenagel tells Addiction Professional. “I think he was a better listener than I am, and I am a trained listener.”
Greenagel, whose work has ranged from teaching at the Rutgers Center for Alcohol Studies to offering therapy as a consultant to the New York State Police, completed the book in time for a talk in tribute to Arauz that he delivered in October at the Psych Congress annual conference in Orlando, Fla. Arauz was a Psych Congress steering committee and faculty member who also mentored the Psych Congress's “re-Think” initiative, an effort challenging professionals to rethink their approach to mental health care.
It was announced at the Orlando conference that the kickoff keynote address at each year's conference will now carry the title of the Eric Arauz Memorial Keynote Address. The Psych Congress Network website states, “His contributions to shaping mental health education are countless.”
Moving tributes
The Book of Eric conveys how important relationships were to Arauz. Greenagel explains that Arauz demanded a great deal of others. “You needed to be willing to do the hard work required for personal growth, the self-chiseling of any true change,” he wrote in the book. However, he added, “What he gave in return was intensely focused attention, boundless encouragement and acceptance.”
The book includes numerous tributes from others, including some that Greenagel included in the eulogy he delivered for his friend:
From former law school classmate Blake Width, on Arauz's decision to leave law school: “Although he undoubtedly would have been a good lawyer, it's implausible to expect that as a family lawyer, or whatever other practice he might have chosen, that he would have accomplished quite as much good for humanity as he has.”
From Kaitlin Vanderhoff: “Eric went above and beyond what I could have ever asked for in a mentor. He would speak to me on trains, sparse free moments when he was driving from speaking commitment to a meeting to a conference, on his way to go food shopping or to pick up something from Home Depot. It became clear to me so quickly how selfless and devoted this man was to social work and his purpose of sharing his knowledge with the world.”
Greenagel says one of his most meaningful accounts in the book relates how Arauz connected to Greenagel's high school English students back in the 2000s; he would invite Arauz to speak on the anniversary of the overdose death of a close friend of Greenagel's. Arauz moved and inspired the classes with his story of his psychiatric hospitalization and addiction, and how books and learning became his salvation and a motivator to do good.
“'Be the dreamer of the day,' he told my kids,” Greenagel wrote in the book. “'Dream big, dream bold, dream great. I believe in you.'”
Greenagel often would find out well after the fact that Arauz had reconnected with his students outside of the classroom. Many of his former students contacted Greenagel after Arauz's death.
“He was such a larger-than-life figure,” Greenagel says.
Proceeds from the book are supporting a scholarship fund at Rutgers for military veterans in recovery from a substance use disorder.
The Psych Congress Network website includes a memorial page where people can submit memories of Arauz. Also, donations are being accepted through the end of this month for a fund that has been established for Arauz's young daughter, Olivia. Tax-deductible donations may be made through Friends and Neighbors in Action, a central New Jersey nonprofit that assists families in the region.