The one thought that kept this NJ cop from killing himself

Extended interview with Michael Bizzaro by David Matthau

Earlier this week, we told you about the ever-present problem of police officer suicides in New Jersey. Sayreville Detective Matthew Kurtz's death grabbed the headlines this week, but he's far from alone — 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.

Today we bring you the story of one former police officer who nearly took his own life.

Michael Bizzarro, Ph.D  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," Bizzaro 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, me not feeling really good about myself as being a result of the alcohol use,” he said.

Things continued to go downhill, he said. Finally, “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.

"I lost my childhood sweetheart and my son, and I’m left actually living in my head. My mind, which at one point was an ally, turned into the enemy.”

Bizzarro described the experience as “the 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 to change, the best thing you could do is end it,'” he said. “'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 your drug or you do whatever you can to try numb it or stop it, but just keeps playing.”

But then suddenly, something unexpected happened:

“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,” he said.

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.

But Bizzaro said many police still fear going to their department administration — worried that if they seek help from mental health professionals, they could wind up suspended from active duty for extended periods.

But he said many administration officials are proactive, and work to get officers the help they need. Bizzaro said he'd like to see that accepting attitude spread further.

Bizzarro added another part of the problem is many officers have the sense that if they ask for mental health, it’s a sign that they’re weak — and being weak goes against all of their law enforcement training.

His message to officers in crisis is simple:

“No matter how dark and deep the hole of despair may be in your life, talking to another fellow officer or a professional can create the ladder that gets you out of that hole,” he said.

The 24-hour Cop 2 Cop hotline — 866-COP2COP — provides support for law enforcement members and their families, focusing on suicide prevention and mental health.

The New Jersey Critical Incident Stress Management Team (NJCISM) and the New Jersey Crisis Intervention Response Network (CIRN) also offer hotlines and counseling to emergency responders. NJCISM is at 609-780-7700 and CIRN is at (609) 394-3600.