Rest in Love Tod Abrams
The Reluctant Daddy TV Pilot as Tod explains is about: "A gay dad who sold his soul to the devil in the city of angels for the benefit of his son. It's about losing oneself but also gaining so much insight into yourself. It's an historical record of what went on, but it's written in a pithy, bitchy way."
Tod Abrams The Reluctant Daddy -- Twitter
Tod wrote a highly successful blog, The Reluctant Daddy, which had been
picked up to become a reality series. His chosen subtitle for the blog was "A gay dad
in Hollywood turns his married with children nightmare into the American
dream."
IMDB Tod Abrams was an actor and executive producer, known for Kept Boy (2017) and The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green
(2005). Creative executive at New Line Cinema and Fine Line Features.
Founder and President of Alternative Marketing Solutions in Hollywood, California, USA. Attended The George Washington University.
Degree Name BBA.
Field of Study
Marketing. Graduation
– Attended The American College of Paris 1982 and California State University 2000- 2004. As a Hollywood marketing expert, Tod participated in speaking engagements at conferences and on panels at the Hollywood guilds. He was a dedicated
volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles and a
trained volunteer at the local crisis center for the Suicide Prevention Line. Sadly, Tod died by suicide on August 30, 2015 in Delray Beach, Florida,
USA.
"I was deeply saddened to hear of Tod's passing. My deepest
condolences to his family. I did find much joy in seeing how many wonderful
things he continued to do since we had last seen each other. Wishing his
family my prayers and well wishes. His memory truly is a blessing to all." Amy (Labowitz) Johnson
Tod speaks on the panel "Extreme Makeover: Social Media Edition" on 1/27/10. Presented by CAPE. Photos by Sheri Bryant. 
1994 as a New Line Cinema executive, Tod creates the one sheet; the film poster advertising and marketing with Jim Carrey for Dumb and Dumber. The film grossed 247 million at the box office. They also worked on The Mask together and became good friends. Photos by Blake Little.
Tod Abrams The Reluctant Daddy -- Twitter
Tod wrote a highly successful blog, The Reluctant Daddy, which had been picked up to become a reality series. His chosen subtitle for the blog was "A gay dad in Hollywood turns his married with children nightmare into the American dream."
IMDB Tod Abrams was an actor and executive producer, known for Kept Boy (2017) and The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green
(2005). Creative executive at New Line Cinema and Fine Line Features.
Founder and President of Alternative Marketing Solutions in Hollywood, California, USA. Attended The George Washington University.
Degree Name BBA.
Field of Study
Marketing. Graduation
– Attended The American College of Paris 1982 and California State University 2000- 2004. As a Hollywood marketing expert, Tod participated in speaking engagements at conferences and on panels at the Hollywood guilds. He was a dedicated
volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles and a
trained volunteer at the local crisis center for the Suicide Prevention Line. Sadly, Tod died by suicide on August 30, 2015 in Delray Beach, Florida,
USA.
"I was deeply saddened to hear of Tod's passing. My deepest
condolences to his family. I did find much joy in seeing how many wonderful
things he continued to do since we had last seen each other. Wishing his
family my prayers and well wishes. His memory truly is a blessing to all." Amy (Labowitz) Johnson
Attribution to THE COASTAL STAR -- By Nick Madigan. Delray Beach: Xanax, addiction and death. 'Family members search for answers after suicide at beachside rehab house.' Tod Abrams’ last act, in a life that included a once-thriving
career as a Hollywood film executive and fathering a son whom he said he
adored, was to tie a pair of bathrobe cords together, loop them around
his neck and fix a knot below his left ear. Then he hanged himself from a
metal rod in a closet.
“The anguish, anxiety and nightmares
were unbearable,” the 52-year-old Abrams had written in a note to his
family. Police found it on a dresser in his room on Aug. 30 last year,
after he had been dead for a few hours. It was only a month after he had
sought help with his addiction to Xanax, a sedative used to treat
anxiety, at a $60,000-a-month residential facility run by Caron
Treatment Centers in an upscale oceanside neighborhood in Delray Beach.
“I haven’t slept in 4 days and I’m probably beginning to hallucinate,”
his note went on. “The people here were very kind but the program was
too rigorous, too difficult. I’m too fatigued to proceed on. I don’t
have the strength.”
With his death, Abrams joined the hundreds —
perhaps thousands — of people suffering from substance use disorders
who in recent years have succumbed to their disease in Florida. In Palm
Beach County alone, at least 377 people died last year from drug
overdoses, according to Pamela Cavender, the records custodian for the
county’s medical examiner, citing statistics that are still being
assembled. The problem, Cavender said, is “out of control.”
While the level of commitment to battling drug abuse varies widely, the
success rate of treatment is exemplified not only by the almost
ceaseless procession of deaths — whether by overdose, suicide or other
means — but by the parade of addicts going in and out of rehabilitation
centers and so-called sober homes in Delray Beach and other towns in
South Florida.
Distraught addicts who announce their intention
to kill themselves are routinely taken for evaluation to the South
County Mental Health Center and other institutions under the terms of
the Baker Act, which provides for involuntary commitment of people
deemed a danger to themselves or others.
“Any time a kid says,
‘I’m going to kill myself,’ he gets Baker Acted,” said a Delray Beach
firefighter-paramedic who asked not to be named and who has often
transported such patients. “We’re doing 10 of those a week.”
In
the wake of Abrams’ death, his younger sister, Jill, and other
relatives have been left to wonder why no such action was taken in his
case, especially since he took part in regular counseling sessions at
the Caron facility and, according to his family, often discussed his
state of mind with anyone who would listen. It remains unclear whether
he actually brought up the subject of suicide while at Caron, and
officials of its parent organization declined to comment on his time
there.
Still, two days before her brother left for Delray Beach,
Jill Abrams said, he told her he wanted to end it all. “ ‘The meds tell
me to kill myself,’ ” she recalled him saying, and described him as
“panicking and bouncing off the walls, crying hysterically.”
“We all knew as a family that my brother was suicidal,” she said, and
asked why it might not have been equally apparent to the caregivers at
Caron. “He was there to be weaned off drugs, but I assumed that in all
these counseling sessions they were also going to deal with his suicidal
feelings.”
Six months before he died, however, Abrams suggested
in a blog that he had come to terms with ending his addiction to Xanax,
which he said he had begun taking only to help him sleep.
“I am
truly heartbroken today as I have to break up with the great love of my
life,” he wrote. “I love Xanax. Of course my doctor never told me that
Xanax is highly addictive.”
He wrote that, as with heroin, a
Xanax addict cannot simply go “cold turkey”: suddenly and completely
ceasing the use of a drug. Such a shock, he went on, would result in
full “meltdown” and leave him “blubbering and incoherent.”
Abrams, who had held executive positions at New Line Cinema and Fine
Line Features, founded Alternative Marketing Solutions, produced several
independent films and accumulated considerable wealth, asked his blog
readers to pray for him, “for I have lost the greatest love I have ever
known and his name is Xanax, Xanax, Xanax.”
Before traveling
last summer from his home in Los Angeles to Delray Beach, Abrams had
tried to detoxify for eight days in Long Beach, Calif., but his effort
foundered and he went back to taking the drug, according to a family
member. After he had arrived at Caron’s residence at 1232 Seaspray Ave.,
the task was to wean him off his dependence on Xanax and transition him
to lesser narcotics.
But things apparently began to go wrong
very quickly. On Aug. 16, after having been there only two weeks, Abrams
wrote in his journal that he had already attempted suicide and “was
quite serious about killing myself.” He went on: “I planned to hang
myself and nearly completed the task.”
The following day, his
caretakers diagnosed him with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and put
him on Zyprexa, an antipsychotic medication. According to his medical
records, Abrams also had been prescribed Zofran, to combat toxic side
effects that were making him vomit; Inderal, which is used to treat
tremors, chest pain and high blood pressure; and Xopenex, which
addresses lung problems such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease.
Paradoxically, his sister said, Abrams appears to have been on more
medications at the end of his month at Caron than when he arrived.
Abrams’ relatives and friends remain perplexed as to whether his caretakers were fully aware of the depth of his despair.
Did no one at Caron — which claims on its website to have
attendants on duty around the clock — learn that Abrams continued to
have severe anxiety and insomnia, and that when he did manage to sleep
he had raging nightmares?
Two days before he died, Abrams was
reported to have been vomiting profusely. Why was he not taken to an
emergency room, especially since he was so ill that someone at Caron
canceled a visit by Abrams’ father?
Why was he allowed to have belts, the kind of item often used in suicides?
Why would a rehab facility take Abrams and a few other patients out to see a violent film like Straight Outta Compton on what turned out to be Abrams’ penultimate night alive?
After Abrams’ death, his toxicology report showed a significant
amount of caffeine in his system. Why was he allowed to consume coffee
or caffeinated drinks, especially since the mix of caffeine and powerful
drugs might have been contributing to his chronic sleeplessness?
Those questions and others were posed to Karen Pasternack, a
spokeswoman for Caron, which sent two grief counselors to the home of
Abrams’ mother after his death.
In an email message to The Coastal Star, Pasternack declined to address any issues related to Abrams or his care.
“The law and Caron’s own high ethical standards forbid our employees
from discussing even the smallest of details about any patient,
including confirming the identity of current or former patients,” wrote
Pasternack, who said she represented the views of Bradley F. Sorte, the
executive director of Caron’s facilities in Delray and Boca Raton, which
are licensed by Florida’s Department of Children and Families to
provide rehabilitation services.
“We will never violate federal
or state laws or breach our patients’ sacred trust,” she went on. “We
can proudly state that many Caron alumni, who have returned to their
communities in Florida, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, know firsthand the
strength of our programs. Caron fully complies with the law and adheres
to the highest medical and psychological best practices with a focused
commitment to transforming the lives of individuals and families
impacted by addiction.”
Some years before Abrams’ death, a
doctor in Beverly Hills, Calif., began prescribing a daily dose of Xanax
to help fight his insomnia, according to Jill Abrams, who spoke from
her home in Los Angeles. She said her brother was not told that the drug
could have a permanent and negative effect on the chemistry of his
brain.
When she spoke with her brother by phone about halfway
through his stay in Delray Beach, he told her he “wanted to run away”
from the residence, and that he had been going for 10-mile walks on the
beach almost every day.
“That was not a good thing, because he
was already so thin,” Jill Abrams said of her 5-foot, 8-inch-tall
brother, who weighed 127 pounds when he died. “I can’t understand why he
had such freedom. I thought it was a lock-down facility. In the rehab
places in California, the patients don’t walk off on their own. They
really watch them.”
In any case, she said, the death of her
brother has left her not only deeply saddened but remorseful. “I feel
incredible guilt,” she said, “for not hospitalizing him here in Los
Angeles when he told me he was suicidal.”
In a blog, Jill Abrams
wrote about the drug that bore perhaps more direct responsibility for
her brother’s demise. “I am left feeling that we need to understand why
this insidious drug is as prevalently over-prescribed as it is,” she
wrote. “In rehab, Tod began working on his ideas for a foundation to
educate and lobby for more transparency with prescription drugs like
Xanax. Let my brother’s unexpected death put a spotlight on this dire
epidemic in America.”
After Tod Abrams’ suicide, criticism of
his treatment at Caron prompted a defense of the company by John Lehman,
president of the Florida Association of Recovery Residences, which
seeks to improve industry standards.
“I remain confident that
this particular organization strives to serve their clients with the
highest level of professionalism,” he wrote in an email, referring to
Caron. “In point of fact, were the remainder of the Florida provider
group as committed to delivery of quality services, there would be
significantly less demand for oversight.”
Lehman — who dismissed
as “absurd” the persistent allegations from Delray Beach residents that
recovering and relapsed addicts had committed crimes and caused other
problems in their neighborhoods — extended his condolences to the Abrams
family.
“As is evidenced by this tragic story, a highly
accomplished, creative and well-respected artist lost his battle to an
insidious brain disease that robbed him of hope,” Lehman said. “May he
rest in peace.”
Tags: caron treatment centers, delray beach, hollywood film executive, tod abrams. xanax addiction, beachside rehab house, drug overdoses, news, suicide, patient brokers
The Coastal Star -- award-winning monthly newspaper covering the South Florida coastal communities of South Palm Beach, Hypoluxo Island, Manalapan, Ocean Ridge, Briny Breezes, Gulf Stream, Highland Beach and coastal neighborhoods of Delray Beach and Boca Raton. The Coastal Star Publisher Jerry Lower Exec. Editor Mary Kate Leming. NY Times correspondent Nick Madigan. For The New York Times, Madigan covered the Columbia shuttle disaster, the aftermath of 9/11, the trial of Michael Jackson, the abduction of Elizabeth Smart, the Orlando nightclub killings, and the Hulk Hogan case, among many other stories.
Link to Tod's Coastal Star article: By Nick Madigan
Tribute video to Tod Abrams
"The best part of fatherhood that was unexpected was the relationship that I would have with my son. It would actually turn out to be fun. He is my soul and heart." Tod Abrams
February 4, 2016 at 11:30 THE COASTAL STAR -- Mary Kate Leming Editor's Note: Drug rehab industry should shed more light through veil of privacy.
When someone you love takes his own life, it leaves a
large aching space packed full of questions. I know, because I lost a
brother to suicide. He was 51. This is why when I learned of Tod Abrams’
death at the Caron Ocean Drive facility in Delray Beach I thought of
his family and all the questions they must have.
I also thought
of the neighbors who live near the two facilities in this neighborhood
and all the questions they’ve been asking for several years now about
the houses next door.
Through our reporting, I learned a little
about Tod Abrams and was struck by how well this handsome and
accomplished man would have fit into this coastal Delray Beach
neighborhood. I also learned a lot about Xanax and its dangers.
These things made me wonder how many others living along the beach are struggling with mental health issues or addiction.
I hoped that by putting a human face on addiction and the growing
number of drug-related deaths in our area, we might all be able to find a
few answers to our questions.
I didn’t really expect full
answers. With addiction treatment and mental illness there is a heavy
veil drawn to keep questions out. And with suicide, there are always
more questions than answers. But if local media don’t try to lift this
veil, who will?
Mental health agencies work diligently to
educate the public while struggling to find funding for these efforts.
In the meantime, the addiction treatment industry has lagged far behind
in opening its doors to help educate the public about what first
responders say has become a public health crisis.
I understand
why Caron and other treatment facilities work diligently to protect the
privacy of their clients. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be doing
educational outreach to the community, and yes, even to their neighbors.
Why not hold an occasional open house to let the folks next door see
the facilities and learn about treatment methods? Why not work with the
city to hold a series of educational programs?
The city of
Delray Beach is being proactive about educating its residents about drug
addiction. It’s time for the drug-rehab industry to step up, pull out
the checkbook and pull back the veil to answer questions.
There won’t always be answers, of course, but sometimes healing can begin just by being able to ask the questions.
— Mary Kate Leming, Editor
Additional links related to Tod Abrams
FIRST TO KNOW By Afarin Majidi Young Hollywood Exec Dies from Xanax Withdrawals in Florida Rehab
MIAMI HERALD South Florida con artists turn ‘sober homes’ into insurance scam. Residents on Seaspray Avenue in Delray Beach complained about this $3 million sober home. A sign posted on Seaspray Avenue in Delray Beach is situated across from a sober living facility operating as Caron Ocean Drive."Caron your business is not welcome in our single family neighborhood."
Tod's father was pleasantly surprised by the DNA results. He confessed that in a deeply loving, paternal way, John Funari often told him, "I will always take care of you." He accredited John for his good hair and street smarts, like keeping money in his socks. This discovery of Italian ancestry is a revelation, as Tod's favorite place in the world was Capri, Italy where he and George lived their fondest memories abroad.
"Mickey was the quintessential hedonist and a lovable one. Never making enemies but always seeking intimacy especially with women. He truly loved playing baseball as did his brother, Alvin. He was the consummate salesman, his eyes always on the ball as it was in the game he loved so much. I will always remember his charming ways and his mischievous smile."
~ New name, same evil. ~
A special thank you to Florida's Department of Children and Family for caring. We waited a lifetime to receive expert validation. Bless you.
Youtuber contenttocommerce
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| Tod's Mom Loretta with her adorable grandson Ethan. Her dream come true. |
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| BEAUTIFUL TOD |
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Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Matthew 10:16