The clearest window into a person's private
thoughts is often when you are together in a
group.
Conversation about drug addiction and
alcoholism never comes easily. Usually it takes
one or two people to raise their hands with a
question or comment to get it started. Then
suddenly everyone joins in, until it is
difficult to know when to end it. And so I often
spend a lot of time in front of audiences
talking and listening far beyond the allotted
time. Nobody ever seems to complain, though.
It happened twice this week past. The first
was at a gathering of patients, their families,
alums and staff at Hazelden's treatment program
in Chicago. After all these years, I am pretty
good at reading my audience's sentiments; this
night, as I told my own story of addiction and
recovery, I knew that what resonated with many
of them was the titanic struggle of the family
dynamic.
"Mr. Moyers, your mother and father seemed to
know exactly what to do to get you help, even
when you were resistant. How did they know?"
asked a father whose son sat next to him,
shifting uncomfortably. I calculated that in
getting there, the young man had caused his
father much angst.
No two families are the same, I told him, and
in my parents' travails, their circumstances and
the lessons they learned through my addiction
led them to take action that may or may not
prove effective with other parents. What was
important, I reminded him, was that my parents
were relentless in never giving up, even while
their anger and frustration boiled over with an
intense dislike of my behavior and what
addiction had done to me, their eldest son.
"Hate the illness. Keep loving the person with
it," I told him. "It is never easy. It is
necessary." And other parents in the group
nodded. He was not alone.
I also spoke last week to patients in
treatment at St. Joseph's Hospital, not far from
my home in St. Paul, Minn. At the back of the
overflowing auditorium, a woman challenged my
point that it is never too late to get help.
"Mr. Moyers, what do you do when you've
already lost everything?" she asked, slowly
laying out her deficits. "My job, two cars, my
boyfriend, my scant savings, my animals — I
mean, I've got nothing."
A murmur of agreement rippled through the
air. This was a tough audience. All of them had
been there and done that, too. Most were
repeaters whose bottoms had cost them
innumerable losses. Some were just about out of
options.
I affirmed the reality of her loss. Addiction
robs the rich and makes poorer the poor. It
steals the hearts, souls and minds of its
victims, leaving them emotionally, morally,
financially and spiritually bankrupt. There is
no other way to tally the devastation.
But from across the room, I locked on to her
eyes and asked her a question that was directed
at not only her but also everyone there. "What
do you still have?"
Only for a moment did she pause. And then,
like a student who in a split second finds an
easy answer to an imponderable problem, she sat
up in her chair with wonderment on her face. "My
life," she said. And other addicts and
alcoholics in the group nodded. She was not
alone.
William Moyers is the vice president of
foundation relations for the Hazelden Foundation
and the author of "Broken," his best-selling
memoirs, and "A New Day, A New Life." Please
send your questions to William Moyers at
wmoyers@hazelden.org. To find out more about
William Moyers and read his past columns, visit
the Creators Syndicate Web page at
www.creators.com.
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