Four months on the road — dozens of appearances, rave reviews, pointed disappointments and a few brief "coincidental" encounters. Here are my top takeaways now that I am finally home from a book tour.
—Addiction to substances is everyone's problem. Of course, I've argued that for years. But at every stop, people remind me — among small-business owners at my hometown Rotary Club meeting in the Twin Cities, in the face of a chronic alcoholic in the front row at a seminary who is dying despite all the resources money buys, by the questions parents ask at a private academy where students are sure "bath salts" and synthetic marijuana aren't really drugs, between a husband and his reservedly drunk wife who sit side by side at The National Press Club in our nation's capital, desperately grasping for something to halt her relapse.
—Not everyone makes it past the problem, but a lot do. In every audience, I met a solid core of men and women and families whose experiences end with an exclamation point because they made it! The consequences are behind them, more or less. They are relieved. Grateful. Proud to share their stories. But I encounter an equal number of, if not more, people still caught in the morass of substances. They are perplexed. Scared. Angry. Desperate to share their stories. Hoping for an answer or one more chance. Invariably, a stark slice of those stories are punctuated by the loss of a loved one's life. I am troubled by how many parents tearfully tell stories of children who died from alcohol or other drugs.
—Segregation trumps discrimination. We know that stigma breeds discrimination against people who need and deserve to overcome addiction. Worse, though, is that even as we fight to end it, we don't fight it together. Almost always, my audiences were one color or another; they were diverse only behind the bars and walls of prisons and at "The Way," a church ministry in Memphis, Tenn. Aristotle said, "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." True, but only if we add up our efforts in one equation, even as we continue to focus on the target audiences unique to where we live, work or worship.
There is no reason The Salvation Army, a state-funded institution and a private treatment program can't join forces to promote access to recovery through community activities such as those on my tour. Addiction is an illness of isolation. The most effective antidote is what each of us does when we all do it in lock step, working as a team or coalition. Even a loose coalition is greater than a sum of our parts.
—Nothing grows if we don't plant seeds. I met an aged doctor who told me a story I'd forgotten. "Moyers, in '99, I met you in the aisle on a plane when I wanted to drink. We didn't know each other, but another passenger knew you and pointed you out when I was in trouble. There you were, coming out of the lavatory. We stood there. We talked. I didn't drink. Still haven't." He laughed as he hugged me. Sometimes we who have made it know whom and when we help. Sometimes we get a reminder a long time later. Often we never know. No matter. The harvest comes later, whether we know it or not.
—"What do you do if you don't want to live?" This question has carried me all the way home since I first got it at the 92nd Street Y on the eve of a February snowstorm in New York City. It was a complicated question that demanded a simple answer, so I said, "Turn to the person next to you and ask for help." Yesterday the questioner updated me, as he does almost every day now via email or a short message on my phone: "Now it's been 77 days. Still in outpatient treatment. Trying to stay sober. Yes, I'm better. Thanks." Same here, I told him. That's what it is all about — picking up, taking home and putting together the pieces of the ever-evolving mosaic of my own journey.
William Moyers is the vice president of public affairs and community relations for the Hazelden Foundation and the author of "Broken," his best-selling memoirs. His new book, "Now What? An Insider's Guide to Addiction and Recovery," was published last October. 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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