Fifteen years ago when I was working with William Cope Moyers on his memoir, “Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption,” we spent many hours talking about the enduring stigma of addiction.
Stigma, simply put, is shame and blame. According to my trusty thesaurus, to stigmatize is to brand, defame, discredit, disgrace.
“Even where I live in St. Paul, known nationally for being the ‘crossroads of recovery,’” William said, “the stigma prevents people from thinking about alcoholics and other drug addicts as ‘good people with a bad illness.’”
He told me a story to make his point. With his oldest son in town (then a pre-teenager), William went to the neighborhood bank where he’d been a customer for more than a decade. He filled out the appropriate paperwork to open a savings account for his son.
A young bank officer reviewed the information and then looked up at William with an odd smile on his face.
“Oh, you work for Hazelden,” he said. “Isn’t that the place where you fix those crooked people?”
The bank officer bent his index finger into a grotesque shape to emphasize his point.
William took a moment to respond. He knew this was a teachable moment for the young man.
“What do you mean, ‘crooked people’?” William asked, careful to keep his tone level and polite.
“You know, the ones who aren’t right,” the bank officer replied, the smile still on his face. “They’re ‘crooked.’”
“You mean people like me?” William said.
“Oh no, not the people who work there. I’m sure they’re all good people like you,” said the bank officer, clearly flustered. “I’m talking about the ones who go to that place to get fixed.”
“Before I worked at Hazelden, I went to treatment there,” William told the bank officer. “I am one of ‘those’ people. And I was never ‘crooked.’”
The young man fumbled for a reply. “Right, well, let’s move on,” he began, but William interrupted him.
“Alcoholics and other addicts look just like everyone else who comes into this bank,” William said. “Recovering people, including me, live and work in this neighborhood, using your bank’s services to spend and save their money.”
The bank officer kept his head down and quickly finished the paperwork.
The next time William visited the bank, he told the manager that it might be a good idea for his young employee to visit Hazelden, just to see what goes on there.
“I doubt that he did,” William told me, “but if he had, he would have seen men and women, young and old, educated and uneducated, struggling not only to overcome their disease but to understand it, too, so they can learn how to live with their shame.”
Shame, I might add, that is greatly exacerbated by society’s stereotypical view of addicted people as somehow “crooked” or abnormal.
When William speaks to men and women, young and older, who seek help for their addictions, he offers a message about the meaning of recovery and the fundamental value of community -- words that he hopes might be heard and understood by the young bank officer and millions of others who do not understand addiction.
“We have an illness that cannot be cured,” William says, “and recovery requires that we work hard every day to be humble, honest, tolerant, forgiving, and, always, teachable. Every time we go to a meeting, answer a cry for help, or ask for help ourselves, we witness the necessity of this daily work, but even more important, we are reminded that we are not alone.
“At its heart and in its soul, recovery from addiction is about fellowship – becoming part of a bigger whole. We are all broken, and the only ‘cure’ for our brokenness is to be broken together.”
To William’s words, I would only add: All human beings, addicted or not, are in one way or another, at one time or another, “broken”—hurting, suffering, lonely, afraid, anxious, despairing.
Being broken together is much more likely to heal and make us whole than being broken apart.
William C. Moyers is Vice President of Public Affairs and Community Relations at Hazelden Betty Ford, based in Minnesota. The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation offers comprehensive inpatient and outpatient treatment for adults and youth, with 17 locations nationwide as well as Virtual Care and Recovery Support Services. Confidential email forms and phone numbers are listed on Hazelden’s website, www.hazeldenbettyford.org
