This was originally written as a response to an editorial in the New York Post. Of course, they didnšt publish it.
Dear Editor:
On June 1st, 1999, you printed a letter from a Mr. Gerald K. McOscar entitled "The Addiction Excuse," an essay on the wickedness of addictions, and which included his opinions regarding what he felt was one very unfortunate remark made by Darryl Strawberry's good friend and team-mate, Dwight Gooden, that being, "Once you're an addict, you're an addict for life." Mr. McOscar took serious umbrage with the remark, stating "I almost cried when I read this," his reaction apparently NOT because of the devastating validity of the claim, but because he was in furious disagreement. He inferred that the taking of drugs is always the result of a lack of character, and simply a matter of making the wrong choices at midnight in the garden of good and evil.
As someone who has struggled unsuccessfully with drug addiction for over forty years, I DID cry when I read these condemning words. I also feel I have the right to inquire - What qualifies Mr. McOscar (as a Pennsylvania lawyer and not a pain specialist or scientist of brain chemistry) to pass this severely harsh and absolute judgment on Darryl Strawberry or anyone like him?
My intentions are not to be disrespectful or confrontational; I am as sincere as a country church supper when I say that it amazes me as to how naive and consequently merciless people can be when it comes to the subject of addiction. And although I can already hear the voices raised in collective protest, I believe this is true and I AM going to say it and that is that unless you're an addict, you can't even begin to understand the sad reality of Mr. Gooden's statement.
Just like I cannot comprehend what bizarre and savage sensations compel an individual suffering from Tourette's Syndrome to spasm uncontrollably and bark and growl and utter profanities at the most awkward of moments, neither do I believe that a normal person can understand the unrelenting and insidious discomfort that drives someone like myself to narcotics.
There are scientific explanations for the following I am sure, but not being a scientist, I'll have to beg for your patience as I am forced to make do with my own inadequate vocabulary. I compare the problem of addiction to the fairy tale "Pandora's box" (once you open it, you can never close it again). I believe that once an addict has developed a physical addiction, their brain's already defective chemical system becomes even more and forever disrupted and never fully returns to home base - not ever; it can't you see, because for one thing, it won't ever be possible for this individual to completely eradicate the physical and emotional memory of what it was like to feel reasonably comfortable for maybe the first time in their entire, miserable, and endorphin anemic life.
While slapping themselves in the heads with exasperation, people ask the addict over and over "Why, why, why? You know it's destroying your life, and yet still you do it. WHY DO YOU DO IT? WHY DO YOU TAKE DRUGS?" And the addict tries to explain, usually replying "Because without drugs, I feel bad." People conclude "Well, that's no excuse; I feel very bad on plenty of occasions, but I can't go running to drugs every time I get a little depressed." And there it is - what I call the "Zillion Dollar Misunderstanding." It's not "feeling bad" in the normal sense which drives an addict to drugs - it is the result of their malfunctioning brain sending out the incorrect chemical messages to the rest of their body resulting in a constant sensation of discomfort, and they can only take so much before they've just got to have some relief. Unfortunately, most addicts don't know how to articulate this. They don't know how to tell you that they have all the regular depressions and sadness and anxieties to contend with as everyone else - but in addition, they have a low pain tolerance to deal with, an inability to deal with pain which is due to a lack of endorphins, (what scientists have named the natural substance that everyone's body is supposed to make at least some of). Apparently these endorphins act very much the same as opioids (dope), only without all the horrible side effects and it's been said by the scientists who discovered them, that they are seven hundred times more potent than any other narcotic. Meanwhile, I don't know what's so difficult to figure out; people are born with all sorts of shortcomings and disabilities - well, why isn't it understandable that this is just one more human frailty, an inadequacy - a defect - the concept being that addicts don't have enough natural pain killer and as a result, they feel terrible in a way that other people don't. Simple.
I truly believe that those of us with substance abuse problems were either born with or early acquired this physical defect, this anemia; I do not believe that it came about as a result of making bad decisions, or by hanging out with the wrong crowd. When you're an addict, you ARE the "wrong crowd."
And a vicious cycle begins with a child like this, right from the start, because this kid IS going to be more difficult to deal with; he's going to react to discomfort more severely than a normal child, which translates into more crying, whining, screaming, and needing attention and disturbing of the parents. The parents may be the sweetest angels in the world. But I wonder how long it will take before this constant irritation will get to be too much? Then they will be impatient with the child - aggravating the situation. And what ever is the answer? God I wish I knew.
But at least in my case, however it may have been that I acquired this problem, I can promise you with my hand on the Bible and from the bottom of my truest heart - I did not accept my sentence of addiction lying down. I fought hard, did everything I knew and then some trying to find a way to learn how to live drug free. I went to rehab after rehab, subjected myself to program after program.
I voluntarily spent six months at "Daytop Village" in Staten Island, "learning how to grow up" was what they called it. I attended endless group therapies where people screamed at each other for hours without stop. I lived in a regimented environment, an atmosphere much like your regular old boot camps, where I was forced to do endless and mindless chores, especially as punishment against any infraction of the rules, punishments which included scrubbing toilets with toothbrushes while being forced to wear funny signs that proclaimed a variety of things, (most of them containing the phrase "I am an ass-hole"). And then there was my favorite - this punishment for the females, which was being forbidden to wear cosmetics, then forced to place a stocking cap over one's head and hairdo, making you look bald (to humiliate basically - knock you down a peg or two) - the penalty for anything from splitting and then coming back begging re-admittance, to being negative and allowing yourself to daydream about your old drug days. It was extreme yes, but I had an extreme disease and I was willing to try anything.
Next I went to Synanon for two and a half years of more of the same, except an even more psychologically strenuous and sophisticated program, (Synanon the grand-daddy of all rehabs). When that didn't work either, I still kept trying - I tried everything I heard of, from spending three thousand dollars on a useless "Ibogaine treatment" (I had to break the law to raise the fee for that one) to attempting a "Native American Vision Quest," where I stood on one leg facing the east until I grew exhausted and fell over, unable to complete the three day exercise.
I've done it all - went the route from organic, macrobiotic, all-raw vegetarian diets and high colonic enemas to spending tons of money on psychiatrists, (self appointed "experts" who knew less about addiction than I did) - from going to hospitals where I was attended to like a "sick person," to being thrown in jail and treated like a criminal of the worst ilk, beaten and left to vomit and convulse on the cold cement floor. I've been to NA and AA where I surrendered to a higher power. I've been to church where I died to the flesh and was born again. I have stood on my own two feet and taken control of my life. I have let go and let God. You name it - I tried it and gave it my all.
And guess what? I'm still a drug addict. I am fifty eight years old and whether or not I act on this reality changes nothing - I am still and always will be physiologically predispositioned to substance abuse and narcotics addiction - all due to some sort of hideous and incurable chemical disorder in my brain that is probably genetic and was probably passed on to me in my DNA.
Let me use the following analogy (a favorite of mine) to try and prove to you with simple logic why I believe that addiction has nothing to do with a lack of will power or poor character.
I do not drink alcohol. For as long as I can remember, I've hated the taste, the smell, and most of all, I abhor the way it makes me feel. It is unpleasant and sickening to me, consequently, I have never had any desire to drink. In my case, where alcohol is concerned, there is no temptation and even stark, cold reality, hard as it might be to bear, is preferable to that state commonly referred to as "being intoxicated." I'd rather die than have to be drunk all the time.
I don't believe for a second that this is any indication of my having made the right decisions in life; I just don't like to drink and so I don't. I couldn't tell you why if my life depended on it. It's simply that way I found things to be. Do I deserve some sort of reward or credit for this? Was it really a mark of my courage that I decided not to drink (since it made me feel so terrible)? I don't think so.
Now, to get back to Dwight Gooden's remark. If I may be so bold and assuming, here is what I believe he may have been trying to say. "Sooner or later an addict will goof up, even if only once in a while and/or a teeny bit. And when and if this happens, I don't think it's fair for people to react so severely. After all, when someone like Rosie O'Donnell falls off the wagon and eats a couple of extra Twinkies, or inhales a gallon of ice cream, no one arrests her or plasters her name all over the front pages of every newspaper in the country. She does not have to go to court and allow some judge who may not be good enough to lick her boots to admonish her in public, speak down to and lecture her and threaten to ruin her career or fine her till she's broke and her life is in a shambles."
No one does this to a drunk when he falls off the wagon and takes a drink. Oh sure, there may be consequences, he may have to go to rehab; they may throw him in a hospital for a few months; his boss may fire him from his job; his wife may leave him and his family may turn their backs on him, but, he doesn't have to go to prison and be run through the gauntlet of the criminal justice system right along with the serial killers and child molesters and thieves and bank robbers. Not unless he was drinking and driving perhaps or worse yet, got into some sort of an accident and killed someone while under the effects of liquor is there ever a prison sentence involved.
I'm not going to try and tell you that a tendency towards addiction is an excuse to let it all hang out. Of course everyone should always fight to rise above their unfortunate circumstances and weaknesses. But to deny that there might be legitimate reasons for these problems is no more reasonable than to be in denial about our defects.
I have a friend who loves to pat himself on the back and take credit for the fact that he's fit and trim, even though it appears to me that it has required little effort on his part to manage this, I mean, he doesn't diet or work out or make any special efforts to maintain his condition - it just seems to be his good fortune that he's got a good metabolism and he's "built that way."
But oh God, you should hear him crow - insisting that being fat is only the result of weakness, nothing but a matter of a lack of simple, everyday will power. He says this often - his "proof" and I quote "They don't have fat people in concentration camps." To his limited scope, there's the whole thing in a nutshell - that people only get fat when there's too much food available. He grew quite annoyed with me when I mentioned that I felt he was missing the entire point, that being, that it wasn't just a matter of who stuffed too much food down their gullet when given the opportunity, it was who suffered more in between meals? Who's mind would give them no rest when they were feeling hungry? Who's tummy ached the most when it was empty and which of them would be the first to cheat to get an extra morsel of food? Which of them laid awake at night with their mouths watering?
In a situation like that, I'd be the one with all the character and ability to control myself. I don't really care about food too much, never have, in fact, I consider it a bother and wish I didn't have to worry about eating but could just drink something three times a day and be done with it. So - is this a mark of my good character? I don't think so.
If you're like my adoptive mother, who simply abhors the way opioids make her feel (they give her headaches; they make her dizzy, nauseous and itchy) you won't have addiction tendencies because just like in my case with the alcohol, when there is no pleasure, there is no temptation.
I myself am currently not using heroin or cocaine or street drugs or pills etc. For over seven years I have been successfully making do with a small daily dose of methadone, and although most folks might not be impressed, I am overjoyed with my limited success; it was more than I ever hoped for. And guess what I attribute a great deal of this new-found freedom from drugs to? Hormones. I am no longer driven by bizarre and overwhelming forces and desires that I cannot even understand - in particular, I don't fall in love with idiots and get my heart broken and wind up love sick and unable to function. I don't feel restless with the need to go out and prowl the streets, the nightclubs, the parties, looking for sexual company. I have a little peace now and can actually focus on other things (like writing this letter for instance).
I watch the hysterical young girls in the spring time and other than a passing moment of nostalgic envy for their youthful energy and spirit and beauty, I find myself feeling rather sorry for them; they haven't a clue, but I do, I know they're under a spell and not really in control of their emotions and consequently their actions. They're being directed by subconscious desires and hormones.
My urges to get loaded are nowhere as strong as they used to be since I went through menopause, no longer overwhelming and so now, lo and behold, miracle of miracles (sarcasm intended) I find I am able to handle it and so I do. It makes me wonder if all of this time I've been blaming myself, calling myself names, believing I deserved to be spat upon by all of society...perhaps I was wrong. Maybe it wasn't all my fault. Maybe it's a sin that I was judged so harshly and treated so badly.
As for Darryl Strawberry? Okay, maybe he's not fit to be playing sports anymore. And no, he can't be a good role model for young kids anymore. But my goodness, he's been though an awful lot lately, and maybe he deserves to be excused for his recent misbehavior. Just think of all he's going through - his beloved career is done and over; he has colon cancer and this is his second bout with this dread disease; he's lost a kidney, and last but not least, he's having to deal with the serious fears and depression related to chemotherapy treatments while away from his family and friends and loved ones and familiar surroundings, plus he's fighting this addiction - and on top of everything else, he's having to do it all under enough stress and duress to drive anyone over the edge, since, as a public figure, he is held up to the highest and most unreasonable scrutiny.
One last thought - I wonder if those cops who busted Darryl that night with the tiniest little amount of cocaine in his wallet went out later to celebrate the gold star they received from their Sergeant for "doing such a good job." Wonder if they stopped off at the local bar after work to share a beer?
It must be nice to live in a country where your poison is legal, available, and reasonably priced.
Besides writing poetry and short stories, Anntelope plays piano and guitar, composes songs (blues, jazz, country, rock and roll), and even paints a bit. Check out her web page, East Village Poetry.