ADDICTIONS | OUR FEATURED TOPIC Journal Entries from the Front Lines by Melody Beattie and Lawrence Hans Minneapolis, Minnesota December 1972 Darrell, Paul and I had been burglarizing a lot of pharmacies lately. At the moment, we had damn near enough drugs to last until the end of the world. When I got to Darrell's house, I pounded on the door. "Come on in," he finally yelled. Darrell sat quietly on the couch. His expression was odd. The way he was sitting was odd, too -- slumped on the couch with his hands behind his back. Another man, one I hadn't met before, walked into the room. I headed for the stairway leading to the second floor. "Going to the bathroom," I said. "I'll be right back." I bounded up the steps, walked into the bathroom, closed the door and sat on the floor. I unzipped my right boot and took out a prepared syringe of liquid cocaine. Then I took off my belt, looped it tightly around my upper arm, and stabbed where I thought a vein might be. I pulled back on the plunger. Blood. I got lucky this time. I was in on the first try. The door to the bathroom burst open. One man pushed his way in and held a gun to my head. "Police. Put your hands up. You're under arrest." Put my hands up? I had just found a vein. If I was going to jail, I was going to have this last fix. "Put your hands up or we'll blow your brains out," he screamed. "Just a minute," I said. "I'm almost done." Smack, boy, dope, blow, codeine, morphine, crystal meth. You shoot it, smoke it, snort it, and rub it on your skin. It feels good. For the addict, it feels like love. Nations form alliances and spray poison on drug crops in third world countries while junkies find more things to put into their bodies and more ways of getting them there. Pre-teen boys sit behind the garage huffing paint thinner fumes from a paper bag and a restaurant manager drinks half a bottle of mouthwash before the lunch shift begins. Conventional wisdom says, "If we eliminate the drug, we eliminate the addict." Addict wisdom says, "Go ahead, take our drugs. We'll eat nutmeg, instead." ************** Willmar State Hospital Chemical Dependency Treatment Center Willmar, Minnesota August 1973 I shared a small bedroom in the treatment center with a woman named Jennifer. After lunch one day, I pulled Jennifer into the room and sat her down on the bed. I had a plan and I needed her help. "I've heard you can get high on nutmeg if you eat a lot of it," I said. "So this is what we're going to do...." We crept into the kitchen. She snatched the can off the shelf and we ran back to our room. I poured the contents on a paper towel, dividing it in two unequal piles. I told her I needed more because I had used more drugs than she had. We washed it down with water, and then ate until our piles were gone. By the farthest stretch of my imagination, it didn't qualify as getting high. It was like taking Thorazine. I didn't get a buzz, but we were so groggy we could barely get out of bed. You can lock us bare-naked in an empty closet, and we'll come out drunk. It's the nature of the disease -- alcoholism, chemical dependency, addiction. It fights against the cure. It attaches itself to us and seduces, convinces and finally coerces behaviors that were once unthinkable. It tells us lies so that we keep returning to the very thing we are allergic to, the thing that is killing us. The real war, the quiet war, is fought every day by recovering addicts all around the world. For the addict, the war is not about eliminating supply, it's about overcoming demand. We win only by admitting defeat. **************** Willmar Treatment Center October 1973 Something strange happened to me in the middle of the night, something that scared me. I realized I wasn't choosing to get high. I didn't have any choice at all. What had those people been talking about in those boring ridiculous meetings the treatment center had forced me to attend? "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol -- that our lives had become unmanageable." That wasn't entirely correct, I thought. I'm powerless over drugs too. More than 13 million Americans have problems with alcohol and more than 8.1 million are alcoholic, estimates the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. These addicts and alcoholics may be 12 years old or in a nursing home. They may be your boss, employee, neighbor, spouse, parent, child, or you. They may have a bad case of the disease. It may be in the beginning stages. The heroes in this war are the people with this disease who do what it takes to live in remission each day. The other heroes are those who help people recover from this disease, help them find a way to live again. ************** Minneapolis, Minnesota July 2001 I take a tour of R.S. Eden with Dan Cain, now its president. We're both responsible, tax-paying citizens. In our 50s now. But I knew Cain back when -- when the drug rehab program was one building called Eden House. I was newly sober and working with other addicts, and Cain was a counselor and freshly-recovered junkie, too. Recovered after four times in treatment, and two tries on the methadone program, that is. Cain shows me the Alliance apartments -- cute little furnished studios, drug- and alcohol-free living, and affordable -- for people in recovery. A woman opens her door, invites me in. She looks happy, sober, and safe. Grateful. Cain and I talk about current treatment issues: insurance companies that don't want to pay for treatment, politicians and government agencies that don't want to fund it, diversion versus incarceration, the need for long-term treatment when people have this disease really bad. I had been sentenced to treatment as a diversion to prison, back in 1973. The judge had said "for as long as it takes." It was a six-week program. It took me eight months. "You're my hero," I tell Cain. He has worked year after year, assisted by many, to build, expand and evolve this Minneapolis-based rehab program. "I'm not a hero," he says quietly. "When we get sober, we just start doing what we should have been doing all along. People ask me what life is like, after I got sober. I tell them 'It's all been gravy.' " He's right. It has. “It's all about making sure that those that come behind us have the same opportunities we did," he adds. Why doesn't Robert Downey Jr. just stop using drugs? Maybe he's like I was. He can't. The irony is the buzzword "self-help." Most people cannot help themselves. The good news is, they don't have to. Treatment options range from $30,000 a month posh centers in Malibu to free neighborhood meetings in church basements. Put a dollar in the kitty to help pay for coffee, if you can. Hazelden Foundation in Center City, Minn., [www.hazelden.org] offers treatment and aftercare to adults and teens. R. S. Eden in Minneapolis offers options ranging from diversionary programs to drug and alcohol-free communities for aftercare. Alcoholics Anonymous [www.alcoholics-anonymous.org] is free, widely available, and it works. These are just a few choices. There's a little something for everybody. If you need help, ask. Give yourself -- or someone you love -- a second chance. Melody Beattie is a reporter, former Minnesota resident and author of 13 books, including Codependent No More, Language of Letting Go, Lessons of Love, and Playing it by Heart. Lawrence Hans is a free-lance writer and photographer living in Southern California. Portions of this article were excerpted from Beattie's book, Playing It by Heart, Hazelden Information and Educational Services, 1999. Copyright © Melody Beattie and Lawrence Hans SEPT 2001