Hi, I'm Laura, and I'm a grateful, recovering addict today. Last night I just couldn't turn off Lawrence O'Donnell. Once I realized it what was about Charlie Sheen I couldn't turn away from what was playing out before my eyes.
Disgust and indignation has been expressed here over the air time given an out of control celebrity, on the surface that is a legitimate reaction.
My disgust and indignation stems from Lawrence O' Donnell's interviews is that he left out the fact that we are watching someone die.
When other celebrities have been dying from cancers of various types we haven't made it a form of entertainment, we haven't been outraged when they were interviewed before they were too ill and unable to give one.
Addiction kills people and it's killing Charlie Sheen. He is just the latest celebrity whose slide downward to jails or death has been made entertainment by our sick and twisted media.
Addiction is a disease. (PDF)
Disease can be defined using several criteria. Lewis2 suggests that criteria for
disease include the degree to which: the condition has a clear biological basis; is marked by
identifiable signs and symptoms; shows a predictable course and outcome; and the condition
or its manifestations are not caused by volitional acts. According to Hyman6, Leshner8, and
the DSMIV, addiction is characterized by a person’s marked impairment in their ability to
control their alcohol or other drug use. This loss of control, as it is often called, expresses itself
as a person’s inability to predict when she or he will discontinue their use, once begun. The
condition is characterized as one that is chronic, progressive, and relapsing.
The American Medical Association16, American Psychiatric Association17, and World Health
Organization18, have stated that addiction is a disease. A joint 1990 report of the Committee
of the American Society of Addiction Medicine and National Council on Alcoholism and
Drug Dependence provided a detailed description of alcoholism as a disease19,20. In 1960, a researcher named Jellinek delineated five types of alcoholism and classifies three as diseases3.
What is the research that has led so many groups to state that addiction is a disease?
As the disease progresses it alters how our brains work, it causes real and sometimes irreversible damage.
When I was an A and B student all through school, and an accomplished violinist, I didn't plan to grow up to be an addict.
Nobody does. We all pick up that first legal drug, alcohol, assuming we are wired just like anyone else, but we aren't. I sure as hell didn't choose to go down a path where I'd hurt everyone whose lives I touched, especially my family, and most of all my children.
Denial, refusal to accept truth and reality, is a deadly aspect of the disease of addiction. Financial wealth like Sheen has makes it even more powerful. He can afford to surround himself with those that would enable him and buffer the consequences of his addiction.
This morning I was glad to hear that his children had been removed and he is being denied access to them. Not only is this in the best interest of his children, but it might be the one thing that breaks through the rock solid layers of denial keeping Sheen in his self-destructive cycle. It certainly was what saved my life.
Why does this matter to us as a country?
Because we as a country are in denial about addiction and the social consequences of it.
We have weakened the abilities of families and friends to commit those who need long term intervention. Even if those barriers were taken away, whether someone gets help voluntarily, or involuntarily through commitment, there are not enough treatment center.
The prison industry that most addicts end up in is much more profitable than getting people afflicted with a disease they didn't ask for, the help they need.
We have children in foster homes who could be with their parents if those parents were able to obtain the help they need.
The cost of foster care services alone could fund parent/child rehab centers and not only save an addict but a family, too. These programs do exist, they are few and far between and a lot are having to close their doors.
My screed here in no way is absolving Sheen or any other addict of their actions.
But I know first hand what it's like to be in the grips of something that I cannot even see, let alone stop on my own. It's a living hell. And when the reality hits you the guilt and shame are a living hell.
It takes a lot to really get into recovery. More than just abstinence. It cannot be done alone. When you're learning to live a totally different way of life without the use of drugs (that includes alcohol, which is a drug!!!) resources for support is vital.
Our politicians have let funding be cut year after year and we have remained silent for the most part. That is a disgrace.
We are progressives, the compassionate ones, the ones who give a damn about humanity.
For that reason I'd like the focus to be on the disease that is killing Sheen and millions of others.
Let's focus on how the prison industry has made it more profitable for lawmakers to fund their private industry than to fund incarceration centers that focus on rehabilitation.
And last night Lawrence O' Donnell had the stage to do just that and he blew it. He went after the story like a media hack, not a journalist. I really expected more from him.