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Recovery in the News
Tatum’s tale no gag line
Jeffrey H. Samet
Boston Herald
June 21, 2008
It is time to retool our collective understanding about our friends, family members and patients who struggle with addictions, both those actively using and those in recovery.
How abhorrent would it be if news of a recurrence of Elizabeth Edwards’ cancer were greeted with radio talking heads joking on how her self-abusive schedule of talking appearances would not allow time and rest for a stable recovery?
Is that too far-fetched?
Then how about this? A sports commentator makes fun of New England Patriots All-Pro linebacker Tedy Bruschi if he were to have a new neurological deficit two years after his first stroke.
Such absurd, wholly unacceptable utterances would not be tolerated by the public. And yet I was recently awoken by a radio voice discussing how actress Tatum O’Neil was “at it again,” trying to pass off her latest suspected relapse into cocaine as an effort to gain insight into a character she planned to play. In essence, the not-so-wise non-medical commentators were heaping sarcasm, guilt and shame on an act that represented a relapse of a disease. I am unaware of any outcry at such callous comments.
Such is the understanding in our society about what addiction is and what challenges exist for one who is in recovery or wishes to be in recovery. This lack of insight is all the more remarkable given the fact that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reports that half of Americans have a sibling, parent or child who struggles with an addiction. This common brain disease remains misunderstood and unappreciated. What’s worse is that the efforts that millions of individuals make to address their addiction and move forward to live productive lives in recovery remain unappreciated by many family members, friends and even health-care professionals.
Thanks to research supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, we now understand that long-lasting brain changes are demonstrable on brain-imaging studies of both animals and humans who have had prolonged exposure to drugs of abuse.
These brain changes relate to the difficulties that one has in the pursuit of remaining abstinent. For some, experimentation results in compulsive substance use that is destructive to relationships, family, work and health; that defines addiction. That harm is awful to the one affected and to many persons who interact with the addicted individual. Moving to recovery is not an easy road and rarely a direct non-stop route. Support from family, friends and the health care community can help get one into recovery. But in contemporary American society, information coming from much of the daily radio, TV, Internet and print media is still very far from promoting a well-informed public about addiction. (Notable exceptions have occurred in recent years.)
We do not ostracize patients with cancer as, believe it or not, we did as a society 50 years ago. We have walks or bicycle marathons that go on for 24 hours or even days to raise awareness and fund cancer research. When was the last time you were asked to give to a nonprofit fund to support substance-abuse treatment and research? When was the last time your local hospital boasted about its superior program to address addictive disorders? This notably unsupportive environment has a basis in the public’s limited understanding of the neuroscience of addiction.
Almost all illnesses result from some combination of our genetic makeup, our environmental exposure, our individual behaviors and a roll of the dice. The irrational disdain for one disease state (leprosy in biblical times, tuberculosis in 19th-century America) fails to acknowledge that the affected individual and his or her family are the ones who merit our individual and societal support.
We are now celebrating in a very uplifting humane manner those among us who are living with cancer and who may well be in long-term remission from that disease. It is time to retool our collective understanding about our friends, family members and patients who struggle with addictions, both those actively using and those in recovery.
It is unfortunate if in fact Tatum has relapsed, but if she has, helping her address her addiction so that she can focus on making contributions to her family, friends, career and society is the appropriate response.
© 2008 Boston Herald and Herald Media