William Cope Moyers’ road to recovery started on the floor of an Atlanta crack house.
A husband, father of two and CNN journalist, Moyers ended up in Hazelden, a residential facility in Minnesota. Today, the son of veteran journalist Bill Moyers is executive director at Hazelden’s Center for Public Advocacy and has chronicled his long battle with addiction in the memoir “Broken.” He’s in town Thursday for a dinner commemorating the fourth anniversary of Breakthru House, a residential treatment program for women.
Q: Your last stop on the road to ruin was Atlanta, where you write about firing up a crack pipe one last time as your family pounds on the door. Is it hard for you to return to Atlanta, given its place in your life?
A: It was my bottom, but it’s not hard to come back. Every time I return to that city, I am reminded how fortunate I am to have one more chance, that my life has worked out despite me. Atlanta really is my touchstone that keeps me grounded.
Q: In your book, you describe an idyllic childhood: loving parents, a wonderful extended family and extraordinary opportunities given your father’s role in President Johnson’s administration and his legendary career in journalism. What made you decide smoking marijuana, as you did for the first time at age 16, was a good idea?
A: I was a teenager, plain and simple. When you’re a teenager, you don’t tend to think much about tomorrow. I had no idea it would hijack my brain and steal my soul. I was sort of genetically hard-wired. That’s not an excuse. I volunteered for drug use. I didn’t volunteer to be an addict.
Q: What’s your take on the debate over legalizing marijuana for medicinal use?
A: Marijuana is a drug. I went from smoking marijuana at 16 to living in a crack house in Atlanta at 35. Unless we, as a community, are willing to commit massive resources to the problems that legalization would spark, we should not legalize any more drugs. We don’t need people driving down I-20 smoking crack.
Q: At the end of your book you describe a cancer scare and your role as an advocate for resources to combat addiction. It sounds as though you feel people with a disease such as cancer receive more unconditional support than people with addictions.
A: Addiction does not discriminate. Neither does recovery. People like me, from families like mine, get addicted. It shouldn’t just be people like me, from families like mine, who recover.
Benefit for Breakthru
Author William Cope Moyers speaks at a dinner benefiting Breakthru House
6 p.m. April 16
Northside United Methodist Church, 2799 Northside Drive.
Tickets cost $75, of which $60 is a tax-deductible contribution. Tables of eight are $600. Checks payable to Breakthru House Inc. may be mailed to 1866 Eastfield St., Decatur 30032, or see www.actionministries.net.