REVIEWS

You will break with him....

As I write, the life of Britney Spears seems to be in a downward spiral freefall. In recent months, the lives of other young, famous women like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton have taken similar nosedives. The addictions of the rich and famous make easy fodder for news stories. After all, lots happens and we read the stories with zest.

Stories of decline satiate our curiosity along with our eagerness to frame the young and accomplished as flawed. We can self-righteously return to our more meager lifestyles, pleased that we have fewer temptations, amused by the ongoing updates of a disintegrating life. Poor Britney, too much, too young.

It’s similarly easy to understand the addictions of the poor, the abused, the ghettoized and the marginalized. Society has disadvantaged them. Of course, we think, they drink and do drugs to dull the pain of their realities. Why not turn to crack when you can’t get a job other than prostitution?

But the addictions of the ordinary person with a solid work ethic, education and background? We don’t get these. They are mysterious. Why do so-called “normal” people, the people just like me, fall prey to abuse of drugs and alcohol?

Such will be the mindset of an average reader picking up Broken, William Cope Moyers’ story of his descent into addiction hell. The appeal of his book is why. Why does a person with an idyllic childhood, loving, supportive and communicative parents, and adequate resources without excess, start spending days in crack houses, ignoring his family and his jobs, risking a life that so many of us clamor for?

The story begins with Moyers being plucked from a crack house in Atlanta with his life in shambles. But then he takes us back. Back to his beginnings with summers visitng grandparents in Texas. Back to his childhood meanderings in natural environments. Back to his family of origin.

Aha, you think. Here is where I will find something, something that gives a clue to his eventual decline. But you don’t. There is nothing bad in his childhood. His parents love him, spend time with him, say they are proud of him. His home life offers enough money, education, skill-modelling and connections to people who help him over the years. In his 20's, he marries a childhood sweetheart, starts a blossoming career as a journalist, following in the steps of his famous, but not too famous, father, Bill Moyers, and then progressively moves from addictive substance to addictive substance until he’s barely coherent and eventually suicidal, languishing in crack houses.

He unfolds his story gracefully and with frequent reference to the shame and regret he experiences as he plunges into a secretive, high risk life of lies, so it’s really lovely and balanced reading. But as you pass through the pages, you wonder, why is he doing this? Why is he going back to the crack house? Why’s he fooling himself? Can’t he stop himself? And this is the point: he can’t. He has a disease. An important theme in this story, alcoholism and drug addiction are chronic diseases, sometimes terminal. Like cancer, some people get the disease, some don’t. He did.

Throughout the story, however, Moyers accepts personal responsibility for his reaction to the disease. Although it can happen to anyone, he relapses again and again while others don’t because he fails to see addiction as a disease, as something he can’t overcome on his own. He fails to accept the advice of experts. It’s not until he reaches the point of suicide, after several relapses, that he understands, with clarity and depth, his own powerlessness. At that point, he knows unequivocally what he needs to heal and stay sober.

Moyers’ story scares me. As a parent, I struggle to give the same kind of idyllic childhood to my kids as his parents offered to him. But there’s no guarantee that this will save them. Moyers wasn’t saved. I can’t save my kids from addiction any more than I can save them from cancer. This is tough stuff to confront. The myth that addiction emanates from a victim’s own weakness or disadvantage is what Broken successfully destroys. Moyers’ experience is a model of addiction as a disease. His determination to return to his normal life, without fully surrendering to his powerlessness, continually leads him back to crack.

While reading Broken, I felt myself breaking along with the author. His attempts to overcome addiction keep failing. His work ethic and skills don’t help him here: they hinder him. He has to completely give up to become teachable.

If you prefer learning to come to you through a set of concise PowerPoint bullets, this book will not be one you enjoy. Moyers wites in depth. He covers his decline and eventual redemption in detail. Reading his prose reminded me of Doris Lessing’s writing on mental illness. The description of the mental and spiritual terrain that Moyers covers seems to require complexity in the form of multiple elements: retelling of personal experience, letters and journal entries from various points in time and perspective, and quotes from other authors on the experience of addiction. Through these, Moyers offers an explanation for his absorbing obedience to drugs and alcohol. To fully understand his plight, readers need this. The encouragement he had to “go deeper” during the writing has paid off. Broken leaves us, after 368 pages, with a full understanding of why this man, with every reason to lead a successful, happy life, falls into the captivity of drugs.

Most of us have addictions. They allow us to stop time, to stop our quest for progress and just ‘be’ in the moment. I stopped to eat pie and whipped cream while I wrote this: sugar and fats being two of my addictions. Moyers’ disease had much more serious consequences than the more benign addictions to sugar, chocolate and cake (they can eventually kill us too; it just takes longer). Still, he clearly describes that drive for momentary relief that, if not universal, is at least ubiquitous. North American society tempts us with too many addictions: consumerism, high fat junk foods, excessive TV, plus the other usual suspects like caffeine and nicotine. All temporary highs that wear off and must be recharged...

Most of us can relate to this:

“...the deeper truth of my illness is my inability to live with what is right here, right in front of me. Accepting life on life’s terms–that’s the challenge. Even as I stay sober my dreams remind me of my relentless yearning to go back to the myth of what once was or reach out for some imaginary heaven that lies just in front of me, out of my reach (p. 208).”

Reading Broken helps to identify our own addictions and to break with the author. This is something the daily reporting of Britney’s antics doesn’t do. If anything, that information distances us from our addictions. Broken, however, reminds us that we are all in search of daily redemption and authenticity.

I loved reading Broken. You will too. But allow yourself to be patient. He doesn’t use bullets.