Addicton: America's No. 1
Public Health Issue
Addiction is a disease that affects all of us, whether or not we drink or drug ourselves. It's time we talked about it openly, as we would any other treatable illness that destroys lives. At the same time, those who have the disease need to take responsibility for getting better.
This is the archive of The Elephant on Main Street blog that I wrote from 2005 - 2007. Its subtitle, as well as that of the larger website it was a part of, was "An Interactive Journal of Addictions and Recoveries."
My wife, Deirdre, continues the website as a roundup of relevant news items that she invites comment about, as well as a social network.
I have been in recovery for nearly 25 years; Deirdre, for almost as long. Both of our families on our fathers' sides have a long and broad history of alcoholism. This blog directly rose out of the airing of "Saving Carrick" on Dateline NBC, a documentary that followed our family as we dealt with our daughter's addiction to heroin, and her subsequent recovery. The blog petered out when the discussion area of our larger Web site was unplugged by an sketchy service provider. Then my attention was diverted by prostate cancer. I am happy to report that all of our addictions, as well as the prostate cancer, remain in remission.
When you are in the throes of a potentially fatal disease like addiction or cancer, it sometimes seems to consume every fiber of your being. Parents of young men and women who are addicted to a substance live with the horror of their children being on the edge of death, as well as their own guilt, doubt and uncertainly about what to do. Often, the best way to deal with this uncertainly is to get involved with others who are dealing with the same issues, sharing information and stories, hope and tragedy, as we did here.
I've move the blog entries to this site with the hope that some of the items might help others who are undergoing a similar journey. I've believe removed nonfunctioning links, but more will inevitably creep in over time.
Feel free to email me, or Deirdre, if you have any questions. We fervently believe in this sentiment expressed by Evan T. Princhard in his excellent book about the Algonquin people, No Word For Time:
According to the medicine teaching, there is no bad person, no crazy person; each person's flaws are part of the wheel of life, which is itself flawless. Each person's struggles are a great mystery to be revealed, each struggle becomes a story, each story becomes teaching, each teaching becomes medicine, and medicine makes the people whole and well in spirit.
Tossing the I Ching
This morning I woke up with an idea I've had in the past. I mulled it for a while, felt myself getting excited, and turned to Deirdre, who was just waking up.
“I'm going to write a great hypertext, multimedia memoir on the Web, and it's called "The Elephant on Main Street," I said (a bit self-mockingly).
…
Air Date July 29
We learned today that the Dateline Special Report will air Friday, July 29, barring any breaking news event. We are free to tell anybody, and the NBC publicity wheels are grinding into motion. We still don't know what they'll call the show, but I'm betting that Addiction in America has bitten the dust. …
Title is "Saving Carrick"
We learned on Friday that the title of the Dateline special report will be "Saving Carrick." My immediate reaction was "that's wrong."
"Saving" implies that outside forces had the controlling hand in Carrick's recovery. …
Duncan, the Forgotten One
I worked with Scott on the site in Brooklyn last night. We signed up with Sitecrossing to host, primarily because of its robust, and relatively cheap, interactive suite and huge storage capacity. Once we did, I saw the site in all its HTML gloriy for the first time. …
FAVOR "House Party"
Deirdre conducted a productive Friends and Voices of Recovery meeting yesterday. One of the upshots of it is that Bill Gillen and Kittie Malloy will host a FAVOR house party in the Orr Room at the Hastings-on-Hudson Library, 7 Maple Ave., beginning at 7:30 p.m. on July 29.
Dateline NBC release
Someone just sent me a copy of the press release Dateline is sending out about the show. I got to a line that made me start heaving uncontrollably. Tears are still running into my mouth. It wasn't anything surprising. …
More on Love
It would have been Pop's ninety-second birthday today. I sent Maureen and Jim, my "big sister" and "little brother," a backdoor link to some chapters I've been working on about my father. They both sent me very moving, supportive comments. …
Spamalot
Deirdre and I took Carrick to a matinee performance of Monty Python's Spamalot at the Samuel Shubert Theater this afternoon. We used to alternate taking her to a Broadway show around her birthday — only one of us at a time because we wanted good tickets but really couldn't afford to buy more than two. …
Fortune Cookie
Deirdre brought home some chicken lo mein and bean curd soup for dinner. There was a single fortune cookie for the four of us:
"Seek first to understand and then to be understood."
Diving Catches
The week started out perfectly with a diving catch in left center field. One of the umpires told me later that he had not seen a better catch in ten years. There was a lot of Sunday-morning hyperbole in that pat on the back, of course. …
Teo Died
There was a neighborhood block party last night for Cathy, who has sold her house and is moving to South Carolina. Her husband, Peter, died of liver cancer a few years ago. I used to run into Peter when I'd walk the dog. …
Colombia
My good French-Canadian friend, Jacques, who lives in Rome, was in town today for one of his typical whirlwind tours of New York City. He's been coming here for as long as I've known him — more than 25 years now — just to suck up some energy. …
Story on MSNBC.com
I just got word that an a excerpt from our site is now running at the top of the Dateline NBC site, with a link from the top of MSNBC.com.
Welcome to all the readers entering Elephant from these avenues. …
Carrick in WDFH-FM
Carrick can be heard in an encore presentation of Recovery Talk on WDFH-FM's webcast at 1:30 PM today (Friday, July 29) and at 8:30 AM Sunday, July 31. Here's the blurb for the program:
On this encore edition of Recovery Talk, meet Carrick Forbes, a 20-year-old Westchester County, NY, native and former heroin addict — just now celebrating her first year in recovery. …
David Hinckley's Review
David Hinckley's reviewed "Saving Carrick" in this morning's New York Daily News. While he was generally positive, he raised couple of issues that are worth talking about. And what better place than here?
Ann Curry's Promo
We're having a new boiler installed and I was bleeding the radiators upstairs for our plumber, Tom Paretti, when Carrick and Duncan yelled, "It's on, dad, it's on." I shut the valve and ran down but just missed it. …
Thank You
Instantaneously last night, my monologue became a dialogue. And now people are talking to other people, and this site is becoming a conversation.
Few who comes to this site will be without experience of addiction once way or another. …
Website Problems
Sometime early this morning, something went wrong with our Discussions area. All of the posts and user registrations for the last week have disappeared. I have contacted Sitecrossing, which hosts this site, but it is Sunday morning, 5:30 AM in California and I do not expect an immediate resolution. …
Hazards of Blogging
So we were at the train station an hour ago buying Carrick's monthly commutation pass when I realized that her 21st birthday was just four days away.
"Listen, with all the hullaballoo these last few weeks, I forgot to ask you what you wanted for your birthday," I said. …
Ostracism
I had a conversation this morning with Betty, whose son got into trouble with some other young men in a few incidents about a year ago. Some marijuana was involved but there were other issues that I won't go into here that led to more serious charges being filed.
…
Moving Forward
One of my closest friends, a person I've confided in for more than ten years, is a woman I've met in person only once, when we grabbed a quick lunch a few years ago when I was on assignment in Michigan. …
Macbeth at Untermeyer
We got back from the opening of Piper Theatre Productions' "apprentice" production of Macbeth in Untermeyer Park in Yonkers a little while ago.
Duncan played Macduff, Hecate and a murderer, and was featured in the posters for the show, which are hanging in storefronts and stapled to telephone poles around Hastings and neighboring towns. …
NCADI Video
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information held one of the dozens of FAVOR-inspired "house parties" across the country during the airing of "Saving Carrick."
…
Casualties
One of the most harrowing figures about the failure of our drug policy is contained in a story about "Saving Carrick" on the website of Anchorage's KTUU, Channel 2. More than 15,000 people are addicted to opiates in Alaska but there are only about 100 beds available for treatment.
…
Charlie Murray
A couple of hours ago, Charlie Murray, 29, was standing below a cherry picker, where an electrician was changing a light bulb on the Warburton Ave. Bridge in our village. Charlie evidently touched a live 120-volt wire in the box in the light stanchion and, sweaty in the heat, touched the metal handrail on the bridge and was electrocuted. …
Colombia II
When my friend Jacques told me a couple of weeks ago about the seizure of Colombian children by right- and left-wing military groups, I wondered why I hadn't read more about the issue. Today, the disappearance of "sons, fathers, mothers, brothers" in Colombia is …
Oregon
I got a call from Racheal less than an hour ago. She came across 'Saving Carrick" on the MSNBC website and was so inspired by it that she wanted to talk to one of us.
Racheal is clean and sober for 20 months, and works in a police department's Addiction Recovery Unit in Oregon. …
Heroin Deaths in NYC
We've been traveling, but bad news about drug use not only travels but has a way of being there when we arrive.
Pete, Carrick's boyfriend, is watching the house and pets while we're gone. He called yesterday to tell us that the front page of the New York Post told the story of two 18-year-old girls who had fatally overdosed on heroin on the lower East Side, where Carrick lived and used for several years . …
Insurance
Insurance parity is surely one of the key battles to be fought — I say "to be" because the effort has been feeble thus far — by recovery advocates.
The insurance lobby won one recently, and lost one.
…
Pop Quiz
Identify who said the following:
"We can do all the enforcement we want, but if we don't help people find work, find affordable housing, get treatment, we'll just keep doing what we're doing, locking the same people up."
…
Phase III
Why are there so many impediments in the way of people who want to kick their habits.
A very close friend of ours is incommunicado in a detox this morning, trying to kick methadone. Because methadone maintenance programs, at least in New York, are geared more toward control more than in reaching the addicts where they're at, our friend has been buying his doses on the street. …
"Dealing with Dealers"
Randy Cohen, who writes "The Ethicist" column for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, responded last week to a readed who asked:
<div class="pullout"> I live in a gentrifying neighborhood. Someone on the block is dealing drugs that, I recently learned, are less benign than I'd assumed; he's dealing crystal meth. …
"You're a Hypocrite"
"I thought you'd understand, dad."
"Why?"
"Because when you were a teenager, you went to the woods, too."
"Well, yes, I do understand. And that's why you can't go to the woods."
"You're a hypocrite."
…
Lower Level, Grand Central Terminal
It seems wrong.
He follows me into the men's room
and unzips.
I glare at the cracked blue capillaries
in the ghostly porcelain
standing like an open coffin
before my boy's eyes.
Grand Central Terminal
Legalization
Thank you, Jennifer, for posting the ACLU's position paper "Against Drug Prohibition," and to the other members of the forum for their reactions. This is an important discussion.
I was surprised to see that the ACLU piece was dated 1995, which means that some of the information is out of date. …
Carolinas Conference
Deirdre, Carrick, Duncan and I spoke at the Carolinas Conference on Addiction & Recovery last night for nearly two hours. I think it went well. No one fell asleep. Duncan, in particular, had some good lines that broke the audience up. …
Cheryl's Story
Saving Carrick" ran again on MSNBC last night. We did not know it until the emails started rolling in after it was over. One of them was from Connie, whose daughter Cheryl Dean is memorialized at the …
"The Big Idea"
Deirdre, Carrick and I are going to be guests on Donny Deutsch's "The Big Idea" on Monday, Oct. 24 on CNBC. The show airs at 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. (Tuesday morning) ET. I've seen a few shows and the format is a relaxed Q&A. …
Preempted
I've just learned that our appearance on Donny Deutsch's "The Big Idea" on Oct. 24 has been postponed for some breaking news. We won't have a new date until next week.
Downs and Ups
The Elephant website went down yesterday afternoon and didn't return until this morning. I'm not sure why. Visitors got the message "This site has reached its service limits. Please try later." My wizard behind the curtain, Scott Price, first noticed the problem. …
For the Hopeless
Just a quick note for anyone who is feeling hopeless about a loved one's addiction tonight, as well as for those who are having a hard time with enabling.
Two years ago last night, we got a phone call from her that was typical of the feeling of rapid-fire elation and despair that we often went through when Carrick was using. …
Grin and Beer It
I have to smile about the news that the Beer Institute is establishing a new five-member panel to hear consumer complaints about beer advertising.
Things must really be at a low if the industry trade group is in the "we-better-regulate-ourselves-before-someone-else-does" mode. …
Posts, Website, Cable
We posted Deirdre's story, in her own words, over the weekend. She talks about growing up in an Irish Catholic family with a long history of alcoholism — not that anybody talked about it. Her father and his brother used to torment their father, a subway motorman, when he went through the DTs, thinking that it was funny that he saw spiders and things.
…
Libba's Lightbulb Theory
I had an extremely illuminating conversation with Libba Phillips, the founder of Outpost for Hope, this morning, about the astounding amount of under-represented missing and unidentified persons in this country, and the hellish lives they and their families lead. …
Medical Schmedical
I don't know about you, but it seems to me that ads like these in the LA Weekly really don't advance the cause of medical marijuana for those who need it.
