by William C. Moyers

It took 13 years, but I finally appeared on a stage in front of an audience on Broadway.

The Capri Theater on Broadway Avenue in a gritty stretch of North Minneapolis was filled with politicians and civic leaders, ministers and a couple of donors with deep pockets. My real affinity was for everyone else in the crowd — the crack addicts and alcoholics, who share my illness.

“When I ain’t clean, I’m on the streets, and been on the streets more them last four years than I want to be, except when I been locked up in the joint,”…

by William C. Moyers

In my 12-step meeting a few days ago, a woman stood up and announced that she was new to the group and that she had 36 hours of sobriety. She was greeted with a rousing round of cheers and applause. Sober people tend to do that; it’s as much for themselves as it is for the newcomer. “Hooray for her, and thank goodness it’s not me” is the expressed but unspoken sentiment among fellow travelers.

I clapped, too. Then my skin tingled as the hairs stood upright on my neck and arms. I shuddered. Once, I was counting hours,…

by William C. Moyers

It’s a question I’m asked no matter where I speak, from churches and Rotary Club events to public-school assemblies and private luncheons with business leaders: Should parents share their personal histories of drug and alcohol use with their kids?

A groundbreaking study released this week by Hazelden, where I work, should answer this question once and for all. It is no longer acceptable for parents simply to urge their children to “just say no.”

Among the results of Hazelden’s “Four Generations Overcoming Addiction” survey:

—Half of teens say it would make them less likely to use drugs if their parents told…

by William C. Moyers

Many alcoholics and addicts suffer long-term physical consequences as a result of their use, even after they get sober. This includes chronic pain that may require the use of doctor-prescribed narcotics. So how does this affect somebody’s recovery?

Dear Mr. Moyers: I used heroin for 20 years and crack for eight. In a few weeks, my family will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of my being clean. My big question is: Am I really clean? I did a lot of damage and still live with pain that only painkillers mask. I am careful not to take these meds on…

by William C. Moyers

And now the rest of my answers to questions posed a few weeks ago by Kelsey S., a 16-year-old student at Mallard Creek High School in Charlotte, N.C.:

Question: If the government gave more funding for drug treatment, do you think there would be a positive change?

Answer: There is no doubt that we need to reconfigure the war on drugs to expand resources for proven prevention programs in high schools, for research by scientists exploring the neurobiology of addiction, and for treatment at licensed facilities that can demonstrate successful outcomes. Today the federal government spends about $21 billion…

by William C. Moyers

Not long ago, I met with a group of women and men in treatment who are fresh in recovery. They are all eager to convert their hope-fueled enthusiasm to fix the people, places and things that were shattered by their addiction to alcohol or other drugs.

“I hurt just knowing how many people I hurt,” says David T., a veterinarian from Pittsburgh. “When I get back home, I’ve got a lot of amends to do to make things right, not just so they feel better but so I can, too.”

Nobody noticed Trina L.’s addiction to pain medication until she was…

by William C. Moyers

The insights in this week’s column are a gift to me from my children on my 50th birthday.

My daughter, Nancy, 12, got dressed, made her own breakfast and brushed her teeth and hair without being told.

Thomas, who turns 15 in a couple of weeks, enveloped me in a big bearhug, which required no supporting words.

And Henry, no longer an awkward teenager though he is not quite 17, grabbed the keys to my car and drove to school with his siblings in tow, leaving me with nothing to do this quiet morning except go for a long run…

by William C. Moyers

I’m no Trekkie who revels in the fictional universe of “Star Trek” trivia or attends annual conventions of pointy-eared fans in tacky hotels or has an autographed photo of Captain Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

And I rarely go to theaters to watch newly released movies anymore. So I don’t know how audiences react to what’s on the big screen.

Finally, I haven’t cried over a flick since the opening scenes of “Saving Private Ryan” in 1998. In fact, that just might have been the most recent movie I had seen in a theater. (And I…

by William C. Moyers

Out of options. When it happens to people ravaged by addiction, sometimes all I can offer them is my own encouragement. “It’s never too late,” I tell them. “Don’t let go of hope.”

I can’t help it. What else is there to say when a child or a spouse or a parent is drowning in alcohol or sinking into the mire of illegal drugs and there is nothing anyone can do? Hope is free, and I’ve got plenty of it, in part because of my own despair so many years ago, just before I finally got clean and…

by William C. Moyers

A new illicit drug grabs the headlines every couple of years.

In the 1980s, it was cocaine, and then, at the end of the decade, it was crack.

“Date-rape” drugs, such as GHB, got a lot of attention in the ’90s, and the media’s drugs of choice for most of this new millennium have been methamphetamines and Oxycontin.

But suddenly, an old drug is back in the news: marijuana. The Minnesota Legislature is debating medical marijuana. In Washington, D.C., advocates and opponents of legalization are parsing President Barack Obama’s utterances about the weed’s role in the war on drugs. Even…

by William Cope Meyers

In the throes of a crisis, a family would do anything to halt the destruction caused by a loved one’s inability to stop drinking or taking drugs. But what about calling the police?

Dear Mr. Moyers: Our daughter is a college graduate with a good head on her shoulders and a loving, caring heart. About seven months ago, Jean was treated for a heroin problem for the first time. The day she got out of treatment, she went back to her dealer, an old boyfriend, and was high again in an hour. She lost everything, even custody of…

Written by William C. Moyers

They were total strangers. But their experiences were defined intimately by a common illness, which propelled their lives into the public spotlight this past week. Only the endings of the stories differ.

Employees in Minnesota stumbled upon the frozen body of Jeffrey Scott O’Donnell in an iced-over pond at a golf course in a suburb of the Twin Cities. Authorities aren’t sure how long he had been dead, but nobody who knew the 42-year-old man had heard from him since the first frosts of last October.

The Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul reports that his family said Jeff…

by William C. Moyers

Bill Blass knew a thing or two about clothes. So the legendary fashion designer had an easy answer to an age-old problem: “When in doubt, wear red.”

Now there’s evidence that what some kids are wearing these days could be red flags for parents and teachers.

Dear Mr. Moyers: For Christmas, my brother gave his niece, my daughter, a T-shirt with a big, bright Budweiser logo on the front. She loves it and wouldn’t take it off until the other day, when the school principal sent her home with a note informing us that she no longer will be…

by William C. Moyers

No politics, no pontification over policy, and no sparring with public officials. This week’s column goes back to the fundamentals of helping people get help.

Dear Mr. Moyers: Professional treatment is not the only way to get sober. For people who can’t afford or won’t go for treatment, why don’t you refer them to Alcoholics Anonymous? It works! Be sure to tell them to go to a lot of different AA groups so they get to know many sober members and see that there are many different kinds of AA meetings. It’s in those meetings that people find…

by William C. Moyers

William Shakespeare said, “Though it be honest, it is never good to bring bad news.”

Maybe so, but if you’re going to be the bearer of bad news, it is best to do it quickly and bear it honestly, especially when it is your burden to bear.

I

I was reminded of that in the intense publicity surrounding two superstar athletes, Santonio Holmes and Michael Phelps. Holmes earned the Super Bowl’s Most Valuable Player award in leading his Pittsburgh Steelers to victory. It was an accomplishment made more remarkable because the young wide receiver had been suspended for one game…

by William C. Moyers

It’s tough to make a resolution for the year ahead when there are still unresolved issues from the year just ending.

Dear Mr. Moyers: When we last spoke I really wanted to change my life, I swear! On New Year’s Eve (2007) I got high and drank all night — I swore to myself and to my girlfriend it was the last time. I warned her it better be her last time too, or else it was over between us after five years living together. Well, I am back in the same bad spot this time. I stopped…

by William C. Moyers

by William C. Moyers

They pitched a big tent on the roof of an office building overlooking the Capitol rotunda the other day for a party to celebrate a new law that treats mental illness and addiction like any other chronic disease. But the tent still wasn’t big enough for the man standing almost alone amid the crowd.

“I don’t dare tell anyone I am a recovering alcoholic,” he whispered to me as if somebody might overhear his revelation in the noisy tent. “It’s way too risky.”

His boss, an influential member of Congress, doesn’t know. Neither do the directors of the federal…

by William C. Moyers

It was hardly a senatorial moment. Standing in the kitchen of my home in Minnesota, Sen. Paul Wellstone grabbed a slice of pizza off my young son’s plate. But before he could take a bite, my son turned around and caught him.

“Hey, you, that’s mine!” he yelled. And then he burst into tears.

Politicians are supposed to kiss smiling babies, not make them cry. What could the senator do? He quickly grabbed his “Wellstone!” campaign button off his trademark black sweater and stuck it on my son’s pizza-stained shirt. In an instant, my son forgot about the pinched…

by William C. Moyers

On my way to the airport the other day, the hotel van driver asked me that stock question that is inevitable whenever strangers share a ride: “What do you do for a living?”

I told him I work for an organization that helps addicts and alcoholics, loath to go into much detail because the ride was too short to explain treatment, much less the dynamics of addiction.

But the driver picked up on it right away: “Man, I was in treatment six times before I gave my life to the Lord Jesus Christ,” he said. “I turned my life…

by William C. Moyers

Another star has fallen from the heavens of Hollywood, and it hasn’t taken long for the inevitable question to follow: Why doesn’t Mackenzie Phillips get it?

I am not in a position to defend Phillips, who reportedly has entered a treatment program after being arrested last month for possession of illegal drugs at Los Angeles International Airport.

But unlike Lindsay Lohan, whose trials and tribulations in the tabloids have included repeated trips to and from treatment during the past two years, I know Phillips. And while I haven’t seen her in almost a decade, to me she never shirked…

by William C. Moyers

In the interest of full disclosure, first I must admit the following:

—I am a former binge drinker.

—It was in college that I began to drink alcoholically.

—Today I am in long-term recovery from my alcoholism.

—I work for a facility that treats people addicted to alcohol, some of whom are as young as 16.

—I know and respect the former college president who is leading a nationwide effort to lower the drinking age. And I strongly disagree with him.

In other words, all of the above make it impossible for me to take an objective position in the debate to allow…

I have been reading another recovery book. This one is by Caroline Knapp and is called Drinking: A Love Story. This is her story of alcoholism, how she hit bottom and how she sobered up. Here is one of the passages that touches on the hardships of first becoming sober. It also gives an idea of what a great writer she was:

“There’s something about facing long afternoons without the numbing distraction of any sort of anesthesia that disabuses you of the belief in externals, shows you that strength and hope come not from circumstances or the acquisition of things but…

by William C. Moyers

The problems young people encounter with alcohol and other drugs don’t take a summer vacation. But it seems those problems rise to the forefront when it’s time for young people to go back to school.

Dear Mr. Moyers: Last Friday night, our 16-year-old daughter had a party. It was supposed to be just for some high-school classmates to mark the end of summer and the start of their sophomore year, with pizza, pop and snacks. Yet she posted the invitation on Facebook and told her friends to pass along the invite. The result: It seemed as if half…

by William Cope Moyers

There is more to addiction than meets the eye.

And to understand how to overcome it often means looking beyond what can be seen readily.

No wonder stigma cloaks the truth about addiction and confusion muddles how to appreciate successful recovery.

Dear Mr. Moyers: Why do you think it is that many addicts seem to have charming personalities that make them so engaging to others? My sister had us all in the palm of her hand. She was a beauty queen, the most popular senior in high school, had boyfriends galore and then a wonderful husband — and all of…

by William C. Moyers

People struggle to explain to me their problems related to alcohol or other drugs. The result: Oftentimes, they expound in minute detail about their circumstances before finally punctuating their e-mails or letters with the questions they want answered.

But sometimes, it’s the other way around, and they drive right to the point, leaving me to struggle with how to keep it simple with succinct responses.

Dear Mr. Moyers: As a 30-year-old man with 10 years of sobriety now, I find myself in a perplexing relationship with a woman who is a wine connoisseur (and beautiful and funny and intriguing,…

by William C. Moyers

Many addicts and alcoholics want help expecting that they never will get high again.

I understand their sentiments. There was a time in my life, too, when the pain and suffering of drinking and drugging were more than I could bear. Desperate, I sought relief and a way out of my intractable spiral in the whirlwind of addiction. Treatment gave me that chance.

But as I and many others have learned — sometimes the hard way — treatment does not offer a cure for alcoholism or drug dependence. The solution requires a lifetime commitment, including vigilance and a healthy…

by William C. Moyers

Sometimes the best advice comes when readers seek insight not in questions about themselves or their problems, but in querying me about my own experiences. This hit home in a recent letter from a 14-year-old boy.

Dear Mr. Moyers: I want to know what it was like to fall in the peer pressure of drugs and why you did. I know people always say to stay away from drugs, and I know to say no, but I want to know what it felt like to be asked. Were you nervous, anxious and scared? Being drug-free is very important…

by William C. Moyers

John McCain and Barack Obama were on the never-ending campaign trail again last week, and for once, one of the candidates actually talked about the never-ending war on drugs.

The problem is that Sen. McCain was doing his talking in Colombia, where the fight to control the production and distribution of cocaine to America never has succeeded, despite billions upon billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars being spent to do so. And what he said was nothing new.

“There is a long way to go to stem the flow of drugs into the United States of America,” McCain said. “The…