I am my father’s daughter

Excerpt of Club Random Podcast

I am the daughter of an alcoholic who died at the hands of the bottle. My father accepted that his booze would kill him years before he died at 64, slowly and painfully.  He loved his liquor more than his family, his grandkids, and more than any future without the booze.

The first time I took a Percocet, my life changed forever. I am my father’s daughter.

I have spent most of my adult life in the black hole of active addiction.  Over 26 years, I have hit numerous bottoms, gutted priceless relationships, and managed to get sober only to relapse for years at a time.  Every time I relapsed I fell farther and farther until I realized, sitting in my living room drunk, broken, and on the edge of accepting my own demise at the hands of substances that never loved me back.

To my own amazement, and with the help of what I can only describe as divine intervention, I found a way through my drunken stupor to get the help I had desperately needed for decades.

As Bill points out, drug addicts make poor choices. But I’d like to remind his viewers that regardless of the reason people end up addicted, no one wakes up one day and decides they have a kink for ruining their lives and wounding everyone they love.  Addiction progressively made me a monster. I made the choice to use, but I never intended to cause those closest to me a  pain that may never heal completely.  So many of my apologies are not forgiven.

Addiction is a process — a progressive, and all too often, a fatal disease. Some fall farther and faster than others. But this is why we must support those suffering from addiction by meeting them where they’re at, not shaming them. If someone is struggling with abstinence, don’t preach to them. Encourage them to keep seeking help — keep trying. Keep talking.

I love Bill, but as he sits here stoned out of his mind, boasting that his habitual, daily pot smoking isn’t some form of addiction, I don’t see someone immune to this disease.  “Functioning” alcoholics and addicts aren’t functioning, Bill. They’re sick and make no mistake, the disease of addiction kills them, too.

Maher has the platform to do so much good for those suffering from the complexities of substance use disorder, but would rather complain that these people give his pot smoking habit a bad name.