Going public with the face of drug addiction

There was no green Masters Tournament jacket for Chris at the end of the day this past Sunday, even if he played the game of his life. No matter how well he did, there were no crowds to applaud his every step, no Titleist or Buick endorsements, and no cash prize. If he had a great day he just stayed sober through to the end of it, for as he told us in the Bangor Daily News last Saturday, Chris is a drug addict. He has been sober now for 16 months and fights every day to stay that way.

That he would speak of his addiction to the BDN tells you something about Chris. If you are a cynic it tells you he is just a druggie dumb enough to tell that to the readership of the state’s biggest newspaper, and that drug court is a great place for him on his way to jail. What his story really tells us is something much different and much better, and the BDN should be applauded for its extensive coverage of his story and that of the drug courts.

What his story tells you about Chris is that he is a young man of extraordinary courage. He is, after all, confessing to be a drug addict in America, where we tend to like our addicts one way – jailed (unless, of course, they are Hollywood stars, in which case we like them on 20/20). Our jails are full of drug users and addicts, a large part of the reason the prison population of this country has doubled in the last twenty years and our country has a higher percentage of its population in prison than any other country in the western world. What explains the fact that we still have among the highest crime and drug abuse rates of any western country is that simply treating addicts with jail time has failed miserably as social policy.

What his story tells you about addicts is a point that has been made previously in this column, that when you look at an addict like him you look at one of us. You are looking at one of our children, at a colleague from work, at a student in your daughter’s high school class, at the man collecting bottles from the trash, or at the mirror.

What it tells you about addicts is that a date in the drug court where we met Chris is just a few simple, catastrophic steps for any one of us in another direction from a date for dinner. If a boy who grew up in the Bangor area of Maine, the son of a doctor, can get hooked on heroin so can anyone else.

What his story tells you about addiction is that it is more powerful than any of us who have not been there can imagine. It is powerful enough that a young man would turn the bathroom of his parents’ home into a shooting gallery, and run a good life into bad ground. It is powerful enough to turn a life inside out, to make an addict trade his life and the well-being of those who depend on him, for his own drug of choice. It is powerful enough that pregnant mothers shoot up, that parents leave children unattended in a daily search for drugs, that flesh and blood means little in the search for heroin and a high.

The story of Chris’ case in the new Penobscot County drug court also tells us that Maine has finally grown up in its treatment of those who are addicted and commit crimes related to their addiction. There are seven such courts in Maine, funded by the state’s share of tobacco settlement money, and all modeled after drug courts elsewhere in the country. Such courts have been shown to be far more successful keeping convicted addicts clean than the traditional approaches. Drug courts represent an evolution of treatment for convicted addicts well past the traditional policy of probation or prison, and can be a key part of a comprehensive, court-ordered treatment program.

The cost of these courts in Maine – about $800,000 annually – are a pittance compared to the billion dollars addiction is estimated to cost Maine’s taxpayers and economy every year. The cost is also cheap when compared to the roughly $50,000 annual cost of imprisoning a Mainer as an alternative to successful treatment via the drug court.

Tiger Woods won his third Masters Sunday, but that is nothing compared to what Chris did that day if he stayed sober. It is nothing compared to what Chris did by going public with the story of his addiction and his days in drug court. In doing so he gave hope to some and understanding to many, helped validate a new approach to the treatment of addicts, and now has all of us praying that he wins his battle to stay clean and sober. We should all be that brave.

Erik Steele, D.O. is a physician in Bangor, an administrator at Eastern Maine Medical Center, and is on the staff of several hospital emergency rooms in the region.