For nearly two years now, more or less, I have been plugging away at writing a book manuscript. This question that is burning within you, therefore (and I know it is) is have I finished that book? Sort of, maybe, kind of, damn it, I honestly don’t know.
Why I don’t know is quite simple, really, and that is because the topic is a never-ending one with no succinct answers. It’s a huge coconut that nobody has been able to even crack, if we’re honest about it.
I think some books would be relatively easy to write because they are straightforward and anecdotal. Consider such tomes as Hedgehogs I have Raised, or Adventures in the World of Full Contact Cheerleading, and I suspect the authors of such tomes didn’t sweat too much. Hey, even Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was straightforward and to the point. I mean, it ‘declined’ and then it ‘fell.’ What could be so hard?
My topic is more nebulous. It concerns the controversial, confusing and often calamitous world of addiction in all its manifestations. Not truly a fun topic in itself and, what is more confounding, is that it is not one with anything resembling clear-cut answers for a societal blight. A societal blight that has arguably, in one way or another, probably impacted every single person who is reading this. It’s one of those things, like sex, in which everybody has an opinion, and lots have indulged, but few have anything resembling an answer.
Addiction is fraught with theorists, and like all theorists, addiction theorists believe they are right and all other theorists are wrong. I chose ‘fraught’ because in the pure sense of the word, it means ‘burdened down’, and like all cumbersome weights do, the many theorists are keeping the issue from going where it should to, which is to rid society of a blight that is becoming increasingly devastating to the well-being of all of us.
As I have written before, I came to ponder the topic quite naturally due to my work as an addictions counselor, as a member of a community committee that deals with the impact of addiction in my own town, and as a journalist who has written extensively on the subject. In that I have interviewed a lot of the aforementioned ‘theorists’ (some more worthy than others, with the least worthy invariably being one-trick-wonder politicians) and in all of this I come to one conclusion.
That is: Despite the best of intentions, too many people in the realm either don’t know what in fuck they are talking about, or else they are reflecting a strong personal bias.
So, we know what addiction in the community – any community – looks like: it’s tweaking methheads, hookers plying their dangerous trade just to score the next fix, crackhouses, panhandlers, homeless folk, muggers, B&E artists, gang wars, drunk drivers etc. etc. etc.
It is also housewives hooked on booze and benzos (Valium and its ilk), professionals who choose to not recognize a per diem alcohol consumption that is out of control, and who will get behind the wheel of the Mercedes whence they can, and will kill an inordinate number of innocent people. It is also governments who are craven about increasing access to alcohol, in order to reap revenue, but which are loath to shovel any of those gains into providing access to treatment or recovery, or even detox, for Christ’s sake.
None of this means I am self-righteously opposed to the partaking of substances to smooth out the rough bits of life, or to have a bit of fun. But, with moderation and hopefully not involving illegal activities. It is human nature to obliviate grim reality once in a while. Always has been.
With this book I don’t come down strongly on one side or the other, but state my opinions on all of them, whether they be abstention, harm-reduction, increased penalties, legalization, etc. All I am ultimately left with is a statement of veracity. It was one that was made to me by the mayor of Kauai a number of years ago when I briefly interviewed him following his announcement that he was seeking federal, state, and county funding to finance a series of subsidized treatment centers and housing on that tropical paradise island. I asked him what his motivation was and his response was simple: “We have to do something.”
And we do. But what?
I have no answers and I know that if anybody really had an answer the problem would have gone away. So, therein lies my quandary about whether or not I’m finished the book.
All I know is that the bad guys are still winning. And we’re letting them.
And I still think so 