The world is full of addicts. If you’ve walked through a town centre in the last week, the chances are you have passed scores of them.
I’m not talking about the ‘obvious’ addicts, the ones in shop doorways who most people prefer to turn away from.
I’m talking about the hidden, ‘everyday’ addicts, who go about their business without anyone ever really knowing of their history of drug abuse or alcoholism, the ones who look much like you and I, who wear suits and ties and smart dresses, who commute to work and put their children to bed and go out of their way to help others because that’s what addicts do, when they’re on the road to recovery.
Those addicts.
The sober ones.
Liam Payne on holiday with his American actress girlfriend Kate Cassidy
There’s a hell of a lot of judgment when a celebrity’s life is cut short because of addiction issues. We saw it last year, when Matthew Perry died, and we are seeing it now after the tragic death of Liam Payne, at the age of just 31.
People who are blissfully unaware of the realities of addiction pontificate about the events that led to these deaths, and all the ways in which things could have turned out differently, if perhaps the celebrity in question had just bucked up a bit, or been given a good talking to.
They gawp and look down on these humans of whose pain they know absolutely nothing.
What is not spoken about very often is the quiet band of people who have known the horrors of addiction and wake every morning grateful to have survived them. The addicts in recovery, who will have read the reports of Liam’s death with great sadness, and probably thought to themselves: ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ Because the truth is that we are surrounded by people who privately describe themselves as alcoholics or addicts, while publicly presenting as the upstanding citizens they absolutely are: teachers, lawyers, judges, builders, doctors, accountants and, yes, pop stars, who have been able to receive the gift of sobriety and go on to flourish because of it.
As you know, I am one of them. I describe myself as an alcoholic in recovery, having been sober for seven years after a decades-long battle with alcohol and cocaine.
Like many in recovery, I have empathy and compassion for Liam Payne. We may not have had his fame or fortune (though we recognise that all the fame and fortune in the world won’t save you from addiction, only make your sense of failure feel more acute) but we do know the dark places the One Direction star is said to have gone to.
All alcoholics and addicts have had experiences where the outcome of a binge hung on the roll of a dice – our body landing in the recovery position when we passed out, or coming across a stranger who helped us, as opposed to taking advantage of us. Most of all, we all know that sobriety is always fragile, that it is never a given and we are only ever one drink away from complete and utter destruction.
It is Robbie Williams, of all people, who has been one of the few voices of sanity in a sea of confused commentary over the last week.
Posting on Instagram, he wrote: ‘I guess in these moments it’s worth repeating – we don’t know what’s going on in people’s lives. What pain they’re going through and what makes them behave in the way that they behave. Before we reach to judgment, a bit of slack needs to be given… I still had my demons at 31. I relapsed. I was in pain… I remember Heath Ledger passing and thinking “I’m next”. By the grace of God and/or dumb luck I’m still here.’
He’s right. I was 37 before I got sober, having relapsed multiple times. I couldn’t understand why I kept going back to the bottle. I had everything anyone could want – a lovely husband, a lovely daughter – and still I seemed hell bent on destroying it all.
It was only through the ‘dumb luck’ of knowing people in recovery that I was able to come to understand that I couldn’t get sober on my own, and that no outside thing – be it family, or material possessions – could stop my addiction. Suggesting someone like me had ‘just one drink’ was like asking someone to think their way out of a life-limiting physical illness.
I’m very vocal about my alcoholism, on behalf of all the people who aren’t able to be. And there’s a lot of people who aren’t able to be. The Forward Trust is a charity that helps people experiencing addiction – its patron is the Princess of Wales – and last year it released some startling research about the extent of drug and alcohol problems in this country. It found almost half of UK adults aged 18 to 75 were impacted by addiction, either suffering from it themselves or knowing someone that was. Yet despite this being equivalent to 22 million people, the study found that half of them felt unable to talk to anyone about their problems, due to the stigma attached to addiction.
The conclusion was stark: shame is keeping vast numbers of people sick, and we are surrounded by people suffering in silence because they are too afraid to speak truth to this hideous illness.
And it is an illness. Not a moral failing, not a lack of willpower, not a weakness that tends to befall either the very rich or the very poor. It is not the preserve of the young, as shown by the figures released this week that show a 30 per cent rise in cocaine deaths is down to a surge in middle-aged users.
Addiction does not discriminate – it could affect any one of us, might even be affecting you now, as you read this. And the sooner we recognise this, the sooner we will be able to help people like Liam, instead of having to rely on sheer dumb luck to save them.
Confidence clinic
According to a National Literacy Trust poll, just half of parents read to their young children every day. But I was shocked when a teacher told me you should continue reading to your kids (or with them) into their teens. It gives them a sense of security, as it’s one of the rare activities that allows them your full attention. Now my 11-year-old and I have a ‘girl’s book club’, when we read the latest young adult novel she’s in to. It’s a nice way to feel connected. I recommend it.
Every woman knows what Natalie means
The Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman has spoken of how she finally feels ‘safe’ now she is in her 40s. Portman shot to fame as a child when she starred in the movie Leon, and has said she felt sexualised at a young age. ‘It’s been liberating to be in my 40s, as I don’t feel that threat anymore.’
I don’t think you need to have been a child star to understand what Natalie’s getting at. I remember being wolf whistled when I was 13, while a man once propositioned me on the way home from school.
But you never felt able to complain about it then, because it was somehow seen as a good thing to be attractive, even if you did also happen to be a child. Thank goodness times have changed – not just for those of us in our 40s, who are no longer leered at publicly, but also for our daughters, who will know that they absolutely should kick up a fuss if it happens to them.
It’s a bit rich of Tina Brown to describe Meghan Markle as having ‘the worst judgment in the world’. The royal biographer made the remarks on a podcast. ‘She’s flawless about getting it all wrong,’ said the 70-year old, apparently unaware that publicly slating women you don’t actually know is pretty bad judgment in itself!
Ever feel like life is a bit…too much? Bestselling author and journalist Bryony Gordon is here to ditch the shame and dive headfirst into life’s messier bits. Search for The Life of Bryony wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes released every Monday and Friday.
