I found this letter (written in 2008) deep in the files, and I doubt that I ever sent it to Gabor, but I needed to write it at the time, and I do think there are some good insights in it. But it's a cautionary tale about guru-ism in general, and the fundamental dishonesty of these lofty figures in particular. I don't remember the specific quote he stole from me, but it's the theft that counts. And his disrespect of those people who are trying to recover frankly revolted me in someone who is supposed to be an addictions specialist (read: guru) and is often described as "world-famous". No thanks, Gabor - I'd rather be happy.
Though you have made a joke out of stealing
my “white gloves” phrase, it has turned out to be quite pivotal (has it not?)
in differentiating your addictive behaviour from that of your patients. Seeing
it in an unfinished manuscript was one thing, but seeing it in print in your
book (i.e., on public display) gave me the unpleasant feeling that I had been
ripped off.
This wasn’t just a couple of neutral words
but a metaphor, and worlds have turned on metaphor. It gave me the feeling you
thought you could harvest my remarks and incorporate them, that it was all fair
game. If you were going to use it, you should have asked me directly or at
least quoted me anonymously, and not taken credit for it yourself. No writer should steal from another writer,
ever, nor make light of it anywhere, especially not in such a public venue as
the media.
Hearing you talk about it on CBC didn’t fix
the problem, nor did it make me any less uncomfortable as you announced, “this
is who I shamelessly stole it from” (then giving my real name). It’s as if you think it’s OK, as long as
you’re contrite about it on national radio. But CBC isn’t the place for this
sort of admission.
You could have avoided all this
unpleasantness if you had written or phoned me and said, “Margaret, I’m sorry I
ripped off your line” (that is, if you really were sorry). The bizarre public way you went about it
(which could be interpreted as “look who I made a fool of”, or as a public
demonstration of your conscience) makes me wonder if you have any sense of
boundaries, or any respect for me at all.
In the AA chapter of your book (and it also
offended me, a 12-step veteran, that you felt entitled to paraphrase and
interpret the 12 steps after only one meeting), you offered a description of
me. At least, I think it was me, through some sort of distorting lens: “A
manic-depressive with a long history of alcoholism, she’s been attending for
fifteen years.”
Nowhere in this rather depressing
description do I see the words “sober” or “recovering”. In seventeen years, I
have never had a relapse. I drank for twenty years, so my recovery will soon
catch up: as of now, I have been sober nearly 1/3 of my life. Yes, I do have a long history, but of what?
Can you guess?
But you wouldn’t know that from your
description of me. You can “attend” meetings for decades and not experience a
day of sobriety, but from the beginning I have worked extremely hard, both to
maintain my sobriety and to understand and change the self-defeating thinking
and behaviour that triggered my drinking. I don’t think I would have stayed
sober this long if it hadn’t worked.
But that’s not what it says in your book.
Since the general public doesn’t have a
clue about AA, they tend to think it’s attended only by practicing alcoholics
(perhaps even the skid row type – believe me, I’ve heard a lot of comments) who
are too weak to do it on their own. If
by some chance they do succeed, they are “former alcoholics”, as if the
addiction has been “conquered” or overcome by sheer force of will. Then they stop attending, because they are
“cured”.
Until I joined, I think I felt something
like that myself. Fifteen years of
“attending” may look admirable to an AA member, but a civilian might
think, “She has attended meetings for
fifteen years, and she’s still an alcoholic?”
If you look at your description carefully, it’s possible to conclude
that I’ve been drinking for all that time, which is, to say the least,
inaccurate.
But there is so much more to it than that:
attending meetings is just the surface level of a very deep process of
revelation and profound personal change. The fourth and fifth steps take the
recovering person to a new level of self-knowledge which is necessary for
awareness of triggers, not just of drinking but of the behavioural “isms” that
go with it. AA step meetings, usually held in a member’s home, go far deeper
than open meetings in this sort of exploration, and can create profound bonds
of connection and friendship that can last for years.
And then there are the AA roundups (conferences
with speakers from all over the world) and the retreats, such as the yearly
Westminster Abbey retreat in Mission which I have “attended” (opened my soul to) for ten years. These are intensive spiritual gatherings for
those who are ready to do some serious work with an open heart. I cannot begin
to describe the epiphanies I have experienced there.
Did you know about all this stuff (or any
of it) when you wrote about AA? At very least, I think attending more than one
meeting was necessary and would have demonstrated a modicum of respect. NO ONE, not even someone as brilliant as you
seem to think you are, “gets” AA or any other soul-changing recovery group
after only one meeting. I hated my first meeting, in fact I was completely
closed until about my twelfth meeting. And not all meetings are created
equal. The mix is different wherever you
go. Too bad you aren’t an alcoholic, as
there is a Doctors in AA group which is apparently very powerful, and no doubt
better dressed.
In other words, I think this was a pretty
shallow and even disrespectful take on a profound process, but most people
likely won’t realize it because they have nothing to compare it to. They will
assume AA is just a bunch of lower-middle-class people getting together to slap
each other on the back, smoke too much and hear someone say amusing things
about the hell they went through. You
say you like these people, that you wish you were one of them, but I think you
clearly differentiate yourself from them, as you quietly withdraw into your
study to listen to classical CDs. Of all the addictions I’ve ever heard of,
this one is pretty genteel, and about as far from the street as you can get.
(White gloves, indeed.)
The other issue (a big one) is this: must I be identified by my psychiatric
condition? Don’t you think I am (much)
more than “a manic-depressive with a long history of alcoholism”? Would you
say, “a Parkinsonian with a long history of playing too much bingo. . .”, or
“an ADD (note, he’s no longer a person but a disease) with a long history of
buying too many CDs” (or, for a more exact comparison, “a schizophrenic with a
long history of heroin addiction”? How would this person be perceived by the
ignorant public? Would they assume he was clean; would they assume he was well?)
I don’t give a shit how I am perceived, as
I tossed that kind of judgement in the wastebasket a long time ago. But that’s
not the point. It hurts me that my fellow sufferers (who often can’t defend
themselves) must be cruelly misjudged and damaged by ignorance, insensitivity
and stigma. It galls me that mental
illness is still such a defining trait. Just the term is problematic for me. We
don’t say “diabetic illness” or “arthritic illness,” do we? And if you’re
“ill”, as in “mentally ill”, how can you be well? Defeat is built right into
the terminology.
And don’t get me started on being
identified as “a manic-depressive” (or more accurately, “a bipolar”: don’t you
realize the term was changed over 15 years ago?), instead of a person with
a bipolar condition. Even “a manic-depressive woman” is a shade better, as it’s
at least a descriptive term, not an
identity badge. AIDS activists broke
ground on this many years ago: and even at that, AIDS was labelled a “syndrome”
rather than a “disorder”, a less stigmatizing term.
There are people (maybe you?) who would say
this is just so much hairsplitting, quibbling over terminology that means the
same thing. It is not. We don’t have accurate terms to describe the raging
forest fire that rips through people’s brains, leaving blackened ruins. We
don’t have the language to describe the nausea at having to tolerate other
people’s ignorance, pity and disgust. Or the powerlessness and sense of being
marginalized, shunted to the fringes of society. We don’t have terms for the courage it takes
(yes, the courage it takes!) to get up on your feet again, and start to take a
few shaky, tentative steps.
Years ago I used to say, “if you had to
live inside my head for one day, you’d run screaming.” That may be true, but we
can’t get inside each other’s heads. However, we can practice some empathy,
choose our words with care instead of falling back on medical jargon, and be
aware that a person’s individuality and humanity always comes ahead of
their disease condition.
Most medical practitioners don’t know this
difference, but what about you? Your
book is flying off the shelves due to your insight, compassion and medical
knowledge (so they say). But a great
many people, not knowing anything about addiction, will believe pretty much
everything that is in it. Yet you describe your “friend” (me) as a sort of case
study, a chronically disabled person who drags the long chains of alcoholism
behind her, still attached to meetings like a life support system after fifteen
years.
In the past few years I have learned so
much I can’t even begin to paraphrase it here, but one thing I know for sure is
that people like me must insist on dignity and stand up to prejudice and
misinformation wherever we find it. This isn’t just for me, but for the
countless others who are too powerless to do it. How we express ideas around
addiction and mental illness matters because it affects people’s
(especially readers’) thinking and behaviour towards sufferers. Whether it’s a
metaphor or a description of a human being, every word counts, because it
directly affects the self-esteem and thus the emotional and mental health of
every person who has walked through the hell of addiction.
To sum up, I believe your little jokes
about stealing my phrase (a pivotal one that has been quoted several times by
journalists) miss the mark. Are you admitting that you did wrong, or placating
me so I won’t call you on it? Assuming you could incorporate my original
metaphor was both arrogant and dishonest. Your little drama of confessing it on
the air rather than apologizing to me was extremely rude, not to mention
twisted. In addition, your inaccurate description of me painted me as a sad
case, a mentally ill alcoholic who still needs propping up after 15 years. Calling this disrespectful is an
understatement.
And how is this for a rewrite:
“A woman I know, sober seventeen years and
a faithful member of the program, has been able to ride out the violent
rollercoaster of a bipolar condition that could have ended her sobriety and her
life. It didn’t, due to the power and
grace she still finds in her regular AA meetings. It is more than fellowship:
it’s powerful medicine.”
For the sake of accuracy, I ask you to
revise your description of me in subsequent printings.
Margaret
(Needless to say, that didn't happen. Since then, criticism of Mate's unsavory connections with various political factions have done damage to his reputation, which wasn't so hot to begin with.)
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