Supporting Celebrity Addicts
By: Benya Clark
Tags: Sobriety, Celebrity, Mental Health, Addiction, Recovery

Yesterday, news broke that an incredibly famous celebrity had entered rehab for cocaine and alcohol addiction, following a recent relapse. Within hours, the internet had drowned under a flood of support for him.

Celebrities and non-celebrities alike tweeted out well-wishes. A thousand blog posts were written about destigmatizing addiction. Even the gossip magazines seemed to take a supportive tone.

However, I have to admit that my own first response was jealousy. I’m not proud of it, but I couldn’t help comparing his attempt to get sober with my own.

When I quit drinking, there were no tweets of support — not even a call or text. Few people in the world knew that I had developed a drinking problem, and nobody knew that I was attempting to get sober.

Like many addicts, I had grown incredibly isolated during my years of drinking. My friendships weren’t exactly strained; instead, they had just faded away.

Another key difference is that this celebrity has the money and time to enter in-patient rehab for the next two months. If I had tried to do that, I would have derailed my entire career. When I quit, I was forced to squeeze sobriety into my life, and didn’t have the benefit of being able to devote my full attention to it.

It’s no good, though, to take someone else’s problems and make them all about myself. The truth is that I’m happily sober and he’s currently suffering, and I certainly wouldn’t want to trade places with him in a million years. From the bottom of my heart I wish him the best, as I do for all struggling addicts.

We Need Better Systems

I think the real lesson to take from this outpouring of support is that we need better support systems for all addicts. We need to find a way for people to extend the empathy they feel for a charismatic celebrity to friends, family, and strangers.

It’s easy to love an addict from a distance. It becomes a lot harder when you get up close.

Most addicts are more similar to me than they are to this celebrity. By the time they’re ready to quit, they’ve likely alienated themselves to a great degree. They won’t have hordes of friends and fans wishing them well.

It’s great that we have so many peer-based support groups like AA. They provide free and cheap ways for recovering addicts to rapidly build a support network. But on their own, they aren’t always enough.

There are many addicts who need rehab to get better, but they simply can’t afford it. Many more can’t risk disrupting their lives. When a celebrity leaves rehab, they’re often welcomed back to the industry with open arms. Things don’t go as smoothly in most professions.

I don’t mean to make it sound as if celebrities with addictions have it easy — it’s obviously still a struggle, no matter how strong your support system is. I just want all addicts to have access to the same resources that the richest addicts have.

How do we actually get there?

More public funding would be a great start. Rehab programs should be 100% government funded for anyone who has financial need. Over the long run, these programs typically save tax payers money due to lower medical costs down the road. It’s a win-win option that most governments have completely ignored.

Changes to professional organizations would also help. There should be systems in place to protect an addict’s job while they are recovering. It should be treated no differently than if someone had been in the hospital for a physical ailment.

Showing support. As much as I hate to admit it, those tweets which made me jealous are actually a great step in the right direction. It really is wonderful that so many people are on board with destigmatizing addiction. Every time that someone publicly proclaims their support for recovering addicts, it makes it a little bit easier for another addict to get help.

The outpouring of support that this celebrity received on the internet yesterday is a clear sign of progress. Society is increasingly understanding that addiction is not a moral failure.

I hope that within my lifetime we see the stigma surrounding addiction disappear completely. I hope that the same empathy which is extended to a high-profile celebrity can be extended to the homeless addicts that so many of us pass each day without a second thought. Let’s continue to support the celebrities, but let’s fight for systemic changes too.