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Recovery in the News
Former journalist shares story of addiction, recovery
William R. Wineke
Wisconsin State Journal
March 22, 2007
Having a famous father can be a good thing for a journalist.
When William Cope Moyers, son of the famous Bill Moyers, was a writer for CNN in Atlanta, President Bill Clinton came to visit the newsroom, the president made it a point to walk over and shake Moyers' hand.
Heady stuff. But it didn't change the fact the younger Moyers was a crack addict who, shortly thereafter, walked away from three years sobriety to meet a friend in a New York City crack house.
Moyers is no longer in journalism. He is vice president of external affairs for the Hazelden Foundation in Center City, Minn. He knows a fair amount about Hazelden. He went through its treatment program twice - and returned to drugs each time.
Moyers tells the story of his life in "Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption" (Viking: $25.95). It's a pretty scary story.
He started smoking marijuana during the summer before his senior year in high school, drank his way through Washington & Lee University and got arrested in 1980 when he broke into a fish market: "I knew exactly what I was doing, but I had no idea why I was doing it."
Moyers became a newspaper reporter, got married, moved to Dallas, used drugs and got drunk. A pretty typical story for an addict/ alcoholic.
He was hospitalized at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City. He received alcohol treatment at Hazelden in Minnesota. He worked a good "program," going to AA meetings and living in a halfway house. He got divorced - and remarried. He used drugs. He returned to Hazelden.
Moyers and his new wife, Allison, got an apartment in St. Paul. He got a job with CNN in Atlanta. Did very well. Used drugs. Moved into a crack house. Went through another course of treatment at Ridgeview Institute.
A month after his discharge, the cravings for drugs took hold again, and he lied to his wife about going out to run errands.
"In less than five minutes I was in the crack house. Not to get high this time, for like everything else in my life, the drugs had stopped working. I walked in the door, sat down at the table in the kitchen and fired up the pipe. Again and again and again. Trying, wanting, needing, waiting to die."
His next treatment worked, mainly, it seems because he finally "surrendered" and let God help him. He has now been clean and sober for many years.
So, "Broken" is, finally, a story of redemption. But it is also a story of a young man and his family running repeatedly into brick walls. Many of Moyers' friends died.
He includes numerous letters from his father in the book. They are warm, encouraging, respectful letters, letters which, within the context of Moyers' actual life at the time, seem as irrelevant as bingo cards.
Everyone, it seems, did everything right and nothing worked, until something did.
"Broken" is a great story - but it will scare the wits out of any parent.
Moyers will tell his story April 12 at 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, East Town
Copyright © 2007 Wisconsin State Journal