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Recovery in the News
The freedom of 'coming out' about recovery
Leslie Glass
Herald Tribune
March 27, 2011
How I went to rehab, wrote a movie, made a documentary, and yikes, became a social activist:
For months I've struggled with my decision to appear in a documentary about recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction.
Now the film is about to be screened for the first time — at the Sarasota Film Festival — and people are asking me about going public about my recovery.
"Is it hard?"
Yes. Of course, it's hard to admit that I struggle with something. Who wants to admit her flaws? But the reality is everyone struggles with something.
What surprises me most about "coming out" is the freedom. I won't have to make up lies at parties about why I don't drink. I won't have to worry about revealing my past because people will know it. And the good news is, if someone doesn't like it they will stay away.
Easy peasy, right? Well, some days.
Coming out of the recovery closet didn't happen overnight. In 2006, I wrote a screenplay called "Rehab Is for Quitters," about a 21-year-old girl who goes to rehab. It's a comedy about eccentric patients who have to take over when the head clinicians leave in the night.
Having no fiction-writing experience at the time, I told my mom the story. She's a novelist and liked the idea, so we wrote it together. After about a dozen Hollywood managers passed on it, I put it on the shelf. But we returned to the project last spring and spent the summer making a documentary about real people in recovery.
Rehabs opened their doors to us, doctors agreed to participate if we promised they wouldn't end up on the editing room floor, and no one said no.
Before I knew it, I was on the road for six months ... with my mother.
On the way to making a movie, unexpected things happened. I started conducting interviews. On camera, I told inmates in jail that I was in recovery, too; turns out, I needed to talk as much as they did.
The drama of my own recovery, and my often-dysfunctional relationship with my mother, became part of the story. And that helped repair our relationship. We forgot to put on makeup, or style our clothes, and sometimes we forgot to wash our hair. The camera was running but we weren't thinking about ourselves.
As I listened to women in jail cheer for each other, and weep with gratitude for having an opportunity to get counseling while incarcerated, I cried too.
When formerly homeless people grinned from ear to ear as they talked about getting sober in a program that lets them stay as long as they need to stay, I smiled with them.
And when I heard a weeping mother give thanks to the rehab that gave her son "back" to her, I heard my call.
We need to tell these stories to give hope to people who are suffering.
Turns out, I'm third generation on the ramparts. My grandmother fought for civil rights and for labor laws for children, and was an early proponent of Head Start. My mother spearheaded groundbreaking research in many fields, including the impact of radiation exposure at Chernobyl and education for inmates. I always knew that one day it would be my turn. I just never thought the cause I would fight for would be my own.
But silence is death. Since I was 15, almost a dozen people I knew well have died from the disease of addiction: Now that's a psychological impact.
This nation spends billions of dollars on trying to keep street drugs from crossing our borders, but nothing on helping the kids who get addicted. We encourage the relentless marketing of prescription drugs that end up in the hands of children and fail to educate families on how to deal with the devastation it causes. It's time to talk about what's happening here.
There is no national drive for research to find a cure for addiction, and there should be. More kids are becoming addicted younger, more people are dying, and we desperately need to bring attention to this issue. We have to find new ways protect our friends and our families. We have to teach 'tweens and teens how to take care of themselves. We need to rethink everything we think we know about addiction and recovery.
But first we've got to talk.
Am I scared about telling my own story? Not anymore.
Lindsey Glass is a screenwriter and lives in California.