What Goes Around Comes Around
William C. Moyers returns to Rotary where his career as an addiction recovery advocate began 30 years ago
NOTE: Below is a speech William C. Moyers delivered on Jan. 23, 2023, at the Rotary Club of Atlanta — one of the largest in the nation — followed by a copy of the remarks as he prepared them. If you’d like to receive the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation’s monthly Recovery Advocacy Update email, featuring content such as this, subscribe today.
Thank you, Dr. Welsh, for all that you and your team at the Addiction Alliance of Georgia do for people like me.
I find it remarkable that I am here today — not just sharing the podium with Dr. Justine Welsh — but sharing an important conversation in this city with this gathering of Rotarians and guests and my colleagues at Hazelden Betty Ford and at Emory.
Remarkable, and a stirring coincidence, because you see, in my long career as a public advocate I have given thousands of talks and presentations. But the first public talk I ever gave was at a Rotary Club in St. Paul, Minnesota.
It was 26 years ago this month, January 1997. And I was the speaker that day for two reasons …
I was a Rotarian — a member of that Rotary Club. And if you’ve ever served on the program committee and it is your responsibility to find speakers. Well, the first place you look is in the ranks of the membership, and there I was: low-hanging fruit because I not only a local Rotarian, but I worked for Hazelden — a renowned non-profit organization that treats people addicted to alcohol and other drugs. An organization with a mission that reaches from coast to coast, but with the deepest of roots in Minnesota, where we were founded in 1949.
And what those Rotarians wanted me to talk about — was the impact of alcoholism and drug addiction in the workplace.
Bingo.
It’s me — the expert from Hazelden … the fellow Rotarian … the speaker.
Well, I spent weeks prepping for that talk. I probably wrote three or four drafts. I did a lot of research and found the most compelling stats about how addiction affects employers and employees and their families and the bottom line. I also had some compelling stats to make my case that how health plans should cover addiction among employees because tratmetn works and recovery benefits everyone and bolsters the bottom line.
I practiced in front of the mirror a lot. I even bought a new sport coat and tie. And on that day of that speech, I made sure my lapel was adorned with my Hazelden pin on one side, my Rotary pin.
I was dressed for success. I had a speech ready to knock ’em dead. And just to make sure that I had hooked this audience right out of the gate, at the beginning I told them just how important Rotary was not just to me, but to my father.
Because, before my father was a famous TV journalist and press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson, before he helped start the Peace Corps, and before he was a southern Baptist minister, he was n international Rotary scholar. And he attributed much of his success to his early experiences with Rotary.
How could I go wrong?
But five minutes into my talk, I realized I was in trouble. I was losing my audience.
Why?
Why weren’t they paying attention?
The only thing more difficult than giving a speech after dinner … is giving a speech after lunch.
But I was losing my audience for another reason. What was it?
I wasn’t telling them anything they didn’t already know.
They knew the problem of addiction. Not just in the workplace, but in the ER, in broken families and the criminal justice system. In homeless shelters and in schools, alcohol and other drugs have caused society problems for centuries. I was the expert from Hazelden, yes. But so were they. Aren’t we all? Indeed, addiction is and always has been, the number one public health problem in Minnesota and Georgia and the nation. I was boring them.
In that moment, I realized that if I was going to save the day — save my first public talk — I had to do something different. I had to talk to them, explain to them, prove to them, with a perspective that went beyond what any of them were expecting — beyond what any of them probably heard before.
And so I took that speech, put it to the side, and spoke not from the page. Not from my head even. But I spoke from my heart and soul.
I told them that I knew these issues because I am a person in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction.
I told them that as a teenager I experimented with marijuana and beer and before I knew it those substances had hijacked my brain and stole my soul.
I told them that even though I grew up lacking for nothing, emotionally, financially, morally and spiritually — I had it all — but despite it all I was proof that addiction does not discriminate.
I told them that my addiction led me into the darkest and most desperate places. A crack house in Harlem, New York, in 1989.
A crack house in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1991.
And in 1994, a crack house at the corner of Boulevard and Ponce de Leon Avenues in Atlanta. Indeed, not too far from where we’re sitting today.
I told them that addiction nearly killed me, more than once.
But I told them that I was saved, by people who continued to love me even though they hated what addiction had done to me, and what I did under the influence.
I told them that I was saved, even though I had given up on myself.
I told them that even though I wanted to die, people wanted me to live.
The people here in Atlanta, including my family, my employer, CNN, my church, my doctor, my neighbors, my community, and especially this man, Tom Johnson.
Indeed, I was given one more chance. More than one. And finally, that last chance, in Atlanta in 1994, I was saved.
Well, those Rotarians sat up. A few of them woke up. They were shocked. No speaker had ever shared such an intimate perspective in their Rotary meeting about addiction and recovery.
They were shocked too, because I didn’t look like what they expected.
The stigma surrounding people with substance use disorders is omnipotent, shaming, and all to often, deadly.
That day at that Rotary meeting — I “came out,” so to speak.
I discovered the power of telling my story. The power of smashing the stigma, by putting a face and a voice, mine, to addiction and recovery.
And ever since, I have been speaking out. At Rotary Clubs and Chambers of Commerce. On college campuses, in medical schools, churches and synagogues and even a mosque, from Wall Street to Main Street, in corner offices and HR departments of Fortune 500 companies, in jails and prisons and homeless shelters, in stadiums and arenas, public libraries and private family offices, the Aspen Institute, the Nobel Conference, in the news media and now, to you.
Speaking out about the problem — the power of addiction. But making sure to speak out too, about the solution: treatment and the promise and possibility of recovery. Recovery made possible when we give people a chance, or another chance, or just one more chance, to experience what I found here in Atlanta so long ago — hope, help and healing.
Not a week goes by that I don’t pause to ponder that that day so long ago when this community did for me what I could not do for myself. And when I think about that day I also remember too, all the other people in that crack house. There were nine of us. But when the knock came on the door and I heard a command, “We want the white guy. Just the white guy.” I knew the two Fulton County deputy sheriffs on the other side of that door, were only there looking for one person.
All these years later, that one person is the only one who is alive. The guy who got one more chance.
That’s why when Tom called me out of the blue five years ago this month and said, “We need more treatment for people here in Atlanta,” instantly I saw the faces of those eight women and men who I left behind in that crack house so long ago. People who were just as sick as I was. People who were no different than me, except for the color of their skin and the harsh fact that they were not going to get one more chance.
It is for people like them that Hazelden Betty Ford and Emory came together.
It is for people like them that the Addiction Alliance of Georgia, makes a difference every day since we cut the ribbon back in October.
It is for people like them, that we raised the $10 million from this community to open the outpatient center at Wessley Wood…and why we continue to raise more from our generous donors, to expand this mission.
And it is for people like them, who motivate me to be here today with Dr. Welsh and with all of you.
Thank you.
William C. Moyers is vice president of public affairs and community relations for the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation.
