There’s an old saying, write what you know, and Neil Steinberg, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, has written about his addiction and recovery in several books including his memoir Drunkard, and Out of the Ashes I rise, where he wove together a number of AA truisms into a great narrative.

For the last year, Steinberg has been touring and promoting Ashes, including a recent appearance at Harper College, where the university described the book as “structured to follow the arduous steps to sobriety…the book shares the wisdom of centuries and explores essential topics, including the importance of time, navigating family and friends, Alcoholics Anonymous, relapse, and the reward that is recovery…The result is a mosaic of observations and encouragement that draws on writers and artists spanning thousands of years,” whether it’s the great Greek philosophers to rock n roll poets.

The introduction of the book is “Why Put It Off?” and as he tells DNAinfo, “Poetry helps…philosophy helps.” He also quoted a British novelist, Zadie Smith: “Other people’s words are the bridge you use to cross from where you were to wherever you’re going.”

Many writers fall in love with literature and storytelling, and as Steinberg continued, “You cannot just give up something. You have to have something to replace it…For me it’s reading. When you’re an addict, recovery is an intimate thing, and reading these quotes is almost as if you take your deepest, darkest secrets and every great poet and writer is going to talk to you about it.”

These AA truisms have helped Steinberg stay sober, and he concludes that “recovery is the path of the hero. It’s a difficult, arduous effort…It’s like climbing a mountain. And these people, these writers, can help you make it.”

There are many professions where people can be vulnerable to addiction, and sports is certainly one of them. Many players can get addicted to painkillers and other drugs that come with a high-flying lifestyle. Now Brett Favre has come forward to confess that he’s struggled with addiction and has taken three trips to rehab. 

As Yahoo Sports reports, Favre took one trip to rehab that the public knows about for Vicodin addiction. 1995 was an MVP year for Favre, but as he says, “That year, when I woke up in the morning, my first thought was, ‘I gotta get more pills.’ I took 14 Vicodin, yes, one time. I was getting an hour or two of sleep many nights. Maybe 30 minutes of quality sleep. I was the MVP on a pain-pill buzz. The crazy thing was, I’m not a night owl. Without pills, I’d fall asleep at 9:30. But with pills, I could get so much done.” 

Favre’s wife would find his Vicodin and flush them down the toilet, and finally, he spent 72 days in rehab. But as Favre confirms, “I actually went to rehab three times. I saw the most successful, smart people – doctors, professional people – lose it all, ruin their lives.” Favre didn’t think he had a problem the second time, but his wife and sports agent Bus Cook convinced him to go.  

Favre also had a drinking problem. “When I drank, I drank to excess. They said drinking was the gateway drug for me, and they were right, but I wouldn’t admit it.” Favre went back one more time for a 28-day stint, and apparently, that did the trick.  

“When I got out, the toughest thing was the first three months,” he said. “Because I had to change my thought process. When I played golf before, I realized the only reason I wanted to play was to drink. After a while, instead of thinking, ‘How many beers can we drink in 18 holes?’ I fell into a pattern of what could I do to get good at golf. I realized with each passing day I really didn’t like drinking.”  

There have been many great movies, books, cable series and documentaries about addiction that can be both horrifying and illuminating to the world. Many everyday people who don’t understand addiction can learn a lot from them, and now there’s a hard-hitting new short documentary, The Pull, that deals with a man, John Bixby, who isn’t yet thirty, but who has been struggling for addiction for over ten years. 

 Bixby is hooked on opioids and has done time in jail. This documentary, which was created for the New York Times, shows Bixby incarcerated, and how he’s struggled to try and clean up his life. At one point in the documentary, he admits, “I know I’m not gonna stop unless I want to. The only time I’ve kicked is…I’ve done it on the streets on my own, it’s never lasted, jail is the only way I’ve stopped for a while.”  

 The Pull was directed by Paul Szynol, and as he writes in the New York Times, “Films that confront pain are films that confront a taboo; they make us uncomfortable. On the one hand, we respond to the content itself, to the visibility of something that we strive to eradicate or at least avoid.” 

 Szynol acknowledges that a documentary like this can lead to charges of exploitation, but as he explains, “Addicts in the United States are largely treated as criminals, their identities reduced to legal charges and chemical doses. Addiction is seen as self-inflicted failure; the etiology is passed over in silence. Because the victims are the perpetrators, the supply of empathy is limited.” 

 In documenting Bixby’s addiction, Szynol says “the point is to restore three-dimensionality and incarnate the individual. Those ugly moments – moments of heartache, despondency, wretchedness – are not only symbolic of addiction in general but also defining parts of John’s story.” In the film “John recaptures the narrative about his own suffering, and allows us to respond in the way that systemic criminalization of addiction doesn’t: with empathy and understanding.”  

Tammy Baldwin is a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin who is currently up for re-election in November, and now she’s talking to the public with a strong personal message, openly confessing that her mother suffered from prescription drugs. 

As the Fix reports, Baldwin says in her new TV spot, “My mother had a drug abuse problem. She struggled with addiction to prescription drugs her whole life. I had to grow up fast, very fast.” Baldwin has also been seeing the specter of opioids hitting her native state of Wisconsin, which is why she feels compelled to speak out as well. 

“When I see the opioid crisis that’s wrecking so many Wisconsin families, all I can tell you is I’ve been there. I know how hard this fight is. I know the stigma that comes with drug abuse and mental illness.”  

A common saying in recovery is you’re only as sick as your secrets, and as Baldwin told the Associated Press, “What good does it do if everyone just keeps their little secrets? How are we really going to understand that this affects all of us? I’ve seen it over and over and over again, the power of telling your story.”  

Many have been crying out to the government to do more to fight addiction, and last year Baldwin introduced new legislation where she wants to invest $45 billion to fight opioids.  

“Washington must step up to be a stronger partner in this fight by investing in local prevention, treatment and recovery efforts,” she says. “Our legislation is a commonsense, bipartisan-based solution to address the national opioid crisis with stable, long-term support that will strengthen state and local resources.”  

Chris Herren had the kind of career trajectory athletes that dream of. He went from being a college legend to playing for the Boston Celtics and the Denver Nuggets. But Herren suffered from addiction for fourteen years, and he told CNN, “I did my first line of cocaine at 18, and it took 14 years to stop.” 

With Herren, addiction started at home, and he recalls, “I grew up in a family that suffered from alcoholism…We all get sick in this process. Family members have broken hearts, and people who are suffering have broken souls. That person suffering is going to walk out into the arms of family members, and we need them to be as healthy as possible to support them.”  

Herren’s addiction transitioned from cocaine to Vicodin to heroin, and his basketball career was over by 2006. He hit bottom when he wound up clinically dead from on overdose for thirty seconds. With the help of his wife and a close friend in the NBA, Herren got help. “They reached out to me and gave me the greatest gift any family could give someone, a chance to get well,” Herren says. 

Like many in recovery, Herren wants to pay it forward, and he’s been helping others suffering from addiction since 2011. “My whole purpose with this is to break the stigma [with addiction], and eliminate the rock bottoms.” 

In helping others, Herren wants to make sure that today’s generation has the support they need when they’re facing down addiction. “There’s not enough support for those kids who want to make the right choice,” he says. “The scariest thing about kids, the scariest thing about addiction, is nobody knows who has it.”  

Boy George, the lead singer of Culture Club, is one of the legendary icons of the eighties. George had a number of hits that many fondly remember today like Karma Chameleon before he succumbed to addiction and disappeared off the radar. Now George is celebrating a decade sober, and he told Black Hill Pioneer that sobriety “has set me free.” 

George is currently a judge on the Australian edition of The Voice, and he said when you “get through the other side, you get a life beyond your wildest dreams because recovery really does set you free.”  

As The Fix reports, when George was in his second year of sobriety, he tried to get the late Amy Winehouse to get help in 2011. “Come to a meeting babe,” he told her. “Do you know how loved you are?” 

George’s sober date is March 2, 2008, and he said in an interview, “Now, I’m the person I should be. I cherish the moderate life now. I don’t want drama or complication. In the past, if someone were to ask me if I had any regrets, I would have said absolutely none. I would have been so defiant. Now, I can actually say that I do have lots of regrets. I think it’s good to be aware of what you’ve done and just say: ‘You know, I don’t want to do that again.’”  

To help raise awareness about addiction, when some families lose a loved one to drugs they often allow the newspaper obituary to be brutally honest about how they died, hoping it will scare some who suffer from addiction straight. Now a funeral director is trying a similar approach as a tool to help fight against opioids. 

As The Guardian reports, Staten Island funeral director Kevin Moran spoke at a local boys school, where he told the parents in attendance, “I am the one you never want to meet.” Moran spoke at a “scared straight” event for families, and he was one of a number of people to speak out about the horrors of addiction.  

In Staten Island, where Moran is based, opioids have hit hard. In 2016, the area reportedly had “the highest per capita rate of opioid deaths in New York City at 32 per 100,000 people.” To hammer the point home, Moran let a large number of death certificates scroll out in front of him, and they were only the death certificates from the last four months.  

Moran became a public speaker against addiction when he was approached by a nurse four years ago. The nurse wanted her speaking engagements to have more impact, and she told him, “We have to step it up a notch. We have to scare the crap out of them.” And by speaking out now, hopefully, he can save lives down the road. “There’s nothing I can do for the person who died,” Moran says. “My job is to help the living.”