Michael King -Politics & Addiction

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Change doesn’t come about on a national scale without strategic planning and organizing.  Just ask Michael King.

Michael spent a decade organizing and running political campaigns around the US.  Now, as the Director and Creator of The Communities Project, he’s taking that expertise to communities across the country to align their voices and combat addiction through organizing.

But first he had to work through his own addictions to alcohol and gambling.

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I made a trip to Vegas on a surprise bachelor party.

I was quite drunk as we all, were having a jolly time. We decided to walk up to a blackjack table.

I had never really gambled in my life. And I won several hundred dollars as did my two friends who were joined me at that table.

And as I sat there and nursing beer after beer, the rush that I felt from this experience of gambling was like nothing I'd ever experienced before.

And it began a three and a half year journey with gambling that coincided with my alcohol use.

My father had found recovery when I was very, very young. My father’s father lost his life as a result of addiction. My father's father's father suffered from addiction.

Sadly, it didn't stop me from experimenting and then becoming addicted myself.

I finally had my first real experience getting drunk when I was 13, and I absolutely loved it.

I didn't drink every day, wasn't really possible, but I obsessed about alcohol all the time.

And I started immediately doing things to get alcohol that I'd never done before -- shoplifting it from the local convenience store, taking from my friends’ parents liquor cabinet.

And I started drinking alone.

By about 15 years old, I realized that maybe I had issues with alcohol.I walked into a recovery meeting, and what I'll always remember about it was how I immediately felt attracted to all of those people in the room. They seemed to talk about feelings of sadness and isolation, and things that they had felt -- and I felt more at home in that environment than maybe I had ever felt in my life.

I actually ended up remaining in recovery for over five and a half years.

My grades improved dramatically. I auditioned and got into my first choice theater school, which was Emerson college in Boston. I was sober. Being the 18 year old sober boy at the keg party is not the most appealing place to be.

The Democratic presidential fight was starting to heat up between, at the time, Vice President Gore and Senator Bill Bradley from New Jersey, and I was just gravitated to the news of this political campaign, and the excitement of it.

I took a bus from Boston up to Manchester, New Hampshire to volunteer for Senator Bradley's campaign. I just was so attracted to this excitement. There was a rush in this work.

And I switched my major to Communication, Politics and Law. And I started to have a lot more fun.

The summer prior to my senior year, I'd had my first paying job in politics. I had started as an intern and then gotten hired for the summer to work on a campaign for governor of Massachusetts.

And I was at an after work party. I could still tell you that I had four beers that evening. And I remember walking home excited, thrilled, exhilarated, and thinking, There's no possible way I could be an alcoholic, and I have now wasted five and a half years of my life.

Drinking was just an exclamation point at the end of a wonderful college experience.

I graduated cum laude from the school. Had a job lined up to go work on John Kerry's presidential campaign. I'm sort of naturally a shy person or an introvert in a large group of people, and I would start to drink, and I would feel completely comfortable. I would feel comfortable doing an impersonation of our boss. And everybody laughed!

Now I only felt comfortable doing that after I'd had a couple beers. So those beers in my mind were the key to social success, to being liked by women. Look at me, I'm traveling the country, I'm making a difference! And alcohol is at the core of that.

The career continues to accelerate. All the while my drinking is increasing. All the while I'm caring a lot more about being out at the bar than I am planning the wedding, which took place in September, 2007.

The state Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, which oversaw all of the campaigns for our state Senate -- the executive director position came open and I took it.

In the meantime, I had had my first child, my daughter was born. She was the light of my life. And even, despite just the love that I felt, and the dedication I felt to fatherhood, it couldn't seem to overtake my need to gamble and my need to drink.

I started working for our Senate. And I had near complete autonomy. There was a bar right across the street. My drinking moved to several beers at lunch. I had paid off a ton of debt that I'd had and driven it right back up, all at the casinos.

Things were starting to really spiral for me. The job was kicking into gear. The election year of 2012 was starting.

I was drinking in the morning. I woke up nearly every single night in fit of -- I didn't realize until I went to treatment that, I was suffering from alcohol withdrawals and I didn't even make the connection at the time that that's what was going on.

In November of 2011, I think, I was tapped out again on my own money, and I wrote myself my first fraudulent check in my job.

Now this is a cause that I had dedicated myself to for at that point nearly a decade. And I wrote myself a fraudulent check for my addictions.

And I knew what I was doing. And I didn't feel entitled to it. I did't feel that I was, that I deserved money that didn't belong to me.

I was stealing money that could be going to the very campaigns I was so dedicated to helping. But it felt I didn't have a choice.

Little did I know at the time because I wasn't aware that I had taken about $250,000 from the Campaign Committee, and drank and gambled every penny of it away.

Finally, by January, 2013, it's all falling apart. There was nothing left to take.

And I drove to a casino. I took out one last payday loan, for the "Win to Win all Wins." Lost it all in a couple hours.

And I went to my first recovery meeting in a long time on February 16th, 2013. And I haven't had a drink or drug or placed a bet since.

I came back. I had to face the music. I fessed up, lost my position, obviously. Went into treatment.

I knew my marriage was over. I knew that I had a son on the way, and that I had a kid I loved.

And I felt that I deserve a second chance at life. I've got to accept responsibility for the things that I've done, and I can't run around and just blame addiction for it. It was very important to me through the process to not do that.

I started this journey of humility that continues to this day, trying to right the wrongs that I'd done. Try to find a way to be comfortable in my own skin, absent alcohol, which had never happened for me. Even in my first venture into recovery that's what was lacking. That never happened for me.

I pled guilty to eight counts of felony theft. And I ended up doing three months behind bars, and then five months in work release prior to going into community custody.

Every single person I met in there, 85% of them, were in there for addiction-related crimes.

This is such a broken system! I wanted to do something about it.

Is there a way to merge my love for politics and organizing with my passion for recovery? Cause I'd like to do something about it, and I felt somewhat of a responsibility kind of given my background to give back.

And it's all been amazing. I've gotten individuals in recovery to engage in over 50,000 calls to action, from passing legislation in Congress to a project that I feel most passionately about -- The Communities Project, which has been training individuals around the country in how to engage in organizing, the very work I did at the beginning of my political career. But to take it to addiction.

I continue to do this amazing work today.

I have an amazing partner in my life today, a woman who inspires me every day.

I have two children who, after a lot of rebuilding, are with me 50% of the time.

I get to pay my bills on time, with money that I earned. I get to look in the mirror, and on most days, feel pretty darn comfortable in my own skin. And know that I didn't lie to anybody today. I didn't cheat anybody. I didn't take anything that didn't belong to me.

And I get to be proud of that.

And I get to be who I am.

And I'm Michael King, and that's my story.

Jam Alker -Breaking Barriers

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Photo by Bill Whitemire courtesy Jam Alker

When musician Jam Alker entered treatment in 2014 he took his guitar with him and began writing songs about his struggles. He discovered the creative process allowed him to lean into his feelings instead of trying to numb them. Now Alker takes his message of music's healing powers across the country, playing concerts, speaking to students, and leading workshops. He also works with Recovery Unplugged. You can learn more at www.JamAlker.com.

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The feeling produced by heroin was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before.

It is not a high like smoking a joint or having a few glasses of wine.But it is a euphoria. At least in the beginning.

There is a rush of pleasure, warmth, contentedness. Everything feels like it's going to be all right. It feels like a mother's love.

That's how it starts. But it doesn't last

I grew up everywhere. I was born in England, moved to the States when I was three. A lot of violence, upheaval in my childhood. One of my first memories is my father walking towards me, sort of staggering, wide-eyed with blood gushing down his face, and my mom breaking a whiskey bottle over the top of his head to stop his violent advances.

Shortly after that, my mom picked me up on the way home from a friend's house one day when I was five years old. We got in the car. The next thing I knew we were in Las Vegas.

She then married another violent alcoholic. Spent a few years with him until he, in a violent rage, destroyed the house.

I thought my mom would grab me and my brother, put us in the car and take us somewhere else. Instead, she stayed with him, put us in a bus across the country to go live with my father.

Stayed with him for the next eight years, moving around the country. In that time I saw my mom two, maybe three times, till I was in 10th grade and my dad couldn't be violent towards me without me retaliating. So he sent me to go live with my mom who was in Chicago.

Moved in with her in 10th grade. Was on my own by 11th grade. Finished out high school and moved down into the big city, deciding that I was going to become a famous musician.

So I started playing in bands. Had some success. Did some touring, made some albums. And in that lifestyle there are certain things that are accepted, if not celebrated.

I'm talking about the distracting behaviors, the numbing behaviors, the desire to find comfort on the outside that I now know only comes from the inside.

My addictions were more my ego. Chasing after fame, after power, after prestige, after love, after relationships. Wanting people to love me to make me feel important because I didn't feel important inside.

I had that thing inside of me that so many addicts and alcoholics talk about: this hole in their soul, this hole inside of them that they've never been able to fill. This discomfort.

And we're taught that the answer to that hole inside, the way to fill it, the way to find that internal happiness is through external means.

And so I bought into that. I didn't know any different.

So then I thought it would be money. And I made a ton of money.

From the outside world looking in, you would think at that point that I had everything.

I was well on my way to becoming a millionaire. I owned a recording studio and a record label. I had toured the country, signed autographs, had music that had been played on the radio.

But I was miserable.

And then I was introduced to heroin, to opiates. And opiates are physical painkillers, but opiates are also emotional painkillers.

So that thing that I had been trying to fix, that hole I've been trying to fill it that I never been able to. I would not been able to fill that hole, but this at least numbed me to that pain.

It wasn't long before the money was gone. The property was gone. The recording studio was gone. The record label was gone. Many of my closest, dearest relationships were gone.

And I gave all of these things away, for heroin.

I didn’t lose half a million dollars on a couch cushion somewhere.

I didn't misplace that recording studio or that record label in the back of a cab in a hurry one day in downtown Chicago.

And I didn't misplace some of my dearest relationships.

I gave those things away.

In that 10-year period, I gave all of those things away because heroin, opioids, became all that mattered in my life.

So that's where I was.

And four years ago, I finally surrendered and checked into a treatment facility and I brought my guitar with me, honestly thinking it was just going to help me pass the time. I hadn't picked up my guitar almost at all over the decade in the deep dark hole.

I began writing again. I began writing about all of the experiences that I had been through, and all of the discomfort that I was going through there in early recovery.

I decided I wasn't going to get high anymore. That meant all of those things that I had been burying my whole life, all of the things that I had been numbing myself to, I was going to have to start to deal with those things. I was going to have to start to process those things.

Or I was in danger of going back out and I knew the next step for me was death. I had no doubt where I was headed.

So I picked up the guitar, and it's just my own form of therapy, I began writing. And I finally felt connected spiritually.

And things started to happen and I continued to cultivate that contact with the creative source -- whatever that thing is -- and I began to heal some of my deepest wounds.

I wrote a few songs. I started to share them with some of my peers in my unit, and some really significant, impactful moments started to happen.

You know, addiction is about isolation. Recovery is about community. And community can happen on a large scale coming together, but community can happen one-on-one as well.

It's empathy, when I feel what you feel, when you feel what I feel -- that connection, that is community. And that's what recovery is about.

And these guys in my unit with me started to come to me and say, "You're able to put into words some of the things that I'm feeling. Thank you.”

And I realized at that moment, that the only thing that ever truly filled that hole inside of me was helping others, being of service to others who had no way of repaying me.

I knew that this was my path.

I started a therapeutic music program using some of the music I had written in recovery where we do a lyrical analysis of one of my songs called Crows.

And the song, Crows, is a story-song about a broken man who's sitting outside of a church, sort of reviewing where his life went. He doesn't know how he ended up where he is.

But it's very open for interpretation. It's metaphorical rather than literal.

When I do the group, I'm trying to get the clients to start to touch on what their own traumas are, the reasons why they ended up there in treatment.

So I'll play the song, and I'll hand out the lyrics to the clients and we'll do a lyrical analysis.

So we'll read the first stanza, the first verse, which is In the front of the church on a concrete step, a low paid man rests his head. He sat down to catch his breath, can't quite figure where it went well.

And then I'll say, “Let's talk about that. Let's make up a narrative of what's going on. Why is he sitting on the step? What does the church represent? Why is he resting his head? Why is it a concrete step?”

And people will start to talk. And in order to create the story, to create the feelings, to create the images behind the story, they have to touch on their own experience.

They’ll say, “He's there because nobody loved him.” “He's there because he was kicked out of the house.” “He's outside of the church because of his resentments towards the church.”

Well, where are they getting these ideas from? They have to get it from their own experience.

“Why is he resting his head?” “He's tired.”

“Okay. It's a low paid man. Does that mean that he has to be poor monetarily? Okay, how else could he be low paid?”

“Spiritually?” “Nobody loves him.”

All of these things, and then people start coming out and they get excited about it and we create this entire narrative behind the song.

And at the end it's a very cathartic experience for these folks. And they love it and I let them know at the end that they just did their own form of therapy.

Now, if I were to have walked in and said, “Let's talk about when you were at your lowest and you were sitting there thinking, What is the point of life? Why am I doing this?”

Nine times out of 10, they're going to shut down and they're not gonna to want to talk about it.

But by doing it this way, it almost tricks their trauma into putting down its guard a little bit. It doesn't realize that it's what's coming out.

Oh, we're talking about that guy that poor broken man sitting outside the church. We're not talking about my experience.

And so it takes down the barriers.

And that's what you have to do in recovery.

You have to bring down those barriers and allow yourself to open up, be comfortable being uncomfortable.

Be comfortable being vulnerable and allowing these things out because these things, these traumas, are the things that we bury.

And that discomfort becomes unbearable.

And there's only so long -- particularly those of us who have substance use disorder, those of us who are sitting early in recovery, trying to figure out a way to manage all of this discomfort --there's only so long you can sit with that or try to bury it before that voice will come up: This is too much. We're just going to go out, just today. We can deal with it again tomorrow, but just for today, it is too much. I can't bear it. I need a drink. I need a hit. I need a shot.

And eventually that voice will convince you.

Or the other option is to learn how to process these things as they come up.

I'm Jam Alker and this is my story.

Isabel Landrum -Working on Myself

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Photo courtesy Isabel Landrum

“This is what addiction does. It takes everything from us.” In recovery since, 2015, Isabel Landrum is working on getting her life back as she helps others at a detox and treatment center in Southern California.

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Being an addict is -- it’s just, it’s, it’s hard. Like people don't understand. Like, I wasn't born and I didn't grow up thinking, Oh, I’m going to grow up to be an addict --that’d be great!

No, it just -- it ruins lives, you know. It ruined my life. It took everything I loved from me. I didn't have a relationship with my family, with my mother, like I will go months without talking to my mom. And it, it was very hard for her. And it was sad.

I've been hospitalized three different times. I've been in a coma. I remember when I was taken to the hospital by the ambulance, one of the nurses there, I turned around and I looked at this person, and I grabbed this person, and I said, “Please don’t let me die. I have 3 kids and I don’t -- I don't want to die.”

And I remember when I woke up, he was there. And he said, “Oh, you’re still alive, I didn’t let you die. I didn’t let you die.”

I was tired. I was sick of doing drugs. I wanted a way out.

So back in 2015, I had somebody come to me and ask me if I wanted to go to treatment. I wasn't getting any younger. And I said, “I do. I need help. I want to go to treatment.”

So my clean date is October 10th, 2015. And that was it for me. I’ve, I’ve never looked back.

I wanted to have a life. I didn’t want to be in the hospital all the time. I wanted to have a relationship with my children again. Like, I wanted to have my kids in my life.

Now I talk to my mom every night. I have a wonderful relationship with my mom. I’m working on seeing my children again because my kids are the most important thing in my life, and I haven't been able to see them for a while now.

I have to work on myself, and I have to get myself better before I can have that chance again to be in my kid's lives. I am working towards that right now.

I never used around my kids, you know, like when they were there, I never used around my kids. But, like as soon as they would go with their dad, like I would get high just because there's so much pain there to just see my kids go. I’d just get high because it just numbs you, like you can’t feel anything. You just don’t want to feel anything with all the pain, you know.

I have a boy and two girls. And they are fun kids, you know. My girl, my oldest one, she looks just like me. And I look at their pictures and stuff, and I just, I so want to be part of their life again, you know.

I know I have to like take little steps to get there. But I am doing it. I'm doing it now. And if I was still out using and stuff, this would not be happening. I would not be on my way to see them again, you know.

It’s hard, and I know it’s going to take a while, but this is what addiction does. It takes everything from us.

So now, it's my turn to give back to people. I found what I like to do, and that's help others to recover from addiction. It’s such a good feeling when you know that you helped someone not pick up that drug, you know, like just if you can stay here with us, stay just one more day -- it's going to be okay, you know, just…

That’s what God put me on this Earth to do -- be a mom, of course --and help other people recover from addiction.

And my name is Isabel Landrum and this is my story.