A Brother’s Keeper Spurns the Newest Drug-War Slogan

Those of us who daily see the face of drug addiction witness a crushing struggle that illuminates both the remarkable nature of the human spirit and the limits of independent action. We can recognize Bob Dole’s campaign slogan, “Just don’t do it,” as a gross oversimplification of a complex, painful medical problem.

This slogan is appealingly couched in the American ideology of self-reliance and personal initiative. Dole’s slogan reaches for an impatient middle class who contend that government programs cause dependency and diminish self-worth while wasting federal funds.

I see it differently; my brother is addicted to crack. Life singled him out early--he flunked first grade for his love of drawing dinosaurs. As he grew older, he could communicate beauty in whatever medium he chose--wood, clay, paint, even movement. It would be a decade later, in my profession as a teacher, that I would find words to decribe him: gifted; a kinesthetic learner. He also had a troubled childhood and a case of urban alienation. As to what caused his addiction, who can say? What I do know is that he long ago acknowledged his problem and engaged in a battle against it.

The scope of his struggle became clear to me on the day I encountered him in a corner of his room, glistening in the sweat of his addiction, praying feverishly. I remember him during that phase as resolute in his belief that his faith would bring him to the stable ground of self-possession. But as months passed and his addiction continued he looked elsewhere for hope.

“I can do this alone! I can stop this!” he would shout. “It’s just a matter of decision. I just need to win day by day.” But my brother continued to lose each day, month after month and year after year. His adamant proclamations of self-reliance were meaningless at 2 in the morning when I would discover his bed empty. A short jail sentence failed to deter him from the seduction of crack. I found him once wandering the streets of South Central Los Angeles, a man with a fractured spirit.

Love and simple moral logic forced me to accept the truth of our interdependence--my brother’s addiction, no matter the geographic or social distance between us, affects my moral and civil well-being. Together we looked up rehabilitation programs that would offer him the crucial support to beat his addiction.

My brother had no chance at a Betty Ford clinic or the other expensive desert getaways available to the rich and famous. Most programs available to the poor are underfunded and many exist in the very neighborhoods where crack is readily available. An incredible demand for rehabilitation overwhelms these scarce resources. One center told us they had a three-month waiting list. Another program asked if my brother had insurance. Still another offered a detox program that lasted only 10 days, and then my brother would be on his own.

In the end, my brother went to live in the desert town of Brawley, where a nonprofit Victory Outreach program far removed from the city offered him a chance for fighting the addiction. I recently saw him at another brother’s wedding. I noticed how the dry desert sun had turned his face dark and leathery. The physical struggle to win back his life made him appear 10 years past his age. The task he has faced is one greater than Bob Dole could ever imagine.

“Just don’t do it” sounds practical, but it belittles a process that requires participation from the addict himself, key family members, various community agencies and the government. My brother needed rehabilitation, not punishment, to help him reestablish equilibrium and reenter mainstream society. The physically and morally demeaning process of drug addiction was punishment enough.

Dole’s “Just don’t do it,” then, dissipates in the storm that rages in the addict’s blood. I’m willing to bet that many if not most crack addicts are presently engaged in an anguished struggle much like my brother’s. If we as society are to help them in that struggle, it has to be with more than just a meaningless political slogan.

The ideals of personal initiative and self-reliance are the engine of the American marketplace and foundation of our culture. But in the realm of drug addiction, they offer little in the way of answers or solutions.