12 Step & Recovery Friends discussion

Today is Mother's Day and I just spent some time reading reviews of DRUNK MOM. Some say "bravo." Others have a righteous tone, "If she really loved her son, she would have given him up for adoption," and "how can this author profit from child abuse," are a few of the more contemptuous ditties.
The book is memoir about relapse back into alcoholism and the juxtaposition of an instinct to motherhood and the phenomena of craving. What the self-righteous scorn of the “reviewers” reveals is that stigma towards addiction is alive and well. In Ontario Canada where I live, today ends Mental Health Awareness Week. One of the most poignant points I heard at a symposium this week was, "Let's call stigma for what it is—discrimination." To discriminate against someone in Ontario because of a mental health issue (and I include addiction in this class) is illegal. The same is true in many States and Provinces in North America and other jurisdictions around the world.

What I read in these "for shame" reviews of Jowita's book is that bigotry is not dead—it is alive and well in the form of self-righteous condemnation. Blame the victim is still too easy for a society that really wants to have a higher opinion of itself than is deserving.

Mothers are held, in the public eye, to a level of perfection. No wonder there aren’t more honest accounts of addiction and mental health aren't revealed in the public sphere by mothers. The public are all too ready to cast their rocks in disgust without considering their own sins—or more accurately that blame is zero-sum-game that doesn't belong in treating illness—including addiction and mental health.

Nothing assuages our shame of our own shortcomings like scapegoating another. Everyone is welcome to their “opinion” on newspaper and public blogs. But your opinions reveal an intolerance born of the fear that we are capable of doing wrong but no one will notice me while I point my finger.

Happy Mother's Day

Joe, thank you. I agree , completely and as a recovering addict and alcoholic mom( sober 8 years now) I appreciate your astute and intelligent observations of the bigotry and self righteousness that is alive and well in the world.