[Music]
I have some people that I would like you
guys to meet this is my family now for a
while I felt that my family was
different now I know what you’re
thinking you look at this picture and
you think they don’t look different they
look perfect and polished and happy well
I felt different for a very long time
the reason I felt this way is because of
the little boy on the left side of the
screen that is my oldest brother he was
diagnosed with the disease five years
ago and it’s changed my life in ways
that I couldn’t fathom before the
disease I’m referring to his addiction
my oldest brother is an addict and he’s
been struggling with substance abuse for
about five years now now it’s really
important for me to frame this to you as
a disease because that’s exactly what it
is it’s been a really long time for me
to grapple with that idea in my head
when I first heard about addiction and
saw it in action I thought it was
something monstrous scary but my brother
described it to me in this way he told
me that it feels like if someone put a
cup of water in front of you and you
haven’t had a drink in three days you’re
incredibly thirsty then they try to have
a conversation with you while sitting
right next to it odds are you’re not
gonna care about what they’re saying
about the relationship or about how
you’re behaving the only thing you can
think about is having that glass of
water now imagine if you were in that
kind of survival mode all the time how
you would act and how you would think
and how you would feel this survival
mode is what has caused a lot of
internal psychological repercussions in
my family I learned about all of this
when I first went to a rehab when I was
in high school as far as my friends knew
I was on a fun beach vacation in Palm
Beach on my snapchat it was all pictures
of palm trees and the pool
and fun but in reality we were going to
rehab for a family weekend had addiction
center that’s where they told me
something that changed my life forever
they told me that addiction is actually
more dangerous for family members than
for the addict themself and I know that
doesn’t make much sense it didn’t make
any sense to me at all
I didn’t understand how a drug that I
wasn’t using could be dangerous to me
over the years it unfolded and they
understood why the reason this is is
because in the very worst moments of
addiction and the overdoses and the
relapses the suicide threats the addict
is numb
they’re completely unconscious to who
they are and what they’re feeling but
the family is sober not only do they
have to watch somebody that they love
turn into somebody that they don’t know
but they also have to watch them turn
into somebody that they might fear which
is what I’ve experienced I first
experienced the psychological effects of
the family disease that I like to call
addiction when I was 16 years old I was
16 I woke up one morning my parents were
out of town and my other brother was
gone as well and it was just me and my
oldest brother in the house I was
ecstatic because we were finally at that
age where we could be friends and we
could start getting to know each other
on a deeper level I woke up that morning
with plans of what we were gonna do that
day how we were gonna spend it bonding
and doing our favorite activities I went
to his room to wake him up for a brunch
reservations knocked on his door and
there was no answer so I walked in
that’s when I saw him on the bed
motionless I thought he was just
sleeping so I went over and sat on his
bed that’s when I saw him trying to
murmur words to me that didn’t make any
sense and he was trying to move and cut
in and I felt his hand it was cold and
it was beating so
slow his heartbeat it’s going so slow at
that moment the only thought in my head
was is my brother dying I’m sixteen I
don’t know what that looks like I don’t
know if this is an overdose or relapse
he’s just sleepy I couldn’t tell but I
knew I was too small to pick him up and
put him anywhere and taking the hospital
I didn’t know who to call or what to do
and the only thing I could think is how
do I save my brother’s life at that
moment I couldn’t decide anymore if I
wanted to have a childhood I couldn’t
decide if I cared about who I was taking
to homecoming that weekend or if I had a
math test on Monday
all of those seeing things suddenly
seemed very arbitrary when it came to
something so life and death at that
moment everything changed and I started
to harbor these feelings of fear every
day it would be a happier story for me
to tell you that that was a one-time
occurrence but it wasn’t that’s
something that I’ve experienced so many
times over these past five years and my
family has as well
the phone calls and the suicide threats
and the terrifying moments when you
think it might be your last words to
that person now imagine with me for one
moment somebody you love more than
anything in the world imagine them in
your head now imagine if every morning
every night you woke up with the thought
I went to sleep with the thought that
they might be dead the next day imagine
what that would do I can tell you what
it did to me at first it was just
anxiety then it turned into chronic
anxiety and then chronic depression
eventually and recently and turned into
suicidal thoughts of my own which was
terrifying and even more recently
self-harm which is something I never
thought I would do to myself but
addiction and seeing it in action
effects your mind in a different way you
start to become numb to the idea of
death and you start to become numb to
these terrifying events more than that I
knew that
if I came and told my family what I was
feeling or if I went and told my friends
it would seem stupid because what do my
emotions matter when somebody’s life is
at stake why should I share my
experience I thought of myself for a
very long time in one word a burden I
thought that I was going to be a burden
if I opened up and shared what I was
feeling I thought it didn’t matter
I decided silently to myself that I
would be anonymous that I wouldn’t talk
about it but no one was going to know
about this because I didn’t want to put
any extra stress on my family and my
friends put them through anything more
than they needed to go through it wasn’t
just me who decided to be anonymous my
family silently and collectively decided
to do this as well we thought together
this will be the best way to conquer
addiction we won’t talk about it it’ll
be hidden no one will know and we
continue life as normal the show must go
on same way it always has the reason we
started doing this at the beginning was
because we wanted to save my brother we
thought that anonymity would be the way
to make him safer to put him in the
shadows so that people wouldn’t judge
him differently as see him differently
maybe that he would not get a job or his
friends would leave or something like
that
but then we started realizing it wasn’t
working and maybe the real reason we
wanted to be anonymous wasn’t to save
him but to save ourselves there’s a
stigma against addiction in our culture
that we don’t like to acknowledge we
like to think of families of addicts as
almost bad families often I hear when I
say that my brother’s an addict people
ask me what happened in his childhood to
make him become an addict
what traumatic event triggered this
right well I’m here to say we were
raised the same way it could have easily
been me that became an addict and that I
just equate to luck
sometimes it’s not necessarily about a
traumatic event or a bad family it is a
disease inside of your brain but having
that stigma for us and thinking that we
were going to be viewed as a bad family
and that we were all bad in some way may
just want to stay hidden it’s not just
my family and I that decided that
Anonymous was the best way to go Society
has done that as well think about the
biggest weapons we have against
addiction in our society Alcoholics
Anonymous Narcotics Anonymous they even
have family groups but they’re all
anonymous my question is why do we think
that this helps why do we want to stay
anonymous well I believe we only want
anonymity for two reasons the first is
fear we they’re afraid of the addict of
what the disease is of what they’ve done
about what people think of us or we’re
ashamed we’re ashamed to have them in
our life that they’re part of our family
that we might have done something to
caused them to be this way and that’s
not true we’re ashamed to recognize that
this is a part of our society and for me
I was ashamed to recognize that this was
a normal occurrence in my life that was
just something that was happening after
all the years of seeing how addiction
affects families I can tell you two
things number one I am Not Afraid of
addiction anymore
I’m not afraid number two I am certainly
not ashamed of my brother I love my
brother I think he’s brilliant and the
fact that he has disease saddens me but
does not make me ashamed to call him my
brother and to have him in my family
what I propose is vulnerability we also
have a belief that vulnerability equates
to weakness we think of it as our
Achilles heel something that can
completely destroy us but I think
vulnerability might be the only way we
can fix the
I’m not here to necessarily bring
awareness to addiction if you’ve seen
addiction in your life you know what it
can do
you’re pretty aware what I’m here to do
is to give it a face different than how
you’ve imagined it before as I bet when
you first came in here you might have
viewed it addiction as something dark
and scary and dirty but what if I told
you addiction looks something more like
this my family we keep addiction in the
dark and that is our biggest mistake
because addiction is an interesting
disease and that it completely thrives
in the darkness that’s where it does its
absolute best work darkness thrives in
the darkness which is why I think we
need to bring this problem to light
vulnerability is amazing to me it’s
absolute courage vulnerability is a
mother sitting down her child’s like my
mother did last summer she held my hands
and I saw her cry for the first time in
my life when she cried she told me that
she was afraid never in my life have I
had more respect for another woman
than in that moment because to admit
you’re afraid to a child somebody that
you’ve tried to be composed around for
so many years that means the world
phoner ability is watching your sister
talk about addiction and talk about your
family in front of you and hope that she
says the right thing vulnerability is
telling the world that you’ve self
harmed not knowing if they’re gonna see
you differently to me that is not how I
show weakness
it’s how I show strength through all of
this my anxiety and sadness hasn’t
necessarily come from a place of worry
it’s more come from a place of feeling
voiceless feeling completely unseen my
brother’s expressed this to me as well
that not only does he feel voiceless but
that no one even cares to listen no one
cares well by listening to me today I
have to thank you
because you’ve given me a voice now if
everyone would do me a favor and please
take out your cell phone and turn on the
light and hold it up high like I said
addiction makes you feel voiceless I
think we need to give it a voice the
world that I envision to be perfect is
not one where we completely mask
everything bad and shove it to the
ground and pretend it doesn’t exist the
world that I envisioned to be perfect is
one where we can say yes these awful
things happen has happened to me it’s
probably happened to you and yet even
then we can be brave and strong and
we’re going to continue because there is
so much love in this world in an ironic
twist fate tonight I am also celebrating
my 21st birthday well as you can imagine
there’s not gonna be any alcohol in
celebration of my 21st birthday and I
could not care less
I really couldn’t because while there
will be no alcohol tonight
the lack of alcohol there will be
absolutely no lack of love because in
the end I don’t think my story’s been
one about pain and sadness and fear it’s
been about every single person along the
way who has encouraged me and supported
me and held me up when I thought I was
going to fall down
who have given me a backbone who have
been someone to cry to someone to hug
someone to love one that is what my
story’s about it’s all the people in
life in my life and in your life that
make life worth living an addiction
worth surviving thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
I have some people that I would like you
guys to meet this is my family now for a
while I felt that my family was
different now I know what you’re
thinking you look at this picture and
you think they don’t look different they
look perfect and polished and happy well
I felt different for a very long time
the reason I felt this way is because of
the little boy on the left side of the
screen that is my oldest brother he was
diagnosed with the disease five years
ago and it’s changed my life in ways
that I couldn’t fathom before the
disease I’m referring to his addiction
my oldest brother is an addict and he’s
been struggling with substance abuse for
about five years now now it’s really
important for me to frame this to you as
a disease because that’s exactly what it
is it’s been a really long time for me
to grapple with that idea in my head
when I first heard about addiction and
saw it in action I thought it was
something monstrous scary but my brother
described it to me in this way he told
me that it feels like if someone put a
cup of water in front of you and you
haven’t had a drink in three days you’re
incredibly thirsty then they try to have
a conversation with you while sitting
right next to it odds are you’re not
gonna care about what they’re saying
about the relationship or about how
you’re behaving the only thing you can
think about is having that glass of
water now imagine if you were in that
kind of survival mode all the time how
you would act and how you would think
and how you would feel this survival
mode is what has caused a lot of
internal psychological repercussions in
my family I learned about all of this
when I first went to a rehab when I was
in high school as far as my friends knew
I was on a fun beach vacation in Palm
Beach on my snapchat it was all pictures
of palm trees and the pool
and fun but in reality we were going to
rehab for a family weekend had addiction
center that’s where they told me
something that changed my life forever
they told me that addiction is actually
more dangerous for family members than
for the addict themself and I know that
doesn’t make much sense it didn’t make
any sense to me at all
I didn’t understand how a drug that I
wasn’t using could be dangerous to me
over the years it unfolded and they
understood why the reason this is is
because in the very worst moments of
addiction and the overdoses and the
relapses the suicide threats the addict
is numb
they’re completely unconscious to who
they are and what they’re feeling but
the family is sober not only do they
have to watch somebody that they love
turn into somebody that they don’t know
but they also have to watch them turn
into somebody that they might fear which
is what I’ve experienced I first
experienced the psychological effects of
the family disease that I like to call
addiction when I was 16 years old I was
16 I woke up one morning my parents were
out of town and my other brother was
gone as well and it was just me and my
oldest brother in the house I was
ecstatic because we were finally at that
age where we could be friends and we
could start getting to know each other
on a deeper level I woke up that morning
with plans of what we were gonna do that
day how we were gonna spend it bonding
and doing our favorite activities I went
to his room to wake him up for a brunch
reservations knocked on his door and
there was no answer so I walked in
that’s when I saw him on the bed
motionless I thought he was just
sleeping so I went over and sat on his
bed that’s when I saw him trying to
murmur words to me that didn’t make any
sense and he was trying to move and cut
in and I felt his hand it was cold and
it was beating so
slow his heartbeat it’s going so slow at
that moment the only thought in my head
was is my brother dying I’m sixteen I
don’t know what that looks like I don’t
know if this is an overdose or relapse
he’s just sleepy I couldn’t tell but I
knew I was too small to pick him up and
put him anywhere and taking the hospital
I didn’t know who to call or what to do
and the only thing I could think is how
do I save my brother’s life at that
moment I couldn’t decide anymore if I
wanted to have a childhood I couldn’t
decide if I cared about who I was taking
to homecoming that weekend or if I had a
math test on Monday
all of those seeing things suddenly
seemed very arbitrary when it came to
something so life and death at that
moment everything changed and I started
to harbor these feelings of fear every
day it would be a happier story for me
to tell you that that was a one-time
occurrence but it wasn’t that’s
something that I’ve experienced so many
times over these past five years and my
family has as well
the phone calls and the suicide threats
and the terrifying moments when you
think it might be your last words to
that person now imagine with me for one
moment somebody you love more than
anything in the world imagine them in
your head now imagine if every morning
every night you woke up with the thought
I went to sleep with the thought that
they might be dead the next day imagine
what that would do I can tell you what
it did to me at first it was just
anxiety then it turned into chronic
anxiety and then chronic depression
eventually and recently and turned into
suicidal thoughts of my own which was
terrifying and even more recently
self-harm which is something I never
thought I would do to myself but
addiction and seeing it in action
effects your mind in a different way you
start to become numb to the idea of
death and you start to become numb to
these terrifying events more than that I
knew that
if I came and told my family what I was
feeling or if I went and told my friends
it would seem stupid because what do my
emotions matter when somebody’s life is
at stake why should I share my
experience I thought of myself for a
very long time in one word a burden I
thought that I was going to be a burden
if I opened up and shared what I was
feeling I thought it didn’t matter
I decided silently to myself that I
would be anonymous that I wouldn’t talk
about it but no one was going to know
about this because I didn’t want to put
any extra stress on my family and my
friends put them through anything more
than they needed to go through it wasn’t
just me who decided to be anonymous my
family silently and collectively decided
to do this as well we thought together
this will be the best way to conquer
addiction we won’t talk about it it’ll
be hidden no one will know and we
continue life as normal the show must go
on same way it always has the reason we
started doing this at the beginning was
because we wanted to save my brother we
thought that anonymity would be the way
to make him safer to put him in the
shadows so that people wouldn’t judge
him differently as see him differently
maybe that he would not get a job or his
friends would leave or something like
that
but then we started realizing it wasn’t
working and maybe the real reason we
wanted to be anonymous wasn’t to save
him but to save ourselves there’s a
stigma against addiction in our culture
that we don’t like to acknowledge we
like to think of families of addicts as
almost bad families often I hear when I
say that my brother’s an addict people
ask me what happened in his childhood to
make him become an addict
what traumatic event triggered this
right well I’m here to say we were
raised the same way it could have easily
been me that became an addict and that I
just equate to luck
sometimes it’s not necessarily about a
traumatic event or a bad family it is a
disease inside of your brain but having
that stigma for us and thinking that we
were going to be viewed as a bad family
and that we were all bad in some way may
just want to stay hidden it’s not just
my family and I that decided that
Anonymous was the best way to go Society
has done that as well think about the
biggest weapons we have against
addiction in our society Alcoholics
Anonymous Narcotics Anonymous they even
have family groups but they’re all
anonymous my question is why do we think
that this helps why do we want to stay
anonymous well I believe we only want
anonymity for two reasons the first is
fear we they’re afraid of the addict of
what the disease is of what they’ve done
about what people think of us or we’re
ashamed we’re ashamed to have them in
our life that they’re part of our family
that we might have done something to
caused them to be this way and that’s
not true we’re ashamed to recognize that
this is a part of our society and for me
I was ashamed to recognize that this was
a normal occurrence in my life that was
just something that was happening after
all the years of seeing how addiction
affects families I can tell you two
things number one I am Not Afraid of
addiction anymore
I’m not afraid number two I am certainly
not ashamed of my brother I love my
brother I think he’s brilliant and the
fact that he has disease saddens me but
does not make me ashamed to call him my
brother and to have him in my family
what I propose is vulnerability we also
have a belief that vulnerability equates
to weakness we think of it as our
Achilles heel something that can
completely destroy us but I think
vulnerability might be the only way we
can fix the
I’m not here to necessarily bring
awareness to addiction if you’ve seen
addiction in your life you know what it
can do
you’re pretty aware what I’m here to do
is to give it a face different than how
you’ve imagined it before as I bet when
you first came in here you might have
viewed it addiction as something dark
and scary and dirty but what if I told
you addiction looks something more like
this my family we keep addiction in the
dark and that is our biggest mistake
because addiction is an interesting
disease and that it completely thrives
in the darkness that’s where it does its
absolute best work darkness thrives in
the darkness which is why I think we
need to bring this problem to light
vulnerability is amazing to me it’s
absolute courage vulnerability is a
mother sitting down her child’s like my
mother did last summer she held my hands
and I saw her cry for the first time in
my life when she cried she told me that
she was afraid never in my life have I
had more respect for another woman
than in that moment because to admit
you’re afraid to a child somebody that
you’ve tried to be composed around for
so many years that means the world
phoner ability is watching your sister
talk about addiction and talk about your
family in front of you and hope that she
says the right thing vulnerability is
telling the world that you’ve self
harmed not knowing if they’re gonna see
you differently to me that is not how I
show weakness
it’s how I show strength through all of
this my anxiety and sadness hasn’t
necessarily come from a place of worry
it’s more come from a place of feeling
voiceless feeling completely unseen my
brother’s expressed this to me as well
that not only does he feel voiceless but
that no one even cares to listen no one
cares well by listening to me today I
have to thank you
because you’ve given me a voice now if
everyone would do me a favor and please
take out your cell phone and turn on the
light and hold it up high like I said
addiction makes you feel voiceless I
think we need to give it a voice the
world that I envision to be perfect is
not one where we completely mask
everything bad and shove it to the
ground and pretend it doesn’t exist the
world that I envisioned to be perfect is
one where we can say yes these awful
things happen has happened to me it’s
probably happened to you and yet even
then we can be brave and strong and
we’re going to continue because there is
so much love in this world in an ironic
twist fate tonight I am also celebrating
my 21st birthday well as you can imagine
there’s not gonna be any alcohol in
celebration of my 21st birthday and I
could not care less
I really couldn’t because while there
will be no alcohol tonight
the lack of alcohol there will be
absolutely no lack of love because in
the end I don’t think my story’s been
one about pain and sadness and fear it’s
been about every single person along the
way who has encouraged me and supported
me and held me up when I thought I was
going to fall down
who have given me a backbone who have
been someone to cry to someone to hug
someone to love one that is what my
story’s about it’s all the people in
life in my life and in your life that
make life worth living an addiction
worth surviving thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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