No more of a bad thing

When we were in high school, our parents could get mad at us for some relatively inconsequential things. Not that it was right to speed on the expressway, skip school for the beach, or ignore call-waiting beeps for our phone calls. But they'd yell and and make us feel like bad kids for all of these acts of rebellion. And when they did, a common thought crossed a lot of our minds: "They think I'm a bad kid? Don't they realize that I could smoke? Or drink and get stoned every weekend?"

They had no idea how good we really were. Even if they did, the point is that in many a high schooler's mental scenario, drugs and drinking and smoking represented the lowest of the low--as "bad" as a kid could be without committing a misdemeanor. How did we get this impression? Just as in most instances of brainwashing, the government was largely responsible. Growing up in the Nancy Reagan era of "Just Say No," surrounded by countless public service announcements, we were hard-pressed to make any positive associations with drugs or alcohol. Negative publicity was the key point.

Recently, the brainwashing attempts have continued. On Oct. 19, President Clinton announced his proposal requiring teenagers to pass a drug test along with their road tests in order to get a license.

However, there has also been positive publicity for drugs and drinking, such as persuasive, real-life stories of drug use. The most common type of story involves the needless heroicizing of recovered addicts. Sure you've beaten the odds; sure your story is important because it gives hope to other addicts; but the fact remains, you screwed up in the first place, and there's no way anyone should reward you for it.

Look at the World Champion New York Yankees, hailed nationwide,. They are a team full of remarkable stories, including that of Dwight Gooden. Gooden successfully overcame a cocaine addiction to become a mainstay of the team during the early summer. After pitching a no-hitter in May, Gooden received offers from a Hollywood movie studio for the rights to his biography. That means lots of money and lots of fame for a man who did not have the willpower to do what millions of children in this country are tough enough to do--resist the temptation of drugs and alcohol.

Gooden's advocates claim it's tough to resist temptation in the big city if, at 19, you're an overnight millionaire. Whatever. It's not as if Gooden were the first young, rich, high-profile athlete in a big city. Isiah Thomas joined the Pistons at 20; Shawn Kemp joined the Sonics at 19. Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter is 21. Gooden deserves a pat on the back for getting his life back, but it doesn't excuse his initial malfeasance.

The New York world of journalism provides two more examples of alcoholics whose legendary status has only grown since their recoveries from addiction. Less than three weeks ago, former New York Post Editor in Chief Pete Hamill addressed some students at a Branford Master's tea. The former alcoholic made a cool $500,000 from his 1993 book A Drinking Life.

While promoting this book through national appearances on Imus and Larry King, his career as a columnist and nonfiction writer became all the more respected. Sadly, it was all as if to say: can you believe what he's done with his life, and he overcame the obstacle of alcoholism? Now that's heroism, a true comeback story. The title is "Pete Hamill: he may be a bum but he sure is eloquent, God bless him.

And just last month, Jimmy Breslin--the only journalist in city history with more influence than Hamill--came out with his own self-congratulatory tome of recovery, I'd Like to Thank My Brain for Remembering Me. It's certain to make the Times bestseller list.

Gooden, Hamill, Imus, Steven Tyler, and most recently, Eddie Van Halen--if you're a celebrity, you might as well get addicted to something, just to cash in on the lucrative rewards through the book and movie sales and publicity that recovery has to offer. That's just capitalism at its best. That you didn't have the guts to resist addiction in the first place will be forgotten and forgiven. And drinking, smoking, shooting up, and snorting will continue to seem--in the eyes of high schoolers--a whole lot worse in principle than they are in practice.