Addressing Broken Systems Through the Lens of the Personal: A Recovery Journey

Editor’s Note: We share this powerful reflection and story to recognize September as National Recovery Month and bring attention to the need for real solutions to the twin epidemics of addiction and homelessness that continue to devastate families and communities across the United States and globally.

By Kathy Douglas

Preparing for my visit to the StoryCenter in Denver two years ago entailed collecting video clips, music, and pictures, as instructed, and a quick airplane read of their curriculum, The Seven Steps of Digital Storytelling. I was going to the Digital Storytelling Workshop to focus on the technical aspects of video production, but as we were asked to work on a personal story, I thought, “What the heck, why not work on one of the most traumatic events of my life with a group of complete strangers?” I welcomed anonymity. I got to practice deep listening.

It's hard to describe exactly what happened during those three workshop days, but it was transformative magic. Strangers impressed each other and got brave. The team circled, fed, and suggested—places to eat, cuts to consider. I was a "documenter," StoryCenter facilitator Daniel Weinshenker told me, with enough material to write a book (and I am). Darlings had to be killed, or at least set aside. Ambitious plans involving copyrighted soundtracks and 8 mm family film clips were abandoned, as I listened to my comrades struggle with their whys, their audiences, what to winnow, add, keep. We were all digging, learning, creating, in clusters and alone, tapping expertise in craft from facilitators Holly McClelland and Elvis Leon, and engaging in the powerful human act of narrating pieces of our lives. Organically, we started helping each other, and I think most, if not all, of us were changed by the experience—most profoundly by each other’s stories.

I have sat on the video I created at the workshop, My Lovely Hobo, for a year and a half, because the main subject, my son, has not yet seen it. He knows I made it. He gave me permission to use some of his images, his song. He is very public himself about his experience with addiction.  But our twains may never 100% meet, which I think is perfectly normal and natural. I don't expect him to view my video. It is my story as a mother of an addict, one tiny part. Just as I am not interested in knowing all the details of his time spent making his bed out in the cold (to quote John Martyn’s May You Never), I don't expect him to be interested in knowing the agony of my waiting. Or the enormity of this expedition.

I am choosing to publish the piece now, with his blessing and approval, because it is time, for me. I have shown it to enough individuals to know that the story is helpful for some people. To be clear, selfishly, it is still very much for me. But I offer it to families dealing with addiction, not as any kind of prescriptive action or roadmap, but perhaps for some ideas, the comfort of recognizing pieces of shared experience, and to stare down the shame and taboo of the life-threatening illness of addiction.

I offer it as well to the individuals who work boots on the ground providing harm reduction, safe haven, and dignity to addicts and the homeless, and to every figurative and literal hand I touched on this part of the journey.

And I offer it as a clear indication that despite very great efforts, our very broken systems for addressing homelessness and addiction need concerted national and international attention (as does, say, COVID-19). I offer it with gratitude to everyone who supported me on this “mission from the goddess” that brought me the great privilege of enjoying the company of my son again.

Learn more about StoryCenter’s Digital Storytelling Workshop, now offered online.