Cancer Trumps Addiction – What’s With That!?
Addiction vs cancer – why is one more acceptable than the other?
Addiction vs cancer or any number of other diseases for that matter…
One of my biggest frustrations is the way friends, family, neighbors and society-at-large view and respond to people with diseases, like cancer, as compared to the way they respond to people with diseases like addiction (whether to drugs or alcohol) or mental illness. In my view, it’s because people don’t really understand that addiction is a disease — it’s a brain disease. Cancer is a disease — it’s a disease of a body organ or the blood. Both cancer and addiction (drug addiction or alcoholism) are diseases. Why? Because they both change cells in the body, and that’s the simple definition of a disease. Addiction just happens to change cells in the brain, which is what makes it a chronic, often relapsing brain disease. And, because addiction changes cells in the brain and the way the brain functions, it is those changes which cause a person to think or behave differently.
So I was struck by the title of the Senior Editor of The Fix, Will Godfrey’s, article, “Is Cancer Worse Than Alcoholism?,” which of course, prompted me to read it. In his article, Godfrey shares his interview with Pamela Pecs Cytron, a wildly successful CEO and “high-functioning alcoholic” and cancer survivor, about the difference in the reactions to the two diseases with which she was diagnosed within a short period of time of one another. Its a riveting, poignant piece. Here is an excerpt:
“A mammogram—a routine one just six months earlier had shown nothing—confirmed she had stage two cancer in one breast, and probably cancer in the other one too. ‘It happens really quickly. And the only thing I could think was that I wanted to drink.’
“So Pam and her family ‘kicked into cancer mode.’ She describes the support system that instantly fell into place on the cancer side of her problems as ‘astonishing.’ Friends, neighbors and relatives sent messages of support and gifts, wore pink ribbons, went on charity walks and donated to breast cancer funds: ‘The amount of pink shit I was getting…’ People insisted on coming to her house to cook meals for her—even though she was working eight hours or more a day and had little need of them. ‘Everything became about cancer once I got it.’
“Yet at the same time, she felt she was facing her alcoholism alone. ‘No one went to my house to cook for my kids when I was in rehab, no one asked if they could do anything.’ Alcoholism—a frequently fatal disease—and her efforts to deal with it continued to prompt awkward pauses and tactful silences from the people around her. Cancer—another killer—was a safe outlet for outpourings of love, even from people she hardly knew. Surrounded by attention from cancer well-wishers, Pam also led a more solitary life, in which she attended AA meetings in church basements, read the Big Book (ever the performer, determined to excel at recovery, she finished it in a single day) and worked her program.”
What also struck me is what Pamela is doing about the secrecy and shame that makes it possible for a disease like cancer to trump a disease like alcoholism (addiction). She’s building a foundation that she is naming, “Relate to Us.” Again, quoting from Godfrey’s article:
“It aims to increase the visibility of the disease of addiction and reduce the stigma that she believes accompanies secrecy. Breast cancer awareness, she points out, has reached such levels that, ‘you’re sick of it. I mean, can you even hit a tennis ball or a golf ball these days without hearing about it? And yet the number of people with breast cancer is way below the number of addicts. That’s where we want to get with addiction awareness. It doesn’t have to be dark and anonymous.’ She argues that the early identification of breast cancer is even more important than the treatment of the condition, and that the same holds true for alcoholism. Awareness and public acceptability, she says, are key to this: ‘I’m not saying it’s okay to use or to relapse, but the rate [of addiction] needs to go down.’ Making it mainstream she believes, rather than keeping it in the church basement, is key.”
I couldn’t agree more!
Lisa Frederiksen
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