When I reported on Madonna’s homeless brother Anthony a few days ago, a few of you took me to task for suggesting that Madonna should do something to help him. Some of you have addicts in your family or do close work with the homeless, and have learned from painful experience that there’s nothing you can do to help someone who doesn’t want to quit drinking and drugging. I wrote in a comment that I respect that opinion and that it’s true that I haven’t experienced anything like that first hand. Having read another interview with Madonna’s brother, I really see your point.
Madonna’s brother Anthony Ciccone, 55, lives under a bridge in Michigan and spends his time drinking and finding money to continue drinking. It’s sad and it’s pointless, but after reading this interview I see that it’s something that only he can change, and that all the money in the world isn’t going to help the guy. Commenter Valleymiss repeated something she’s heard in the past about addiction that hit home for me. “When it comes to helping an addict, $20 is too much money and a million isn’t enough.” This comment by ahappyrobot really got me to see how severely addiction can ruin someone’s life, and the lengths people can go through to get drugs, screwing their entire family over in the process. So anyway here’s more from Madonna’s brother. Again, this is not the same brother who wrote a tell all about his sister, this is another guy. Anthony does blame his family somewhat, but it’s clear that he’s the one who screwed his life up.
He said: “How did I end up here? Ask my family.”
His nicotine-stained hands shook as he lit a cigarette before continuing: “I haven’t had anything to do with Madonna in years. I doubt if she cares about my predicament.
“The only reason people seem to care about me is who my sister is. I know I could tell stories about her but I won’t. She wants nothing to do with me. She has her life.”
Surrounded by empty beer cans and soggy old blankets beside the river in Traverse City, Anthony looked like a weather-beaten pensioner with his straggly white beard and ruddy face. He added: “Being homeless is hard but I’ve got nowhere else to go. I used to live in Manhattan, in the East Village.
“Then I went to Hollywood to work as a carpenter in the movies. Then I came back here to Michigan to work for our father’s vineyard — and it all went wrong.
“I’m the eldest and I’m what I call the red-headed stepchild — that’s an American expression for an unwanted kid. The black sheep of the family, if you like.
“A year or so ago my father ordered me out. I had nowhere else to go. I have an ex-partner and a son out in the Midwest who I haven’t seen in years. And although I am the eldest of eight children, my siblings don’t want to know…
“I am not going to ask Madonna for anything. Why would I? We had little to do with each other, even in the 1980s when I was in New York and she moved there to find fame and fortune.”
Madonna has spoken in the past about the pain of losing her mother — also called Madonna — to breast cancer in 1963 and how she and her siblings, including Anthony, had struggled to cope.
Their father, Silvio, later married the family’s housekeeper, Joan Gustafson, and went on to have two more children, Jennifer and Mario.
Silvio is now in charge of the family’s vineyard on Michigan’s picturesque Leelanau peninsula, from which Anthony was fired last year.
He added: “This area of Michigan is beautiful. It’s the cherry capital of America.
“The homeless have gravitated to it because local churches provide food and you can sleep in the lobby of the local jail when it’s cold.
“The police directed me to this river bridge. It’s out of the way — the tourists can’t see us hidden down here. But it is rough.
“I’ve seen people get thrown in the river. The native Americans get drunk and start fights.
“I fell in the river once. I slipped on ice and cracked my head open. I was rescued by a cop.
“Last winter I got frostbite on my toes. The pain is excruciating but luckily I got treatment. I have a friend who lost all ten toes to frostbite. Now he gets about with a cane — he can just about walk. And he’s still homeless. I saw him at the church for breakfast this morning.
“People have died out here of hypothermia. Of course, given the chance I wouldn’t be out here but I don’t really have a choice.
“In Manhattan I had a rent-controlled apartment in Alphabet City. It was a s***hole but it only cost $300 (£190) a month.
“I was a carpenter and I wanted to work on the movies, so I moved to Hollywood. I did videos, commercials, the odd TV and film show. But I never worked with Madonna on anything. She didn’t ask me.
“People said I should be in front of the cameras but I never did it. Should have done really…
Anthony’s average day begins when the homeless are ordered out of Traverse City jail at 7am. He usually wanders the streets until 8.30am, when the Methodist church serves breakfast to the hungry.
He chats to pals, pops out constantly to smoke roll-up cigarettes and to cadge whatever money he can to buy strong beer.
By 11am he descends the broken wooden steps to the river bank and makes his way to the pile of old clothes and blankets left by other homeless people.
Waving his arms at the filthy bundle of rags and quilts he said: “In the summer months we all sleep here. It’s not great but I don’t have any choice. The police are OK but the powers in this town want us gone. They think we put off the tourists.
“If it wasn’t for the tourism, this place would be Bumf***, Iowa, and nobody would care.”
Asked if he would like a warming cup of coffee, Anthony said: “No, I want another beer.” It was still not even lunchtime…
Locals branded him a “druggie” but his homeless pal insisted he had kicked the habit and now relies on booze to get through the day.
Jerilyn DeBoer,who runs Cousin Jenny’s Cornish Pasty, a British-themed café yards from the bridge where Anthony hangs out, said: “The family have tried but there’s nothing more they can do.”
[From The Sun]
So I get it, I guess. Your stories really changed my position on this. So did a memoir I read a few years ago called The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, a former MSNBC columnist. Walls’ family lived a meager existence and her parents ended up homeless. She described in detail how they gradually pissed away every opportunity they had. She later learned that her mother owned land worth over a million dollars. I don’t think all homeless people put themselves there, that there’s no hope for them or that they deserve it. It’s complicated. Over the summer I heard a segment on NPR about “wet shelters,” which are controversial as they house homeless people while allowing them to drink. The arguments for wet shelters are that at least the homeless have a roof over their head, and that the cost to the taxpayer is lower in the long run. The arguments against them include the fact that they enable addiction. It’s not a simple issue and this story about Madonna’s brother reminds us that it’s not going to be solved anytime soon. I still can’t stand Madonna though.
Photo credit: PRPhotos
i have many addicts in my immediate and extended family and i understand the issue, however i can’t imagine having madonna’s money and letting my brother remain homeless. it’s beyond cruel.
While it’s true that there are plenty of people who had help and wasted their opportunities to end up homeless, there are also plenty of people suffering from mental illness, often comorbid with addiction issues. I speak from experience as someone with a family member who spent 2 years homeless while we searched and searched. He thought he was better off left to drink alone where no one would judge him, but now that he’s been found he’s so much better off. He’s on medication for his mental health issues and has a part time job and understands that we love him no matter what. I’m not saying it’s that way for everyone, but some people to need and deserve help.
I am not a fan of Madge’s behavior in recent years. However this isn’t her fault. It says a lot to me that Madonna’s father also kicked him out. Aging parents with adult addict children become the main target of abuse and theft and that can have serious effects on the health of the parent. I don’t want to get political here but I think it’s a shame that social services for addicts and those with mental illness are getting cut because families can’t deal with these problems on their own.
I really loved the Glass Castle BTW.
I can’t stand Madonna, but we really don’t know that she hasn’t tried to help him.
Thanks for bringing up the mental illness part of this Lee. I’m so sorry your relative went through that.
Thanks CB, we’re just happy he’s home safe and sound. 🙂 I feel for others who are still looking for their loved ones or who have had to give up knowing there’s nothing they can do like so many spoke of on the last post.
There’s no “one size fits all” solution to addiction and unless an addict gets to a place where they want help and will willingly go to rehab, they pretty well have to be sectioned with severe mental health problems to get them clean. Now with all Madonna’s bazillions you’d think she would help her own family first before all her ‘so-called’ charity work with Raising Malawi, etc., and rally her family to stage an intervention with the poor guy. But she’s a selfish, obsessively narcissistic witch who seems to think that having a lot of money, fame and power gives her the right to act like a complete jerk to the rest of the world. I have always been repulsed by her and now have even more reason to do so as she doesn’t appear to have a compassionate bone in her body.
Say what you wont about Madonna but she is one hard working woman. I guess we can not say that about rest of her family.
Alcoholic working in a vineyard? I think I understand why his father fired him.
Some men just blame everyone else whenever they’re miserable and expect others to get them out of their mess again and again.
Don’t feel any sympathy for this one.
I lived next to one of those “wet shelters” for 2 years. It was awful. A church had donated the house to the state and the house was supposed to be for recovering alcoholics who had been homeless and were supposed to get back on their feet.
They were drunk by 8 AM every day, yelled at me and my boyfriend and our 2 dogs every day. We were harassed and had things thrown at us. Their drunk homeless friends would come at all hours of the day and night and would throw rocks at windows to get the peoples attention and just yell (instead of, you know, ringing the door bell). Their drunk friends tried knocking down our door once.
I am so happy I no longer have to live there.
He is 55 years old, he is a grown man at a certain point, the one when your own father fires you, he should have stopped blaming the family for his addiction. I’m not a huge Madonna fan, but I can’t blame her.
I live and work near the beach. I have homeless people hang out outside and come inside asking me for food b/c they are hungry. 9 times out of 10 I can smell the liquor from four feet away. Not all homeless people are recovering alcoholics or addicts but many are and that’s how they got to be where they’re at.
Whiner. Oh, and how does a Michigan native get a $300 rent-controlled apartment in NYC, exactly?
“Like a red-headed stepchild”. Let me tell you, my fiance is Italian, and I know many, many Italian families. The oldest male is treated like a prince who can do no wrong – in my experience – and I highly doubt Madonna’s family was any different. If anything, he probably got away with murder for years before he did enough horrible things to alienate them. (I know tons of families who did anything to keep the oldest son out of trouble.) And he’s still expecting to be bailed out. The endless excuse making and placing the blame elsewhere are the sure signs of an active addict.
“How did I end up here? Ask my family.”
He cannot even accept responsibility for answering the question!!!!
If Madonna or anyone else stepped in to “do” for him, he would be even further distanced from personal control. It is sad, but the saddest thing is that he is the only one who can change it. Madonna could keep his body alive, but every time she turned her back (or her paid handlers) the man would relapse even worse. Why do it?
#8, Madonna has 8 siblings, and she is the only had working one? How do you know that? What a pompous attitude. Do you have a fake English accent as well?
I can’t stand Madonna and while I think she totally could have shined her entire family on…she also could have tried to help in the past. Addiction is a bitch and it n.e.v.e.r. involves ONLY the addict; entire families get embroiled into it, with raising children an addict can’t properly do, protecting parents/themselves/others from the addict’s possible thievery to support their habit, physical abuse of themselves or others, arrests, rehab, all of it. It’s never just about them but they don’t see it that way. You can’t help sometimes, no matter how much you wish to. Adding in a mental condition and it’s a bomb waiting to blow. It’s beyond sad. I’ve lived it with siblings and it’s amazing how many ways and in how many millions of pieces a heart can break. Still, through all of it, even when you reach a point that you can’t “help” any more, that waiting for the “call” no one wants to receive lurks in your mind’s recesses, you still maintain a spot in that heart that will cry when it comes.
/sorry…but having lived this for 30 years with more than one sibling? It’s tough to do and a sigh just doesn’t cut it anymore….
I think people that wait for Madonna to do the right thing (remember the bogus africa charity?) will be waiting a very long time
I am not a big Madonna fan myself anymore but in these situations sometimes the family just has to walk away. Even therapist state that fact,in the hopes the person will hit “rock bottom”. Perhaps he is reaching his “rock bottom”. I am sure she probably has helped him in the past and is frustrated. I know Madoona loves media coverage of any kind but I am pretty sure she did not want this type of press.
sorry – no sympathy here from me for this whiner-loser brother.
In my opinion, madonna does not have to give him anything just because he is her brother. He screwed up his life – she did not. He should suffer the consequences of his actions and she owes him nothing.
I know many will not like this opinion but that is how I feel about it!
If I had the amount of money Madonna has, there would be no reason that I would not help a homeless relative, especially a sibling, addicted or not. The amount it would be for her to buy the guy a trailer and pay for the lot would be so minimal that she wouldn’t notice it was spent on him. She doesn’t have to buy his alcohol or cigarettes, just give him a warm place to live in the winter. Geez, it never hurts anyone to show a little compassion and empathy.
Money clearly doesn’t solve addiction. However, a family member with money can use it to help get that person back on the road to recovery. Madonna is in a different position than most people who don’t have the same resources to help a family member dealing with addiction. It seems like Madonna’s family was never very tight knit and Madonna moved on with her life after she found fame and fortune. Wonder how often she keeps in touch with her dad and her other siblings each year. I’m guessing not a lot.
I have had personal and professional experience with addicts who are violent and abusive. No amount of money can make an addict sober without his or her consent. Madonna could do everything for this man but it’s up to him to get help. People who have so much compassion for addicts should save a little for the family and the hard choices they’ve been forced to make.
Madonna has never been a nice person from what I can tell, but I’m not sure what the answer is here. Maybe set up a small trust where the rent and whatever other expenses there are is paid for by a third party and Anthony has no contact with it? But maybe she’s done that. We have no idea what has been done to help him.
I’ve paid for rehab multiple times only to have my sister find a way to leave; I’ve paid rent, bought furniture, had groceries delivered, paid utilities, supported her children. She always found a way to abuse that: crackie friends in the apartment, selling furniture for drugs, selling food (yep…happens), taking her kids birthday money, on and on and on. You can do it all and it still may not work. I fantasize about getting a phone call that says hey, my life’s going well, I am sober and trying to keep myself that way. Maybe it will happen at some point. Until then I only have history to go by and a hard learned pattern to follow impotently. It sucks and it hurts because you see in your mind’s eye what she was, what you want for her again, and that is what enabled “you” to basically enable HER, however good intentionally it was. You can only, at some point in time, pick up the pieces and try to put together a life for those touched by it all and continue to pray for her deliverance from what is no doubt hell on earth, even if it is of their own making in some part.
Eh, I don’t like Madonna and it wouldn’t surprise me if she hasn’t helped but I can’t arbitrarily dislike her for this situation; however, she does have PLENTY of other reasons why I should so YAY me.;-)
Let’s look at this another way: say Madonna sets up Anthony in a house, provides funds, pays his utlilities, etc. She cannot “force” him to quit using, you know this, right? So basically, by providing him the comforts of a house, etc., she is removing the motivation to stop drinking.
He will continue to use, he will continue to not contribute to society, he will be dangerous (BECAUSE HE’S DRUNK ALL THE TIME) and he will kill himself with liquor. So, best case scenario, she provides him a means by which he can slowly drink himself to death. Worst case scenario, he ruins other lives along the way (by running a bordello out of the house, or a drug ring, or by spreading STDs, or by making any number of the asinine decisions asddicts make that cause insult and injury to those nearby).
On the other hand, if she allows him to be the architect of his own destiny, and live with the result of his choices, perhaps he will finally see that using leads to misery. Then, he can choose to get the help that he needs to stop.
Enabling an addict allows them to hurt more people. Full stop.
This is a situation that involves addiction and possibly mental illness. As many have said, we really don’t know enough to judge. Given that this is just emerging now, it’s almost certain that Madonna and the rest of his family have been trying to help him for years. I feel sorry for all of them.
As pervious posters have mentioned, there is no cure-all for addition and every addict is different. My brother, who is 2.5 years older than me, has been an addict since I was probably 12 and he was 14. There have been many drugs, a lot of booze, and finally heroin. He has single-handedly destroyed relationships within the family and continues to affect all of us. He was just kicked out of his halfway house (I count how many he has been booted from) and is currently homeless. I would NEVER take him in, NEVER give him money (the quote “When it comes to helping an addict, $20 is too much money and a million isn’t enough.” is so incredibly telling; well said) because he is DANGEROUS and drags people down with him. He steals, he lies, and he has no capacity to accept blame for anything in his life. I am in constant mental anguish over him and his situation but YOU CAN’T HELP SOMEONE WHO DOESN’T WANT HELP. At least not my brother. It’s made my childhood memories so incredibly bittersweet. Taking baths (as young children do together), family trips, summers with Baba…I miss my brother because the person he used to be doesn’t exist. I completely understand Madonna’s situation, or anyone who constantly deals with an addict. Now I have to go dry my tears…
More like ask his dealer. He is an addict and no one can save an addict unless they want help. Remember in her movie where she waited & waited for him to come visit her at her hotel when she was in town and he showed up like 5 hrs later in middle of night and was wasted. That is not someone you can help unless they are ready to get sober. Im sure its hard for Madonna but just giving him money would be enabling him. He needs rehab which in pretty sure she has paid for a few times for him.
One of my good friends sister is a serious addict and he has tried so many times to help her and just this week he told me that she has disappeared again and left her 15 and 12 year old kids at home alone, so he has gone and got them. They have had her in rehab countelss times now and let’s face it nothing is going to help her at this point except herself. I think the state is going to take her kids away from her finally, but she likes the assistance checks she gets for them, to keep her habit going. Situations like this are nothing but sad. Sad for the person going through it and very very sad for the family to helplessly watch them self destruct.
I am not sorry at all for saying this: I find it repulsive that so many of you would blame homelessness on addiction and mental illness alone, using a judgemental tone that implies that these people deliberately set out to develop these conditions out of wanton capriciousness.
Homelessness is a social ill not because homeless people are unsightly and unstable, but because society fails to create infrastructures to assist many people who are left to deal with practically impossible situations on their own, without any form of support or guidance.
Many of these people become addicts as a way to cope with the horrendous reality of their lives: when you cannot fall asleep out of fear of getting beaten up, raped, burned alive, or kidnapped and tortured, you need an outlet. Their stress levels are unimaginable.
Also, drinking alcohol is the only effective way for them to keep warm during the winter months. Did you know that drug dealers actually prey these poor people, deliberately manipulating them so that they will get hooked up and do anything to get money for their next fix?
It’s beyond horrible and heartreaking, especially because, as we can see, most individuals lack any decency and empathy whatsoever.
As for Madonna, her fake, sterile-looking outside is a match for who she is inside. Her only talent has always been the ability to do anything necessary to get ahead, often at the expense of others – that she would leave her brother to fend for himself in these circumstances isn’t surprising at all.
I think that she should locate her brother, clean him up and take him on a private jet ride out of America into a country that is open to forced legalized rehabilitation. Pay for 3 years in advance, have your staff do a monthly check on him, and personally write to him often. In three years he will be well or he will be a resident for life.
Having addicts in my family I can understand if Madonna’s family won’t help him anymore. He might not want to accept their help, or he may even take advantage of them.
I had a cousin that was addicted to drugs and had lupus. My grandparents and her mom tried to help her get clean all of the time. They let her live with them when she had no where else to go and all she did was steal from them. She left her kids alone and they were taken from her by their dad’s family, but she still didn’t care. She even got so bad that she was in the hospital regularly, and was given 6 months to live. after almost dying alone because we all gave up trying, she got her act together. She’s doing a lot better now, and has her kids back, but there really isn’t anything anyone can do to help an addict, if the addict doesn’t want help.
@Kim I pointed out the same thing in the first thread about this story, and someone else pointed out that the jerk brother in Truth or Dare was actually Marty. Apparently, Marty has also been in and out of rehab quite a few times over the years. I remember her mentioning in the film that the family had just put him through a treatment program… Again. So, Madonna seems to have TWO brothers with addiction problems. Sad.
Personally, I side with her on this issue. My boyfriend’s brother is all of 23 and has already been through both rehab and jail. He’s stolen untold amounts of money from his relatives, sold off family heirlooms, made off with everything in the liquor cabinet… He is a mess, and nothing seems to convince him that he needs to clean up his act.
Their father always says that his son has a disease, and thus he continues to bail him out through all the crap he pulls. Meanwhile, my boyfriend is struggling to pay off his student loans and has repeatedly had to change the locks on his apartment to keep his brother from robbing him blind. There’s never any money to help my boyfriend out, because the family needs everything they have to pay for his brother’s rehab and his lawyer.
It’s become such a tense situation that my boyfriend is now considering cutting ties with his family altogether until they face the reality of how much they enable (and even reward) his brother’s bad behavior. It’s all really heartbreaking to watch.
As others have already said, you cannot force an addict to change. I honestly think that letting an addict hit rock bottom on their own is often times the only way they will learn, as difficult as that may be to do.
@Pont Neuf. I don’t see anyone blaming homelessness in general on drugs and mental illness just this case. Many of us are talking from personal experience about family members who we tried to help but preferred a life of drugs and alcohol to treatment. I find it repulsive that you don’t seem to have any sympathy for that and would prefer to talk in textbook generalizations than real life problems.
No offense, but it’s clear who has experience with addicts and who doesn’t. Let’s say that one did provide a safe place for the addict to live rent free. Suppose the addict ODs and dies in that safe place; you’ve never let him hit rock bottom and try to save HIMSELF. How is the relative supposed to feel then? Maybe they would’ve gotten clean if they didn’t have a comfortable bed to sleep in.
Good grief.
I’m honored to have been quoted (while I was quoting someone else!) Lol I have 1 brother who’s a recovering heroin addict and a sister who’s currently using. She showed up to our niece’s 3rd birthday party with coke on her upper lip. Awesome.
I volunteer in a homeless shelter. Some of the guys are homeless by choice – some think being homeless is walking in the steps of Jesus, some think that being homeless is a slap in the face to their parents, some are homeless for the “adventure.” But many are there because they simply have nowhere to go. They’ve burned all their bridges (mostly due to drug and alcohol use, some due to their mental illness)and there’s nothing left for them. Those are the men (I work in a men’s shelter) who come back year after year (we’re open from November to April).
I have several addicts in my family including my father who is an alcoholic. I also happen to work with individuals who are struggling with mental illness and drug addiction and have cognitive impairments/intellectual disabilities. While it is true addicts cannot be helped unless they want that help I think the piece a lot of people neglect is what substance abuse does long term. For example, long term alcohol abuse will lead people to actually crave that drink. While we might stop at 3 or 4, that 3rd or 4th is only increasing their craving. Alcoholism and drug addiction is a disease whether people want to acknowledge it or not. It changes cognitive functioning and results in a lot of impairments long term. Withdrawing from alcohol or whatever drug is often excruciatingly painful (especially heroin, though detoxing from alcohol can actually result in fatal seizures), can create paranoia, foster delusions, contribute to memory loss, delayed auto-processing, etc. Being an addict is not fun, and any mentally stable person I know who is homeless would never say this was what they aspired to. I can’t judge Madonna, but I can say there’s a lot more to addiction than personal experience or clinical experience. When a person is an addict there is much more to recovery than simply wanting to get help.
Since she’s super rich, how about she foot the bill for 1 yr intensive inpatient rehab with an incentive of enough money to get back on his feet when he gets out? Or has she tried that? I believe in families mending fences. Unless he physically or sexually abused her, why can’t she at least try??
If my idea didn’t work, then yeah, he’s a lost cause.
There is nothing she can do, he is an addict. If you have had one in your family you know that they will use you up until there is nothing left. He won’t get better until he admits he has a problem and gets into rehab. She could give him an apartment and an allowance and he would just ask for more, probably harassing her and her family in the process. They turn on whoever in enabling them. I have seen it so many times. Her brother is an addict, I am sure everyone has tried to help him, but there is no hope unless he wants to help himself.
Typical addict. It’s always someone else’s fault.
Have 2 Aunts that are addicts. Both intelligent, had prestigious jobs, and model good looks. I used to be in awe of both of them when i was younger. I was awkward, but intelligent..they had everything..but pissed it away, starting with weed, then harder drugs..alcohol. My wealthy Grandma enabled them, defended them..they both lost their jobs, their homes, everything. One is on Meds, rents a room in a flophouse, other Aunt who looked like a supermodel with a genius IQ is in and out of rehab..steals from everyone. Havent seen them in years. So sad, trying not to repeat the family legacy. Do not enable..you are killing your loved ones with kindness. My Grandma died knowing both of her beautiful brilliant girls were degenerate addicts..and she enabled them because she wanted their love. Dont blame Madonna…she has worked her ass off for 30 years..has children. Madge is a royal bitch, but she is not lazy. All the men in her life use her..Madge do not get married ever again!
Well that is his side of the story. O poor me. The world is so mean to me. We can’t really scream: “Mean and cold hearted Madonna”. Because we don’t know her side.
And really – it’s all in the interview. And I’m 100% sure that he was paid by magazine for that interview. And he spent all those money on alcohol 5 minutes after it was done. Guy had work, life, family. He blew it all away and doesn’t want to work now. I wonder if reporter asked him if he tried to find work. I’m sure he didn’t even try to find it. Because you can’t drink all day on your work. You will be fired. And I guess that this is exactly why his father fired him.
If Madonna will buy him house and will give money then he will sit and drink in that house every day. And do drugs because I think that he doesn’t do drugs now because he doesn’t have money on them. And he will do nothing and complain that Madonna is giving not enough money.
She works harder and does with out more that any abused and hopelessly stuck out of society day-laborer while fighting the age battle, and trying to make herself ultra significant, glamorous, and iconic famous plus richer than any rich dared to be.. brother.. you are not fitting in her busy schedule anytime soon.
The guy kept saying that he never asked Madonna for everything, and while he might blame everyone else for his problems, he’s inebriated during the interview. He has no idea what he’s talking about.
But I don’t blame Madonna, or the family, for not helping. Sometimes giving up on someone is the best thing you can do for them
Everyone talking about her paying for rehab, an adult can walk out whenever they want. They can’t be “forced” to stay.
Incredibly well-written and thoughtful, CB.
First off, I personally can’t stand Madonna. But as a recovering addict/alcoholic myself, I believe she is doing the right thing by not helping him out. Anything she does for him at this point (short of helping pay for an intensive inpatient treatment on the condition that he follows all the medical advice and successfully completes the program) is only going to enable him to continue to drink and use, and would actually be doing more harm than good. It’s sad but it’s true. The best thing my family did for me was to cut me off completely until I was ready to get help. I didn’t understand at the time why they did it, and for a while I thought they just didn’t care. But looking back on it now that I am clean, I can see that it was hard for them but they did it because they love me…now I am in a better place because of it.
One is too many – a thousand is never enough is a Phrase from Narcotics Anonymous Big Book (Adapted from the AA Big Book).
My husband is an addict in recovery (3 years!!!).
Once he picks up his drug of choice- there is nothing in this world (money, begging, threatening, pleading) that will make him stop until he reaches his own bottom and reaches out for help.
Loving an addict isn’t easy; figuring out how to be supportive while protecting yourself is even harder.
P.S.
Madge is still too busy looking in the mirror surrounded by young houseboys to realize that any of that just happened.
I have family members who are on medication (anti depressants) and drink alcohol. Some are bully’s, others are passive aggressive, and in my experience when they can’t get their own way, they immediately become the victim putting a guilt trip on whoever will not put up with their crap.