Addiction treatment and recovery advocate William Cope Moyers has penned a memoir about his own experience with alcohol and other drugs, the Los Angeles Times reported Oct. 9.

Moyers, son of the legendary newsman William Moyers, tells of his upbringing among the rich and famous and his plunge into alcoholism and addiction to crack cocaine in "Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption."

"It's hard to come off as a regular guy when your father was a right-hand man to a president and still is a nationally renowned journalist and an icon of the liberal political establishment," the Times book review noted. "But Moyers, who now goes by 'William' after years of being called 'Cope' and decades of seeing himself almost exclusively as Bill Moyers' son, pulls it off, letting the reader see him as one of the millions of Americans who have overcome addiction ... Moyers shows the deceit, the games, the illogical and distorted thinking that fill up the day of someone whose only concern is getting high."

Moyers wins praise for detailing the relationship between parents and their addicted children, raising hope that the book could encourage more parents to intervene with their troubled offspring. Letters between the elder and younger Moyers comprise an important part of the book. Moyers details how he deceived his parents with various stories to explain his alcohol and drug related misadventures, including crashing a car and breaking into a store to steal $20.

The author also talks about his broken marriage and the three relapses that took place after his first stab at sobriety in 1988. In 1994, the elder Moyers found his son in a crack house in Atlanta and checked him in for one more try at treatment. It worked.

" [W]e are all broken, and the only 'cure' for our brokenness is to be broken together," writes Moyers, who credits the spiritual aspect of recovery for keeping him clean. 

Editor's Note:
For information on ordering Moyer's memoir, Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption, visit Books We Like.