President and Mrs. Biden: Please keep showing compassion toward addiction

Addiction is in the news again. And where there is addiction, there is stigma. A jury of Hunter Biden’s peers has now spoken. As I listened to news reports about his trial in a Wilmington, Delaware courtroom, I was riveted not by the legal and political dramas there, but by the sadness of watching yet another family suffer from the insanity and stigma of addiction. The fact that these played out on one of the largest public stages in the world just makes it all the worse. 

I know addiction and stigma. On May 11, 2015, our son Alex died of a heroin overdose, after several years in active addiction. He was 25. There are many more family members suffering like us. Addiction happens in all races and across all socioeconomic statuses. The demographics of addiction have shifted in recent years to include suburbanites and those in middle- and upper-class families, people like the Bidens. Nearly 110,000 Americans died of overdose last year. The American Journal of Public Health reported recently that 1 in 8 U.S. adults have had their life disrupted by overdose. The U.S. drug czar, Rahul Gupta, likens it to a 737 crashing into the Potomac River every single day. 

Any parent who lost a family member from the chaos a user brought inside their family understands what happened in that Wilmington courtroom. I lived it, we lived it. So, too, do those lucky families whose sons or daughters remain in recovery — their family members are still alive. I’m envious that Joe and Jill still have their son. There is growing recognition that the criminal justice system adds to the trauma for those whose lives have been disrupted by addiction. I well understand Joe and Jill’s terror of a possible relapse.

Hunter Biden’s memoir, "Beautiful Things," is a gripping portrait of a young man and his family caught in the chaotic life of addiction. Regrettably, the federal prosecutors used dramatic revelations that inevitably appear in any memoir about addiction as damning evidence against him. Usually, we applaud honest reflection rather than condemn it. Biden’s own words are the prime evidence of his drug habit, which developed partly to deal with the trauma of losing his mother and sister at two years of age, and his hopelessness after losing his brother to brain cancer. It took a long time, but he eventually clawed his way back into recovery.

The descriptions of addiction in Biden’s memoir are harrowing. But to those of us who have lived the insanity, they are all too familiar. While Biden’s choice of drugs was alcohol and crack, Alex’s was alcohol and heroin. Alex died just as the synthetic drug fentanyl came roaring into American cities and towns. I suspect Alex would have tried fentanyl as well. Regardless of their drugs of choice, Alex and Hunter had some similar experiences. Both started drinking at an early age, and then drank to an extreme. Both described drinking as solving psychological problems and were arrested for drug possession or underage drinking. Both single mindedly pursued drugs every day they were in active addiction. 

Things went from bad to worse, until their lives were consumed by drug seeking and taking. I don’t believe Alex ever owned or used a gun, but he certainly bought drugs from people with guns. Dealers move in the same circles as gun owners. Alex lived on the streets intermittently, was beaten up several times, and went to multiple rehabs and hospitals. He overdosed multiple times before the last one. Narcan repeatedly saved him. Biden had analogous experiences during his addiction. This is simply the daily life of someone who uses substances.

Stigma rages for drug users, addicted or not. There is even stigma for family members. Too many still believe that “good families” don’t have addicted kids. The fact that this belief is false doesn’t make it any less insidious. Alex was often excoriated by the very medical providers charged with taking care of him. He was labeled as not salvageable, brittle and hypersensitive to criticism, and even a psychopath. Rehab and detox staff regularly rebuked him for making bad choices and being disdainful of the abstinence orthodoxy. 

The stigma Biden endured was more public, and brutal. He was accused of drug use in a 2020 presidential debate, where over 73 million viewers tuned in. Salacious images from his personal laptop were introduced as evidence against him in a 2023 congressional hearing. He was the subject of several New Yorker pieces, as well as countless other media articles. In his Wilmington trial there was audio of him reading from his memoir about his messy life in addiction. Despite his many years in recovery, he continues to be a regular target for those seeking to take down his father. 

Joe and Jill Biden are undoubtedly devastated by Hunter’s use of drugs. They haven’t always wanted to talk about it, who does? Nonetheless, both are modeling compassionate acceptance of their son. Reporters describe Joe as calm and compassionate. Jill sits behind Hunter in the courtroom. His daughter Naomi testified for him, and his wife Melissa was with him daily. Biden’s memoir is replete with descriptions of a loving family. We see multiple examples of Joe and Jill’s love, and that love is reciprocated. It also well describes the trauma associated with the loss of his brother Beau of brain cancer, just a few days after Alex’s death by overdose in May 2015. For the Bidens, that love as well as the trauma came alive in that Wilmington courtroom.

There are lots of factors that harm reduction activists believe reduce addiction and overdose, including having multiple paths to recovery, using medications to support treatment, regulating prescription drugs, reducing stigma, and strengthening insurance parity. Most importantly, we need to move away from a punishing, criminal justice approach to addiction and toward one based on public health. But we all know the importance of community. Having a loving family helps. It’s not always enough, as my family’s story illustrates. But having families there to support one’s recovery is critically important. I’m so thankful to Joe and Jill Biden for modeling such behavior.

Patricia A. Roos is professor emerita of sociology at Rutgers University and author of "Surviving Alex: A Mother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Addiction", published in May by Rutgers University Press.