I felt sad… as if I just watched my own son leave home. I waved goodbye as Alex and Joe, his friend and manager, pulled away, disappearing around the corner of my quiet subdivision. I closed the door, hurried back to my study, and sighed out loud, trying to release what I was feeling inside.
Outside my window, I stared at my neighbor’s perfect lawn, perfectly-shaped trees, and the row of perfectly-spaced and uniformly-sized yellow lilies. I marveled at how they all seemed to grow at the same speed.
“Why do we humans have such a need to force everything and everyone into neat rows of ‘sameness,’ weeding out and rejecting that which is different?” I thought, as my tears took my frustration with the world out of my heart.
Alex and I met after one of my church performances. During the show, I talked about how ― because we try so hard to ‘fit’, to be accepted and loved by the world around us ― we often lose our self-confidence, ending up depressed and overcome with anxiety.
Not the kind of pleasant conversation you’d expect on a Sunday afternoon. I’m sure many in the audience would probably have been happier if I had just put on a smile and sang some old familiar hymns.
It wasn’t Alex’s tall, slim, 27-year-old figure, his epic curly hair, or even his youth that made him seem different from others. It was his apparent courage to be himself. Not trying to hide or feeling scared because he didn’t fit in. He seemed comfortable in his own skin.
I would soon find out that this wasn’t always the case.
“I’m Alex. A recovering addict and songwriter,” he introduced himself to me.
Standing with his mom, I signed their CDs. My mind quickly remembered the hundreds of ladies I’ve met over the years, who waited until the crowd cleared, asking me - from a state of utter helplessness - to pray for their drug-addicted sons and daughters. They felt their ‘secret’ and ‘shame’ was safe with me. I was a mother who would understand, but also a traveler whom they wouldn’t have to see next Sunday sitting in the pew appearing all ‘perfect.’
“I’d love to hear more,” I said.
A few weeks later, Alex drove from Philadelphia to Nashville to tell his story on my show Waking Up in America.
Days before the cameras rolled, Alex sat in my kitchen and we talked over a bowl of home-made chicken noodle soup (my mother’s recipe). Our conversation ranged from being present and eating healthy, to connecting with nature and playing music.
One early afternoon, Alex came down and sat at my baby grand. I could sense him sitting there for a moment before his fingers touched the keys and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata filled our home. Moments later, he picked up his guitar and began to practice the song he would perform in our show.
“What a deep, creative and beautiful soul he is,” I thought as I got to spend this time with him and around him.
When we walked into “O Gallery,” our location of the interview, he got quiet. Not because he was nervous, but because he was soaking in the paintings of Olga Alexeeva, who is as free-spirited and unconventional in her artistic expression as one can be.
As a kid, Alex dreamed of becoming a pilot because he was fascinated by the idea of being “free enough to fly through the air.”
Alex moved from Philadelphia to the suburbs and never managed to fit in. He was a target of a lot of bullying, became depressed and withdrew into himself. His only outlet was creativity - imagination and drawing. But he got chastised by his teachers for it and told he had the ‘worst case of ADHD’ a teacher had ever seen.
Alex tried to tell his parents, but at 10 or 11 years old, Alex didn’t know how to express it. He just wanted to die.
“[I became] more obsessed, more interested in death because whatever it is it must be something better than whatever life is. I was just really in so much pain and just didn’t want to live.”
At fourteen years old, Alex found alcohol as his first drug.
“I just loved it and it set me free. I was in so much pain and it was just a pain reliever. It relieved all that pain. I could relax for the first time probably my life.”
At sixteen, Alex discovered Pink Floyd. He says it would fill him with so much joy and he would “just dance.” He started playing guitar and became immersed in it.
In a way, music became another way to escape from the pain of reality he lived in.
Alex started smoking weed to feel free and un-intimidated to explore music and progressively moved on to more serious drugs he didn’t want to get specific about. He just said it nearly destroyed him.
“At a certain point, the joy I got from drugs started to go away and it just started to become immense suffering... it started to destroy my music, where before music was the love of my life… the addiction, I guess, subconsciously convinced me that it was doing something for me. But [when] I realized it was a lie... I stopped doing drugs.”
The process of recovery was long and difficult for Alex, as it is for many addicts. It’s not something we readily accept as a society. We all want to believe that everything can get fixed overnight, with a pill or some magic formula.
But what did happen in one quick moment for Alex was the realization, an awakening that he was believing a lie. A lie that he was somehow ‘broken’ because he was different, a lie that he had a mental illness where, in fact, he was a healthy, curious, creative little boy who suffered emotional pain and wasn’t able to express it. He believed the lie that alcohol or drugs could take him away and free him enough so he could fly.
Once his mind shifted and Alex called out those lies, he was able to start his healing journey.
At the end of our interview, Alex picked up his guitar and performed his song The Aftermath of Me.
His music is deep, layered, and complex - as is his soul - and at the same time, it has the playfulness and energy that lifts the listener up to a high produced, not by drugs, but by pure joy for life. It is through his music that Alex is now helping others to heal.
―-
After the episode was edited, I sent a preview to Alex to make sure he was comfortable with everything he said as he shared his story publicly for the first time. A few days later, I received a Facebook message from his mom:
“I was sobbing and of course trying to stay away from blaming myself for not picking up on it earlier… I never met the real Alex until the other side of his addiction... Sometimes we break out in childish laughter over the silliest things that really don’t even make sense. But it’s so beautiful!! Thank you so much for giving Alex this opportunity!”
I sighed and let myself feel her pain and her joy. I looked through my window and noticed something small and yellow in my neighbor’s lawn. Could it be a dandelion growing, despite the strict neighborhood regulation of no weeds in the lawn?
Alexander “Stopp” Roberts is a musician and songwriter who talks about his drug addiction and recovery. You can find his music at his website: AlexanderStopp.com