An overdue apology, with gratitude
I’m sorry, Chattanooga.
I owe you that apology, I do, along with some explanation.
When I arrived in the area nearly 20 years ago with my wife, Kent, and school-age children William, Hudson and Mary Halley, I sought a fresh start in this on-the-move community offering so much opportunity. But the truth is, I was also running away from a childhood I desperately wanted to leave behind, a painful period I had never reconciled.
I was naively unaware in my late 30s that a wounded heart can’t heal by merely breathing different air, even if much of it is inhaled 1,900 feet above sea level, like where we made our new home on Lookout Mountain. I was also naively unaware that healing begins with acknowledgment and introspection, not denial and an external change of scenery. But so much has changed in the years since, for the better, and here’s my acknowledgment to you, my dear friends and community, followed by my much-needed apology.
I was adopted from Sellers Baptist Home for Unwed Mothers in New Orleans at 3 months old by a couple living in Oxford, Mississippi.
The year was 1965, and he was a biology professor at the University of Mississippi, while she was a stayat-home mother intent on turning two adopted children (including a sister, three years older me) into a family. It never felt quite right, and by the time I was 12, I understood more, and less. I knew, for instance, that I was adopted and recognized how different I was from my adopted family. I was beginning to understand how much of my family life was about secrets and lies, so much I didn’t know.
Closed Louisiana state records shielded the identity of my biological parents, and my wellintentioned mother made up stories about my past in attempted appeasement. These stories fit with her daily denial of other home realities. She led my Cub Scouts and Sunday School classes and didn’t drink or curse that
I ever saw. But the truth often escaped her, even about simple things that lies didn’t well suit, as
she tried to create harmony within our tumultuous home.
I never saw my parents kiss more than a cheek peck. They rarely hugged, and even that was stiff and uncomfortable to watch.
Loneliness rumbled so deeply within that I plastered a smile on my face to keep others from noticing. That helped make me popular at a large public high school, where I was voted “friendliest” when I was instead projecting a deep need for acceptance.
The day I discovered alcohol, it was like I met a friend who delivered a warm hug. I didn’t drink daily, and often not more than weekly, but I’d binge and forget the pain. I’d then feel guilty, stop drinking for a period, before bingeing again, more intensely, to forget both the pain and the home and behavioral shame. Soon, it impacted my life, deepening guilt.
Missed basketball practice. No algebra homework. Hurt my girlfriend’s feelings.
I knew even then that alcohol wasn’t for me, but I didn’t know another option to get away from the pain, even as it created new and different pain. The pain was my doing, which somehow gave me the only control I had in my identity-less life. Besides, we only had one psychologist in my small town growing up, and I thought only strange people went to them, and I didn’t understand they might help me.
By the time I arrived in Chattanooga, many years later, with a family of my own that I vowed to do better by, I had been a moderately regular drinker for most years since age 16. We were welcomed instantly into the community, and the metro area became the place we affectionately called home, and many of its people were like family. I wanted that love so desperately, just like I wanted to be the husband and father my wife and children deserved, as well as a trusted friend of friends. I got to write a regular column for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, and my aim was to benefit the community and earn respect. I got book deals, and I meant to write them with patience, delivering impact, but every best intention was dulled by the same distraction.
Eventually, I added prescription Adderall misuse to my alcohol misuse, and the combined addiction resulted in so many poor decisions, including infidelity. My unreliability flared like a hang glider shoving off a mountainside amid a surprising spring gust, like when I was the featured speaker at a women’s luncheon on Lookout Mountain and forgot, leaving dozens of welldressed friends and former admirers with a plate lunch but no program.
My life changed when I saw the impact of my struggles on my family, including my wife, and children, my career and valued friendships. Finally, after nearly three decades of self-medication, I said enough is enough and did something about it, fighting back to the life and joy I deserved, the life and joy my family deserved.
I learned that I’m responsible for me. I learned that artificially changing how I feel just made me feel worse. With a foundation of faith, recognition, learned tools and extensive forgiveness, of my misdeeds, of misdeeds done to me, I claimed my truth, sobriety and vows — I claimed my joy. But not everything was fixed overnight, since I had handed down another generation of familial pain.
Our three children graduated from high school in Chattanooga with rich friendships and experiences, but they, too, faced struggle. Substance-use disorder is a family disease, after all. Our son Hudson nearly died of an accidental overdose as a sophomore in college, yet faith, substance treatment, friendships and mentor support, from the likes of longtime youth minister Len Teague of Lookout Mountain, gave him the grace and guidance he needed. Today, Hudson is more than 10 years sober and thriving in joy with a family of his own.
Our daughter, Mary Halley, battled an eating disorder in college, but through counseling, nutrition work and horse therapy, she found recovery and now has her joy, along with a growing family including three children.
Our oldest son, William, was our casualty in this war. He died nine and a half years ago of an accidental drug overdose less than a year after he graduated from the University of Mississippi, where he had been an honors college student and a track athlete in the 400 hurdles. His remains are buried in Chattanooga, at Forest Hills Cemetery at the base of Lookout Mountain, and we are comforted that he’s resting in the community we so loved as a home, even though we no longer live in the area.
We miss William every day and always will, but don’t feel sorry for us as we’re thriving in the light with clear minds and a focus on others.
My wife and I are back in Oxford, where we’ve helped start the William Magee Center for Alcohol and Other Drug and Wellness Education at the University of Mississippi. It’s named after our late son and supports students with mental health and substance misuse issues on campus. I also work at the university as the director of operations for the William Magee Institute of Student Wellbeing. At the Magee Institute, we are working to break the stigma among students on campus and beyond in middle and high schools, so they know they are not alone and to educate them about the issues they face in today’s chaotic world. My work involves visiting and engaging in schools with students, educators and parents about how we can help today’s generation of youth find and keep the joy they want and deserve.
Recently, and in the months to come, this work has brought me back to the Chattanooga area, and I’m moved by the engagement and care for education and supporting students on mental health and substance misuse. I’ve re-engaged with old friends and bonded with new friends, and I must tell you, it’s been so good to come home. It’s also rewarding because it’s the type of helpful work I meant to do in the community in the first place.
I’m sorry that I let you down before. I’m thankful for so much forgiveness and grace the community has given me, forgiveness and grace that I hope and pray we offer to all others who suffer from substance misuse, who are determined to fight back for better, for the joy they deserve. And I am so very thankful that when I am away, you keep a tender, loving arm around my dear William, who’s resting eternally in the city we still call home.
Former Chattanooga-area resident David Magee is the author of “Dear William: A Father’s Memoir of Addiction, Recovery, Love and Loss,” a Publisher’s Weekly best-seller. A changemaker in student and family mental health and substance misuse, he’s creator and director of operations of the William Magee Institute for Student Wellbeing at the University of Mississippi and a frequent K-12 and university educational and motivational speaker, helping students find and keep their joy. His forthcoming book (August 2023) is “Things Have Changed: What Every Parent (and Educator) Should Know About the Student Mental Health and Substance Misuse Crisis.” He’s also a national recovery adviser for the Integrative Life Network. Learn more at www.daviddmagee.com.