What Does It Mean to Live With Addiction? Human Stories.

Marblehead, Massachusetts - 3 Voices continues its mission to empower women to use their voices on important issues with a program on Tuesday, April 23, at Abbot Library featuring Ariele Goldman and Anne Lucas sharing “What Does It Mean to Live with Addiction? Human Stories.”

Goldman fought her own addiction and now helps others in recovery. She is from Swampscott, Massachusetts, and notes that she had a very normal, healthy upbringing with two loving parents. Yet, she struggled with addictive behaviors including drugs and alcohol. “Everything was amazing on the outside, but from a very young age I struggled internally. I struggled with a combination of mental health issues as well as just not feeling good enough and not feeling like I fit in,” she said.

“I always had addictive behaviors and as I now see it, it was a form of coping to make myself feel better,” Goldman said. “These behaviors ranged from food, toys and codependency. eventually it became drugs and alcohol. I struggled in my later teens until my late twenties with minor periods of abstinence. Everything I had ever known was shattered and my life was destroyed.”

Then, in 2017 Goldman learned to put the pieces of her life back together. Today, she lives a life she “could have never even imagined was possible.” She said, “I’m a student, an employee at a treatment center, an intern, and I’m engaged! Most importantly I have learned to have self love, self worth, self compassion and peace of mind.”

Goldman celebrates, saying, “I am grateful that I am now capable of being accountable, reliable and able to help other people.”

Marbleheaders will recognize Lucas as a prominent actor, singer, director, producer and playwright. For the April program, she will draw upon her own experience with the addiction of a close family member, attending Al-Anon for nine years and her own healing.

She has written of her experience with addiction in “Recovery,” a play that premiered at Theater for the New City in New York City last fall and will be produced at MLT this coming fall and in Greece in 2020. “Recovery” portrays three sets of mothers and daughters who meet in a rehab.

Her talent for telling and presenting human stories include her own first full length play, “Say the Name,” based on the memoir of a Holocaust survivor, that was used as a course text and staged at Harvard Divinity School during the Fall of 2013, and her first professionally produced play “From Silence,” which has been seen in two New York City productions and at MLT. The play looks at the traumatic damage of the Holocaust from the perspective of second and third generation survivors.

The next 3 Voices program is scheduled for Tuesday, June 4, when speakers from both sessions will come together in a follow-up event to provide additional information and answer questions.

Each program will be followed by questions and answers and an opportunity to continue the conversation with light desserts and beverages.

All 3 Voices are sponsored by Abbot Library and MHTV. All 3 Voices programs are free and open to the public. For more information about 3 Voices, visit 3Voices.org or contact 3voicesmhd@gmail.com.

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