King is a great example of what can happen when somebody with a lot of talent and expertise finds recovery and begins to channel their energy in a positive direction. King has gone from a public scandal caused by his addiction that cost him a promising career in politics, his marriage, home and ultimately, his freedom to helping others through the addiction advocacy group Facing Addiction. In just a few short years, he has rebuilt his life and is now committed to changing the way the public thinks about addiction.
Lost Dreams
King is the former Executive Director of the (now defunct) Washington State Senate Democratic Campaign Committee (SDCC). In 2013, he was sentenced to more than two years in prison after he was found guilty of embezzling more than $300,000 of campaign funds. He admitted to taking the money to fuel his addiction to alcohol and gambling. Now I’ve been on a binge or five (hundred), but King must have had a hell of a run.
As his addiction progressed, he blew through his savings, maxed out his credit cards and hit up every payday loan place in town. King eventually did what every good addict does (or was that just me?) and started stealing from his employer. But it wasn’t like he was just pocketing a few twenties from the cash register as his employer happened to be the Democratic Party in the historically blue state of Washington. Because the Senate Dems were out the stolen campaign money, they lost their majority to Republicans, who still maintain control of the Senate in Washington. Oopsy.
It’s no surprise to anybody who’s ever struggled with addiction that King didn’t stop using until he faced prison. However, those who knew him wouldn’t have ever guessed the extent of his problem. He was described as a political “golden boy” and didn’t have any trace of a criminal record. Originally from the east coast, King worked on John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign in Iowa and came to Washington to work on US Senator Patty Murray’s re-election campaign, as well as state campaigns in 2006 and 2008.
The Face of Addiction
Not so long ago, when you heard the word “addict” you would never think of a clean-cut, college-educated white man with a passion for politics. Hell, I was a white, middle-class teenage junkie and it took me five years of using heroin before I faced the fact addicts were not just those guys sleeping in alleys and shooting up in bus station bathrooms. Now King is doing his part to change that perception.
In a recent report by Seattle’s KIRO 7 News, King declared, “I’m a college educated male in my mid 30’s I’m the face of addiction in this country.” King, who had about nine months sober at the time of his sentencing, took advantage of the treatment programs available in prison. Now, with more than three years sober, he says addiction must come out of the shadows. “Your loved one who is suffering with active addiction isn’t a bad person who needs to get good,” he said. “They are a sick person who needs to get well.”
Founded in 2015, Facing Addiction is a national non-profit organization dedicated to finding solutions to America’s addiction crisis. (We covered their first major event, Unite to Face Addiction, last fall.) The organization’s mission includes “rebranding addiction” to create a culture of empathy rather than judgment and increasing access to prevention and treatment for addicts. There is no question that King’s keen political mind will come in handy when it comes to Facing Addiction’s other goal of convincing the government to beef up policies and regulatory practices designed to combat addiction. But perhaps the most important asset King brings to the table is the fact that he is living proof that recovery is possible.
I’ll Bet on King
As a person in recovery, I intimately understand the humiliation and self-loathing that comes from sabotaging yourself behind the disease of addiction. King isn’t any different that most addicts I know. We blew our lives up one bad decision at a time until something finally stopped us. What sets King apart is that the wreckage of his addiction played out in the public eye. It sucks to disappoint your family when you fuck up but I imagine that feels even worse when you family is the entire Democratic party of the state of Washington.
But King didn’t let his demons beat him. He has worked hard to turn his personal tragedy into a platform. People in long-term recovery are the best tool for ending the stigma of addiction and giving a voice to the millions of Americans whose lives are touched by the deadly disease. I, for one, am glad to have King working on my side.
Photo courtesy of Michael King; used with permission