DALLAS – As part of an overwhelming effort to help bring support and awareness to Shatterproof, Champ – the mascot of the Dallas Mavericks – recently rappelled nearly 60 stories down Reunion Tower.
That event was one of many defining moments for Gary Mendell.
Back on Oct. 20, 2011, Mendell’s son, Brian, committed suicide at the tender age of 25 after battling drug addiction for nearly a decade. The shame, stigma and isolation Brian felt led him to take his own life.
That prompted Gary Mendell to leave a successful business career and start Shatterproof, which is a national non-profit organization geared to work to unite and empower American families struggling with addiction. Shatterproof created a host of ambassadors, supporters and advocates across the nation, and so far 13 states have passed life-saving legislation.
“Obviously it doesn’t get any worse than that – having a parent lose a child and really struggling afterwards to make sense of what had happened,” Mendell said. “There were a couple of things that really hit me, and one was how big this disease is as far as the number of people it touched in this country.”
“I really didn’t know this when Brian was alive, but afterwards I learned that there are 25 million Americans suffering with addiction today to either drugs or alcohol. I just had no idea it was that bad when Brian was alive.”
“I also learned it’s the third-largest cause of death in the country behind heart disease and cancer. And when I learned those two things and how big it was, I also learned that there’s a lot of research – proven programs out there that could prevent many of our children from becoming addicted — and also proven protocols that providers should be following when they’re treating patients.”
Thus, Mendell set out on a journey to change people’s perception about addiction, and change the way those with addictions have been stigmatized. And he is grateful for the role the Mavs have played in getting the word out about Shatterproof.
Mendell also is grateful to the Mavs in another area near and dear to his heart.
“The Mavericks have a special place in my heart because one of the last trips in my son’s life, and one of the few trips where I have a nice memory of him was at the ESPY Awards in Los Angeles,” Mendell said. “It was just after the Mavericks had won the (2011 NBA) championship, and we were there because just about everybody affiliated with the ESPYs stayed at the W Hotel out in Hollywood, and my company owns that hotel. ”
“So we were there and we were on the red carpet leading up to get inside for the ESPY Awards, and we got some nice pictures with my son Brian with (Mavs forward) Dirk Nowitzki. The Mavericks have a special place in my heart because of that.”
As fate would have it, Shatterproof has a special place in the heart of Brian Cuban. A Dallas-based attorney and best-selling author, Cuban is the brother of Mavs proprietor Mark Cuban.
Brian Cuban started supporting Shatterproof two years ago, and has now had two rappels in support of the popular organization.
“I met Gary in New York City and he talked about what they were doing to raise money and he mentioned these rappels,” Brian Cuban said. “I’ve never rappelled, I have a terrible fear of heights, and if I’m in a high place I have to grab onto something because I’ll lose my balance.
“But the more I thought about it –isn’t part of recovery facing your fears? And this is one of my huge fears.”
Brian Cuban admittedly is a recovering addict – cocaine was his preferred drug of choice — who has been sober since Apr. 8, 2007.
“The hardest thing I ever did was get sober,” Brian Cuban said. “That was the ultimate unknown in fear – stepping and trusting the process. The second great fear was heights. So I thought about and I said, ‘You know what, I’m going to do this, I’m going to face that fear, I’m going to trust that process and I’m going to take another step in my recovery.’ ”
Rappelling at Reunion Tower, however, wasn’t without trepidation.
“It’s about 57 stories down,” Brian Cuban said. “As I went out over the ledge the first time, I don’t consider myself very religious, but I know a couple of ‘Oh Gods’ came out.”
“But trust the process, the ropes caught and I went down and it was great and it was for a great cause, and I decided to do it again this year to raise money for Shatterproof. I raised a lot of money for them last year, and I decided to do it again and it was scary.”
Mendell said folks with an addiction need to be treated with science and empathy and love, just like those afflicted with any other disease.
“I think for a long time with this particular disease people just viewed it as bad people doing bad things,” Mendell said. “But we now have brain scans that vividly show that no, it’s not bad people doing bad things.”
“For some people, when they take a substance in their teens – or some people even older – it chemically changes two regions of their brain – the reward system and the decision-making region. When those two regions of the brain are changed it makes it extremely difficult for that person to make decisions and follow through with them and resist urges.”
Brian Cuban said that’s precisely what happened to him.
“The first time I did a line of cocaine was in the bathroom of a hotel in Dallas in 1987,” he said. “Was that moment a choice? Of course it was.”
“I was somebody who was broken, I had a terrible self-image, so it seemed like a logical choice to me at the time to make myself feel better and see something different when I looked in the mirror and to alleviate the depression, the guilt of a lot of childhood pain and a lot of underlying psychological issues. But I became an addict instantly in that bathroom, and I did not choose that.
“I did not do that first line of cocaine in that bathroom saying, ‘You know what, I’m going to have three failed marriages, I’m going to go to jail, my law career will disappear, and that’s all going to be great.’ So from that standpoint it was not a choice. I instantly became psychologically addicted to the drug because that drug, for whatever 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds or a minute of that line, it made me feel like everything was OK. So my mind told me I had to have that feeling again and again and again, and it went from a psychological addiction to both a psychological and physical addiction.”
Brian Cuban now speaks at several high schools fully knowing that some kids try to mask feelings of depression or pure pressure by using an artificial substance. As for his personal experience, Brian Cuban’s new book – The Addicted Lawyer – is now an Amazon No. 1 bestseller.
“It’s a great feeling when I hear birds in the morning and it’s not a reminder of having been out all night and up all night on cocaine, and then having to take a black market Xanax or a black market Ambien to sleep through the day,” Brian Cuban said. “It’s a great feeling to not look at the next day and see nothing, but see hope, see me doing something with my life to help other people.”
“It’s a wonderful feeling to wake up every morning with hope for my future, hope for others that I try to help.”
That’s the same feeling Gary Mendell is experiencing. Helping others through the birth of Shatterproof is his way of providing a platform for family members affected by addiction to be heard.
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