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Nicholas Haehn

Casey Flores

ENG 1101-539: English Composition I

17 October 2018

Taking a Different Stance on Addiction

Addiction affects millions of people every year, and thousands of these people die every

month because of it. Michael Botticelli addresses the issue of addiction in his speech entitled

“Addiction is a disease. We should treat it like one” at TEDxMidAtlantic in Washington, D.C.,

in October, 2016. Michael Botticelli was an addict and has been in recovery for many years. As

Director of National Drug Control Policy under President Obama, he worked on policies such as

the Affordable Care Act. In his presentation, he compares the addiction epidemic to the AIDS

epidemic years ago, arguing that addiction should be treated like any other disease and not

blamed on the addict. By the end of his speech, Michael Botticelli persuades his audience that

acceptance and treatment are the best methods to end the addiction epidemic through his

application of the rhetorical techniques of ethos, logos, and pathos.

Botticelli establishes his credibility, or ethos, throughout the entirety of the presentation.

He begins his speech describing his past issues with addiction; “Like many, I drank at an early

age. I continued to drink my way through college” (0:52). By detailing his past, he attracts the

attention of the audience while also establishing himself as a qualified spokesperson on

addiction. He takes advantage of ethos a second time when he states that he “was nominated by

President Obama to be his Director of Drug Policy,” further establishing his credibility to speak

on addiction (5:10). Through his adoption of ethos, Botticelli gains the interest and confidence of

the audience, leading the way for the other rhetorical elements of his speech to be effective.
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His tone further enhances his ethos in his speech. Throughout the presentation, his tone is

very neutral with long pauses. This allows for him to be perceived as caring, and his pauses

enable the full recognition of his words by the audience. While the majority of his speech is

neutral, he adds small jokes which lighten the mood and re-engage the audience, such as his joke

about how his job “takes a little bit of knowledge around addiction,” which results in laughter in

the audience (5:10). This joke makes Botticelli seem approachable while also decreasing the

tension in the audience, which causes them to be attentive and ready to accept his position on

addiction. Through his tone, he retains the audience’s attention, while showing care for those

impacted by addiction.

Botticelli uses logic in many ways throughout his speech, most specifically in his

comparison between addiction and other diseases. Before discussing the topic of addiction in

detail, he recalls that, although the AIDS epidemic was initially blamed on gay people, the focus

ultimately shifted to solutions, and now “we have the potential to see the end of HIV/AIDS in

our lifetime” (3:11). He then compares the issue of AIDS in the past to addiction today. Using

this method of logic, Botticelli effectively shows that a seemingly impossible issue, such as

AIDS or addiction, can be solved through acceptance instead of hostility. This method allows for

little argument, as it offers a simple, yet effective approach to a large problem. Later in the

speech, he states how other diseases are easily eligible for treatment, yet it is more difficult to get

treatment for addiction (6:52). By introducing this treatment gap, Botticelli increases the support

for his cause. These repeated comparisons to other diseases appeal to the logic of the audience,

which most likely convinces them that addiction should be treated similarly to other diseases.

Another way he applies logic is through his use of statistics and facts. One of the most

powerful statistics is the surprisingly small number of people that are treated for addiction; “only
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one in nine people get care and treatment for their disorder” (6:07). This statistic highlights the

importance and urgency of the issue, as any logical person would see the need to increase these

treatment rates, building more support for his cause. He also uses facts to support the idea of

addiction as a disease; “Decades of scientific research has shown that this is a medical issue --

that this is a chronic medical condition that people inherit and that people develop” (7:11). The

addition of this fact supports his prior statements through scientific research, increasing the

legitimacy of his viewpoint. By using statistics to support his argument, he convinces his

audience to believe him and his goal, as facts and statistics are not subjective.

Additionally, Botticelli employs emotion, or pathos, and figurative language to further

convince the audience. A large portion of his figurative language occurs when he discusses the

advancements that occurred whilst he was a Director under the Obama administration. He

includes metaphorical phrases such as “We've knocked down barriers,” to demonstrate how the

removal of restrictions was beneficial by comparing his actions to those of an activist, building

an natural will to follow his beliefs (7:42). Moreover, many of his phrases include emotionally

charged words, including “scorn” and many others (5:55). These expressive words, as well as his

use of figurative language, keep the audience’s attention and create an emotional desire to cause

change.

Michael Botticelli’s presentation is insightful on the topic of addiction in the United

States and effective at convincing the audience that treatment and acceptance are needed in order

to solve the addiction epidemic. He connects himself, using ethos, to the problem of addiction

and takes advantage of this connection to show his experience with the issue throughout his life

and his qualification for speaking on the subject. Moreover, he speaks with a tone that resonates

with the audience and adds humor to retain their attention. Botticelli also takes advantage of
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logic, or logos, to prove that addiction should be treated as a disease. Additionally, he delivers

words and phrases with emotional context, applying pathos to further sway the audience to his

side. His use of these rhetorical techniques and other associated methods is powerful in

convincing the audience that addiction should be treated as a disease and that change is needed.

To close his speech with one final emotional plea, he calls the audience to action to revise the

perception of addiction in society through their individual efforts.

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Works Cited

Botticelli, Michael. "Addiction is a disease. We should treat it like one."

TEDxMidAtlantic, Oct. 2016, Sidney Harman Hall, Washington D.C. Speech.