Jun 17 2013

Paul Williams

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Freedom

WHAT’S ON TV?

WHAT’S ON TV?

 

There was a time when censorship in this country was beyond ridiculous.  Ozzie and Harriet never awoke in the same bed.  They were married 25 years or more with two boys and a life that tossed morality and common sense at you in every episode.  I got more parenting from the Nelsons than I did from my own Mom and Dad.

For the most part the rigid conservative grip has been loosened to a very liberal setting where language, nudity, sex and mature subject matter are common faire on the airways of 2013 America.   Yes, the task of protecting our children from unacceptable and inappropriate content will always be absolutely necessary but for the rest of us I still believe the on/off switch in the viewers’ hand is the most appropriate and effective tool.

While the hundreds of channels and round the clock selection of todays airways offer shows I find obnoxious, ridiculous, vulgar or offensive, I have adopted a live and let live attitude that will always keep me from sharing my opinions with the world.  You’ll have to wonder what I think of “Honey Boo Boo”.

There is one area of programming that I believe ought to disappear.   I’d cancel any and all of the shows that require an alcoholic or addict, in their disease, to be filmed while they fight for their life.  I consider televising treatment for addiction a travesty.

Twenty-three years ago I entered rehab for addiction to alcohol and cocaine and found the beginnings of the life I have today.  Out of control I turned to experts for the help I desperately needed.  The first few days of my 30-day program were a blur as I was detoxed and medically stabilized.  I was certainly in no condition to sign a waiver allowing my treatment to be filmed and shared with the world.  I, like the patients we witness on the various reality rehab offerings, was seriously impaired and unable to weigh the pros and cons of such a decision.

Alcohol withdrawal is potentially fatal unless carefully monitored.   After several days in a hospital bed I was cleared to join the other patients and begin the recovery process. To be educated and prepared for a new way of life that required my undivided attention.  I was adopting skills that would keep me alive and well in the years ahead.   All taking place, as it should, in complete privacy.

For me, recovery was most potent, comforting and healing at the center of the herd.  Surrounded by other alcoholics and addicts I was suddenly a member of one of the worlds largest families.   With no cameras in sight and the paparazzi long past having any interest in my whereabouts I was able to reap the full benefits of a thirty-day rehabilitation program with no distractions.

I doubt I’d have made it with a film crew watching my every move. In the case of celebrities participating in a rehabilitation setting that included cameras there is an especially problematic element. “Ego deflation at depth”, an expression coined by Psychiatrist Harry Tiebout has long been a major element in the battle to overcome alcoholism.   As addicted to the attention I’d received at the peak of my success as I was to the drugs and alcohol, I doubt I would have been able to abandon my public persona and give my complete being to the task at hand.  The need to ‘perform’ would certainly have offered immense obstacles to the healing process

I don’t think the producers and hosts of the programs I’m deliberately not mentioning by name are bad people.  I believe that they believe they’re providing a service to the identified patients they treat and to the world, believing that in the public display they are reducing the stigma of addiction.  Maybe. Maybe not.  It doesn’t negate the fact that men and women incapable of making a rational decision are signing up for a treatment that couldn’t possibly be as effective as private counseling and while there’s no way of proving it the high death rate amongst the alumni of these shows suggests they should never have been allowed to exist.

 

 

Paul Williams

Paul Williams is a singer, songwriter, actor, recovery advocate and has been a fixture on the American cultural scene since the seventies. His book Gratitude and Trust is now available.