Healing Life

In a half page article reprinted in several sources William C. Moyers of the eminent Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation wrote: Treat addictions as the illness that it is.  The sub-lead to the article reads: Not as lack of character or as a result of poor upbringing.  The implication of the article is that addiction is only an illness that needs human healing process to normalcy.  Like so many persons, both humanists and theists, the problems of addiction (and other human problems as well) there is an over-simplification in human experience.  Some problems dominating a person’s life are slotted in a way that makes the issues either/or rather than both/and.  Further, the addiction may lean more directly in one direction or the other, so to determine the accents of any plan for recovery to normalcy.  Still further, some persons do fall into addictions because of a lack of character, or perhaps poor parenting.  That an addicted parent has carried a child into an addiction by practice together with a child in the time of the child’s innocence has made an addict of the child before that child has reached the age of accountability.  Not all addicts walk the same routes, as none of us do.  We become this or that person based on the influences of each of our near unique lives.  Our experiences are both related to our own resources or lack of them, and those of others shared with us.  I may break my leg because my bones are brittle and I twisted making a step, or I may have been hit by some object that broke a leg with a healthy bone.  Either broken leg must be set, but the cure for the one is somewhat different than that for the other.  There remains wholeness for treatment and healing.

Perhaps some further background would help in the Moyers article.  He refers to his father, Bill Moyers, and himself as persons overcoming addiction and avoiding relapse to health.  The implication is that successful recovery came as a result of excellent treatment from competent doctors.  A bit of further background would help in understanding the full story.  For decades I have given attention to the work of his father, Bill Moyers.  Bill has presented some of the meaningful television programs that are highly educational addressing issues of life and values.  They were and remain valuable for consideration by serious persons.  As I recall Bill Moyers began his life in church ministry, ordained after earning a Master of Divinity Degree.  (I am not knowledgeable of the details but many persons were drawn to his contributions affecting government and public policy because of a belief in his personal theistic orientation.)  Then the news item appeared related to a drunk-driving charge against him some years ago.  Since that time there have appeared, for me, fewer reviews of his work.  I do not know if it has been from less exposure in the media on his part, or my failure to follow the schedule of some of his excellent work in the review of serious modern analysis on the life of society carried on television interviews.

I am grateful for the magnificent improvements in the creativity of mankind to address human problems of health, habit, intellect, and scores of factors related to life and society.  God pressed the point of progress with Adam and Eve.  Some of our problems seem wholly human, like getting water to a parched field so to assure a crop, but it is up to God to send the water for us to distribute.  The nature of mankind is faulty, leading to all sorts of problems.  What is faulty in mankind’s nature, we call sin.  What is expressed from that nature we call sins.  Some of the problems we face are out of an imperfect world, in which we may simply fall into traps.  The evidence of either accident or choice may look the same.  Whether a problem is by accident or on purpose the treatment is usually in context.  Whether it comes from one direction or the other, God is interested in the matter, and will aid those who invite his concern for them.  I have been much dependent upon medical science for many dramatic procedures for my life health and safety.  That included three cancers with radiation; eye surgeries that prevented blindness; and was surely aided by God through prayer for recovery, and assurance that there would be healing.  To avoid benefits provided by mankind, functioning with the aid of God would be odd for me.  Jesus healed – important to his earthly ministry. Many devout persons call him, the great physician. We need to learn God ministers to our health.