ADDICTION, TREATMENT EXAMINED IN-DEPTH

There is little Bill Moyers has not experienced or reported on in his long
career in politics and journalism. Still, when his eldest son entered
chemical dependency treatment in 1989, Moyers was thrown off-center,
stunned that such a situation could happen in his family.

William Cope Moyers is sober now after three bouts of treatment, the last
in 1994. But the subject of addiction has remained a fascination for Bill
Moyers, so much that he has made it the subject of a new public TV series,
"Moyers on Addiction: Close to Home."

The genesis of this work came from a presentation that his wife and
executive producer, Judith Davidson Moyers, heard at the Hazelden clinic in
Center City, Minn., where she joined the board of directors after her son's
treatment there.

"I had heard Steven Hyman [of the National Institute of Mental Health]
speak about how the brain is affected by chemicals," said Judith Moyers.
"And I was struck by that. So I came back and said, 'This is news; we
should share this with people.' "

So the Moyerses set out to explore their personal journey, and an
experience that affects millions of Americans either directly or through
friends and family. In fact, Bill Moyers calls it "the most common
affliction in our society, but the least known."

And certainly one of the most controversial because of the many strands of
conflicting hypotheses that make up the web. Is addiction a moral weakness?
Is it a physical disease? A spiritual struggle? A choice or destiny? Should
a drug dealer be forgiven for breaking the law and diverted into treatment?
Isn't jail just the slap these felons need? What is the nature of
treatment, and why doesn't it always succeed? Isn't it a simple matter of
saying no?

The answers to these questions are as varied as the people affected by
chemical dependency. Some quit on their own; some need several bouts of
treatment; some rely on the constant support of 12-step groups and programs
such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Some people convicted of drug-related crimes
are thugs, while others are driven by their addictions. And research has
only begun to explore the pleasure centers of the brain where compulsive
behaviors are linked to the biochemistry of desire.

Out of the closet

Moyers has definite views on each of these subjects, but for him the
greater issue is simply the need for discussion, awareness and education.

"I grew up in a culture where alcoholism was a secret," he said. "My
grandfather died at 64 and a contributing factor in his death was
alcoholism, but it was never mentioned in our family."

When their son entered treatment, the family "didn't tell anyone but some
close friends," according to Judith Moyers.

They found that many of those friends had similar experiences. And therein
lies one of the great conundrums for the addict: Not only does the fierce
stigma attached to drug and alcohol abuse drive people underground, but one
of the pillars of many recovery treatments is anonymity.

How this plays out is demonstrated in the congressional debate over whether
to create parity with other major diseases for insurance coverage of
chemical dependency treatment. William Cope Moyers, as director of public
policy for Hazelden, has talked for hours with legislators, "many of whom
are in recovery themselves," he said. "But they won't vote for this because
they don't want to be seen as soft on drugs -- and because we are invisible."

The Moyerses are unanimous and unequivocal in their view that chemical
dependency is a chronic, physical disease. "It's a mental obsession and a
physical allergy," said William Cope Moyers. "It's sort of like being
allergic to a cat. If you get a reaction from petting a cat, what do you
do? You stop petting it.

"The difference with alcohol is that while you have an adverse reaction to
the physical allergy triggered when you drink, you've developed this mental
obsession to keep doing it, despite the reaction."

The PBS series deals with that issue in one segment in which Bill Moyers
talks to former addicts who say that the memory of their first high is what
kept driving them back to the bottle, the needle, the pipe, the straw. For
them, even visiting a familiar bar, or a neighborhood where they once
bought drugs, can trigger distinct physiological reactions.

Changing the language

Moyers also addresses the politics of addiction in his series, suggesting
that it is time to change the national vocabulary. "The 'war on drugs' is
not only an ill-fitting metaphor, but it's demeaning. I hope we have a new
metaphor, changing from a militant one to a healing one."

Moyers believes, "We need a drug policy more grounded in reality. If you
don't treat people [for addiction] in jail, they come out still in need of
treatment. We need to become a forgiving society. Incarceration costs seven
times what treatment does."

The issue of treatment is murky. Moyers profiles several recovering addicts
in the series, some of whom maintained their sobriety, others who relapsed.
Indeed, relapse is very common because of the strong lure of euphoria, say
the Moyerses.

In one regard, William Cope Moyers says he is "a statistical failure from
Hazelden's perspective," because he didn't stay sober after his initial
treatment. "But here's the bottom line," he added. "Hazelden planted the
seed, which all these years later is directly responsible for my recovery
today.

"Those are the seeds of recognizing that I have a disease, and I don't have
a moral weakness. The seeds that it's OK to ask for help . . . The seed
that I can't win if I try to beat the disease by myself. . . . I need to
follow other people who have gone before me."

Bill Moyers hopes his series will help change the national metaphor of
addiction, improve people's understanding of the science of addiction and
remind viewers that addiction could happen to anyone.

"I hope people will see recovering people are not monsters," he said. "The
addict is my son, or my father, or my editor, my friend or neighbor. The
drug is the demon, not the addict."

© Copyright 1998 Star Tribune.