'CLOSE TO HOME': MOYERS FINDS HOPE IN FIGHT AGAINST ADDICTION

IF there is such an anomaly as an Enlightenment televangelist, it is Bill
Moyers, who brings to his documentaries a preacher's zeal for spreading the
gospel of progress.

Never has this spirit been more impassioned than in his new series, "Moyers
on Addiction: Close to Home," which finds him bearing the good news that
addiction can be beaten if society learns to treat it as a disease, not as
a moral failing.

Moyers comes to that conviction through painful experience. His oldest son,
William Cope Moyers, fought the hard fight against alcohol and drugs and
has apparently recovered, or is in recovery, as therapists take care to put
it. The family's battle inspired this five-part series.

The devil here takes the form not only of the drugs but of injunctions to
"Just say no!" Moyers told a congressional committee this week that people
of good character, like his son, are not immune to the disease of addiction
and that beating it demands not only willpower but professional
understanding and attention to addiction's physical and social causes.
Viewers may feel they are tuned into one side of a clash between religious
sects. To Moyers' credit, he offers reporting along with the exhortations.
Sunday's dramatic opening hour, "Portrait of Addiction," is given entirely
to nine recovered or recovering addicts who tell of falling in love with
alcohol, cocaine or heroin. They describe the feelings of well-being, of
euphoria that captured them and the resultant craving and dependence that
held them in thrall.

Moyers is not much heard from, but in the directness and vividness of the
testimonies you can detect the skill of his interviewing, as well as the
years of therapy in which the confessions have been honed. The explanations
for what finally forced these people into therapy sound like religious
conversions: They realized they were losing control of their lives and
sought and happily found help, from a church, a friend, a group like
Alcoholics Anonymous. The point is made repeatedly that few addicts can
cure themselves, but no one can do it for them. A therapist tells a joke:
"How many counselors does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the
light bulb has to want to change."

Sunday's second hour calls attention to tantalizing research on the
workings of the brain. Much is still cloudy about how addiction gets
started and progresses, but the assumption behind laboratory studies, as
behind this program, is that the body has its reasons. "This is the best of
times," one researcher announces. "We know more than we ever knew."
Monday's program moves into therapy and the common problem of relapses, and
Tuesday's turns to the treatment of children. Both have their share of
proselytizing as the camera gives glimpses of salvation through group
sessions, and there is considerable repetition along with the insights into
the struggle for recovery.

Moyers, though a believer, is cautious: "I know from personal experience it
is difficult. It is one of the hardest diseases of all to conquer. When the
person I love and care about came out of 28-day treatment, I was scared. I
wanted him to stay there because he was safe while he was there. And sure
enough, over the next few years, he relapsed twice. It's hard." The final
hour, on Tuesday, is given to advocates for more money for treatment,
including an appearance by the younger Moyers, who, like many of the
anti-drug professionals one meets on television, are recovering addicts.
Their cause is likely to be advanced by the Public Television Outreach
Alliance, which is joining Moyers' campaign to spread the message and draw
in more converts.