October 30, 2003
Addiction
Without human beings, reality would be safe. (That’s so profound, I must have read it somewhere.)
Anyhow, as you know, the way a person defines self is with language and other symbols and with making stories out of them. Story shapes world. But when spirituality, the mystical, the mysterious (the stuff that makes stories) takes form in the cognitive, which it must, sooner or later, there’s usually all hell to pay. Reality needs an offensive line.
Addiction, for example, can really make a mess of reality. I can testify. Listening to him speak, I suspect that Russ Limbaugh has tampered with reality some, himself. So it’s comforting to know that he’s on track again with recovering (it’s always a present, never a past participle) and will get some help.
It’s like scaling a mountain. The first time up, it’s mighty handy to take along a guide, someone who has been there before and knows where is the sure footing. With all due respect, most medics are too preoccupied with pharmacology to help much with addiction, that is, to be climbing guides.
A wise and thoughtful priest of recent yore named Jody Kellerman put it like this: those who counsel addicts are called to be shepherds, not veterinarians.