OPRAH AND ADDICTION

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It takes a lot of courage to fight a drug addiction...Courage and willpower and faith in a higher power...And it takes time and loving support...and a foundation of family and friends who never give up-on the hope that healing is possible.

Oprah Winfrey-gave our nation hope today-that the war against addiction can be won...one person at a time...one family at a time...one community at a time. The harrowing stories were enough to make a lot of people change the channel-to turn their backs on the feelings of hopelessness inflicted by this very cunning, baffling and powerful disease. But Oprah put it out there-raw and revolting...yet suggestively inspiring...Letting us all participate in the forbidden fruit that has destroyed so many lives-while witnessing the fruits of recovery-one day at a time.

It is a story of shame and humiliation...fear and futility...the loss of the mind, body and spirit to the seductively sinister sequence of events that slither into the lives of the addict and their Loved ones....causing untold pain and suffering..betrayal and heartache.

But it is also the story of honesty and humility, hope and healing...one person at a time...one heart at a time. Sometimes all it takes is one person-who believes in the addict-who believes that below the surface there is a living breathing child of God, trapped beneath the suffocating-yet scintillating effects from the syringes and the pills and the powder and the poison that anesthetizes the pain while paralyzing their personal power.

I am grateful for programs like Oprah's...because that is when the power of the media is most effective-educating, enlightening and enlarging our view of the life changing events that are impacting our lives in ways that some of us never imagined...But mostly, because these shows remove the stigma of shame- by letting all of us know-that addiction does not discriminate...and anyone-anyone at all can fall victim...While everyone-every single person who is addicted-can be victorious!

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