Dont feel sorry that Ted Williams the homeless man with the golden voice is going to rehab. Thats the good news. What could be better for a crack addict in recovery who is sliding down the slippery slope back to the gutter via alcohol??
And dont be offended that he lied about his sobriety. Welcome to the world of addiction: cunning, baffling, and powerful. It distorts perceptions. It changes brain chemistry. It messes with reality.?
Wily Dr. Phil got to the bottom, or at least past the surface, of Ted Williams during his interviews with Williams family members in the past week. They had kept quiet in the beginning because of the excitement of the spotlight on Ted. But when Dr. Phil lowers his head like a bull and pins you with his eyes, the truth will out. Especially if he has documentation to back it up.?
Williams children, who have a right to feel irritated by the man who abandoned them, had witnessed his getting drunk at the hotel in Los Angeles where Dr. Phils show was lodging him. Ted would order gin, vodka, beer, and wine from the liquor store across the street from the hotel and have it delivered to a son and daughters rooms. These particular offspring felt he needed the alcohol to calm down enough to function well. They were probably just glad it wasnt crack. Who knows how long he has been drinking heavily?
An immensely appealing man, Ted Williams has been surprisingly charming, polite, and focused. Add to that his smooth, deep voice that makes every other man sound a few octaves too high and his seeming sincerity he admitted he was vulnerable and fragile -- and you cant deny the charisma. But the elevator has taken him from the basement to the penthouse so quickly that, metaphorically, it whipped his pants down around his ankles. What homeless man wouldnt profess to be sober in the face of the possibility of more than a dollar at a time begged from cars coming off the highway? Its a long way from a park bench to Park Avenue. But for an addict, its only a few steps from Park Avenue back to the park bench."Treatment professionals agree that the disease of addiction never allows the addict or alcoholic an opportunity to rest on their laurels, and that good times are just as likely to cause relapse as bad," says Kim Manlove, a project director for Fairbanks Treatment Center in Indianapolis.?"Relapse is part of the process of recovery. Society in general (and unfortunately far too many people in recovery) compound the shame and stigma addicts and alcoholics already face by heaping more on them when they stumble."On parade as the darling of talk show hosts for the last week, Williams is still all the things weve loved about him since weve known him. He admitted he was an addict, and lying and covering up using is what addicts do. Ted was a nervous wreck behind his Barry White baritone.
He talks the talk of AA/NA and recovery. But in general an addict can only walk the walk when he has a network of support not a job and a paycheck, not a reunion with his mother, ex-wife, children, and grandchildren but support from people who have been where hes been."Recovery is not a steady state," says Manlove, who is a recovering addict himself."You don't achieve recovery. ?You have to work at it every day for the rest of your life."And that is Ted Williams challenge. "If I blow this I die," he told Dr. Phil. Hopefully the shelter and guidance hell receive in drug and alcohol treatment will prevent that outcome and allow Ted Williams voice to be heard all over the airwaves.Judy Kirkwood is on the Parent Advisory Board of The Partnership at Drugfree.org.?.??
