Have I Got A Show For You

Now I get it. In order to help celebrities in trouble you have to offer them a show! That’s the ticket. Obviously it works, or should work, because after the spectacle of Dr. Phil intruding on Britney Spears at Cedars-Sinai, allegedly at the request of her mother, we have “Celebrity Rehab” with Dr. Drew, premiering January 10th 2008. Maybe these television therapists are on to something. They’ve certainly convinced network executives, and we all know how smart they are, don’t we?

Never mind that it is the Business itself that makes these folks crazy and act out. Never mind that Doctor/Patient confidentiality is a crucial element in recovery, second only to finding the spiritual factor that leads to sobriety. Never mind that the very act of being observed alters the behavior of the observed.

Our culture’s new catch phrase is, “Let’s put on a show.”

Just in case you have forgotten, let me remind you of some wise advice authored by Thoreau:
"Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us."

For nearly 20 years the members of A Minor Consideration have been appearing on television talk shows, all of us committed to the Truth we’ve had to deal with, from addictions to dealing with parents who still have no idea what demons stalk us, but never, in all this time, did we drag our untreated selves onto the airwaves, or make an appearance while at “the bottom.”

One-Third of our members are in Active Recovery, and you would think that these highly paid television therapists and their producers (who are paid for asking questions) would turn to the people who have the answers and live the solution.

But no, you get much more publicity selling despair rather than hope these days. Perhaps it is Dr. Phil and Dr. Drew’s personal fame, spawned in the belly of the medium, which prevents them from recognizing the dangers of the current media philosophy:
“If it bleeds it leads.”

Television ratings, gentlemen, are emphatically less important than providing genuine guidance and sustainable support. You see, even famous people can get better, but not when the underlying message of a broadcast encounter group is, “How bad can it be? They’re on television.”

Paul Petersen