Pragmatism Lost

Ted Williams, the "Golden Voice," has made a gluttony of appearances in various media outlets in 2011. Most recently, he was on The Today Show, answering viewer emails about his career path, family life, future plans, and his struggle with addiction. Formally on the streets of Columbus, OH, he has now been through addiction treatment and continues to do voice-over work for commercials and other media circles. This new found sobriety and lease on life has been a public inspiration for others who have found themselves stuck in the mud of self-loathing.

When asked about the key to actuating his new exhilaration, his response was simple: prayer.

Before reading this blog piece, most of you are aware of my views on prayer. If not, you can read my previous blogs and understand the springboards from which I bound. Knowledge of my stance assumed, I am asking for your consideration on the relationship between an addict's daily plight and Ted's key to remission: prayer.

We have all seen the reality shows that follow the life of addicts, celebrity and otherwise. According to doctors, addiction specialists, and addicts themselves, the urge to relapse never goes away. For some, it does not even diminish. In order to promote a remission and maintain hope for a healthy life, a daily struggle with addiction is the hand that one has been dealt. One must avoid associating with enablers and avoid contact with addicting habits of all kinds (alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, etc.).

This is where prayer comes into play. Prayer is both a spontaneous and regimented act that allows you to separate from the reality of your being at the best and worst of times. When you are feeling susceptible to relapse, you pray for holy support. When you are succeeding with your daily goals and avoiding temptation, you pray in thanks. Either way, the doomed state of incessant conflict that addict specialists and doctors alike have drawn out for you is still what constitutes your being. It is still waiting for you.

For addicts, prayer is used to hide from the reality of your chemical being, because it disassociates your body from your soul. In this capacity, prayer has value. The body of the addict is weak, and prayer is the crutch that keeps it up. Near scientific-consensus says that an addict is prone towards chemical and psychological addiction no matter what he or she does to avoid it. The only lessening medicine is the concept of communicating with a body and soul that is NOT inflicted with this illness.

Let me make this abundantly clear: I see value in prayer when it functions as a crutch for the chemically weak. It breeds hope, and gains momentum with time.

Let me make THIS abundantly clear: Prayer's positive effects on the weak do not support its value within the reality of existence. An atheist can pray, without contradiction, if he or she feels that it is a force that separates the weaker body from the stronger soul. Like a child's imaginary friend, creating a support network is a known function of the mind.

By means of the Old Testament, many fundamentalist trains of thought on religion, and to an extent Milton's Paradise Lost, prayer is the weapon by which the Godly stave off The Devil. Within an addict's reality, this makes sense. An addict can manifest an epic if it means that he betters his existence as a result. In no way, however, does this support the need, truth-value, logic, or larger-scoping benefit of prayer, or religious piety.

Those that have an addictive nature are also prone towards a sensationalist and imaginative one! Addictive personalities do not only suffer from a raging desire for substance or action, they suffer from holistic instability. They suffer from the conceptualization that the reality of their actions can be separated from the reality of their consequences (immediate harm to themselves or others, disease, financial loss, etc.). In other words, they are good at being addicts, and good at justifying it. They have an imagination that supports their habits, both in the realm of addiction and their grasp on reality.

In this regard, Ted and Charlie Sheen have something inversely in common: They both let addiction drive their reality. The inversion is that they are driving in different directions. But the operative vehicle for both is the imagination. Pragmatic in their day-to-day cycling, the addict forms reality around a step-by-step program (be it in remission or relapse). Each individual's program separates him from the reality of his being. That is my primary point.