I am just a few days shy of my 60-day key tag as I head into the New Year. What still surprises me is just how prevalent this addiction is in New Mexico, compared to the rest of the nation, and then –just how predominantly addicted we are as a nation compared to other nations in the world. I watched a really interesting TED Talk today with Johann Hari, author of the critically-acclaimed best-selling novel “Chasing the Scream,” ended his story by emphatically stating: “The opposite of addiction is NOT SOBRIETY…the opposite of addiction is CONNECTION.” I have no desire to be “terminally unique and fatally cool” –I would rather simply be seeking a connection to others in the world, not just my family -but obviously them, but also to another addict; to a perfect stranger; to a possible new best friend -OR EVEN A LOVE INTEREST!
The point is that I want to connect to it all; to every conceivable connection available to me on this planet. It’s kind of like what Burt Bacharach and the Carpenters and others were singing about back in the day when I was growing up, as well as John Lennon. “All you need is love,” “What the World needs now IS Love,” and my favorite of these is a song called “All Kinds of People.” I won’t quote all the lyrics for you here -you can google them later. I can just sum it up with the last line: “…all kinds of people should reach out –and help one another,”
Maybe the younger generations would find this cheesy, but not addicts. No matter what age you are now, (oh and by the way I was once told that you are emotionally the age you were when you took your first drug, which makes me stuck at fourteen), if you are in the program and working the steps, you know that the whole point of service work and of the program itself is to get involved in doing for others rather than for ourselves (which was our old addiction behavior). Mind you I am not preaching here, just stating how I feel today, from watching that TED Talk, and wanting to read Hari’s book, which I know is about seeing addiction in a whole new way. I WANT to CONNECT. And I shall.
Peace, love and blessings -reach out and hug someone!
NMRecoveryHOPE 