Quote for 6/8/2006 Everyone Can Learn from the Twelve Steps - The real difference between addicts and nonaddicts is that the former use chemicals and the latter do not. That is, the struggles and emotional problems addicts face are really no different from those experienced by anyone else. It also means that the people who help the chemically dependent person cope are probably capable of helping others as well. Bill Wilson, cofounder of AA, said, 'How to translate a right mental condition into a right emotional resolve, and so into easy, happy, and good living, is the problem of life itself.' Psychologists say that life becomes problematic when there is a lack of harmony between cognition and affect, or between ideas and feelings. Same thing. A person with a phobia of crowds logically knows that there is nothing really dangerous there, but nevertheless has anxiety or panic as though something terrible were about to happen. These symptoms are a result of emotions, not logic. In Waking Up just in Time, I use the 'Peanuts' comic strip to demonstrate how the Twelve Steps of AA are excellent guidelines for nonaddicts as well.
__________________ "I am lighthouse rather than lifeboat. I do not rescue, but instead help others to find their own way to shore, guiding them by my example"
And this above all, to thine own self be true. And it must follow as night the day, thou canst not be false to any man. -Shakespeare
