A Quote by Johann Hari
So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection.
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The opposite of addiction is human connection. And I think that has massive implications for the war on drugs. The treatment of drug addicts almost everywhere in the world is much closer to Tent City than it is to anything in Portugal. Our laws are built around the belief that drug addicts need to be punished to stop them. But if pain and trauma and isolation cause addiction, then inflicting more pain and trauma and isolation is not going to solve that addiction. It's actually going to deepen it.
The gift of sobriety is clarity and a sense of connection - and travel only enhances that.
This is our most dangerous addiction - our addiction to things. For it is this addiction that underlies the materialism of our age. And nowhere is this addiction more apparent than in our addiction to money.
I think stress is an addiction. It can be tied to work addiction or busyness addiction or success addiction.
The capacity for emotional sobriety belongs to everybody in the human family and leads to a fully human response to the adventure and goodness of the gift of human life.
Your connection to other people keeps you human, and that connection, staying human - that's what you have against control. It's like if somebody is being controlled by their job, the connection is to their family. And if they stay connected to those people, the job will never really have control over them.
The antidote to addiction is connection and love.
I really love the independent movies and I just think that sometimes when they throw a lot of money into it and a lot of special effects and a lot of stunts that you lose the connection, the human connection and I personally love movies that are about the human connection.
At every stage, addiction is driven by one of the most powerful, mysterious, and vital forces of human existence. What drives addiction is longing--a longing not just of brain, belly, or loins but finally of the heart.
We will not solve the addiction problem in America if we don't address social connection.
When I talk about drugs and alcohol, I'm talking about sex addiction, gambling addiction, eating addiction, throwing-up addiction. I'm not talking about mental illness.
It's a trip when people take sobriety for granted. Feeling trapped in my addiction and then getting sober - you appreciate it so much more, because I didn't know if I would ever know what it's like to feel normal again, ever.
When people do things they weren't even sure they were capable of, I think it comes back to connection. Connection with teammates. Connection with organization. Feeling like they belong in the environment. I think it's a human need - the need to feel connected.
You could almost say that throughout human history there are people who can either foresee consequences or who are capable of looking for information and predicting the consequences will happen, but the vast majority of people won't respond to climate change until their city is underwater, food supply is disrupted or everyone around them is dying of zoonotic disease. It's almost like someone dealing with an addiction, like you hope that the person can overcome the addiction before the addiction kills them.
Touch is incredibly important as part of the human experience. Our ancestors relied on human touch to form and strengthen bonds with each other. Touch can accelerate a feeling of connection and releases hormones in our body that engender trust and build connection.
However, there probably is a slight connection between the high-wire, super sensitivity, open to everything and too much, and slightly fragile soul of the artist and the need to self-medicate, which can lead to bad trouble either in drugs, or alcohol. So it's not that there's no connection, it's just that we can't make too much of it because it isn't the addiction that's the issue, it's the fragility of some people who do artistic work, who end up in rehab somewhere or other.
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