The Nature of Addiction by Roget Lockard, M.Ed.

Beginning With Fire

The Story of Addiction, Human Nature, and Evolution

Chapter Sketches

Chapter Fourteen — Beacons

What do South Africa, AA, the Amish, Grameen Bank, Wikipedia and Tai Chi have in common? They all exemplify aspects of what sobriety looks like — how it can manifest — in the larger and smaller “superorganisms” in which we participate. The path of sobriety is most brilliantly illuminated not by eloquent words, but by the living examples of those who have traveled along it some distance ahead of us. This chapter introduces us to several such “beacons,” and concludes with descriptions of the kinds of measures we can take, as individuals, and in the many nested levels of community in which we participate, to enhance the prospects for sobriety on a planetary scale.

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The path of sobriety is most brilliantly illuminated not by eloquent words, but by the living examples of those who have traveled along it some distance ahead of us.