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

Beginning With Fire

The Story of Addiction, Human Nature, and Evolution

Chapter Sketches

Section One

Solutions

My blood is alive with many voices telling me I am made of longing.
Rainer Marie Rilke

People often speak of addiction as being a form of self-medication. This is almost always true in the late stages, and is sometimes true in the early stages of addiction. But this view is too limited; it underestimates the richness, the allure, the sense of something very precious and magical happening, which is the hallmark of the initial entry into the realm of addictive solutions. As a speaker at an AA meeting once noted, “The best idea I ever had in my life was to get sober. The second-best idea I ever had was to get drunk.” In this section we gain an intimate familiarity with the onset of addiction; its enticements, its intricacy, and its underlying simplicity.

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As the global toll of our individual and societal addictions and addictive behaviors continues to mount, it becomes ever more crucial to explore new ways of thinking about addiction. Drawing on decades of personal and professional experience with addiction and sobriety, Roget Lockard makes a unique and distinctive contribution to that end...

Frank Seeburger, Ph.D., Prof. of Philosophy, Univ. of Denver. Author of Emotional Literacy. New York: Crossroad, 1998; Addiction and Responsibility: An Inquiry into the Addictive Mind. New York: Crossroad, 1993; The Stream of Thought. New York: Philosophical Library, 1984.