Some years ago, I attended a day-long retreat where the facilitator used the image of a tapestry as our focus. Simply put, she held up before us a beautiful design with impeccable detail. Then she flipped the tapestry over to reveal what looked like a chaotic tangling of different colored threads not looking like any sort of pattern at all.
A multitude of images — mostly faces of people who I have known, worked with, watched grow up and admired — come to me as I approach this column’s topic, each person experiencing radical life changes while confronting issues of addiction. I’m beginning to think more and more of it being a miracle that any of us can escape addiction issues in our lives. Think about it for a second — consider all the ways that we as human beings can find our thoughts, our emotions and our very lives dominated by addiction:
A few years ago, I was visiting with a friend who had just celebrated his youngest daughter receiving her diploma at her college’s graduation ceremony. My friend had worked for General Electric all his life and had no training in psychology or therapy, but he made a statement that caught my attention. “I hope I passed on a little less of the poison,” he said to me. I knew exactly what he meant as he looked me in the eye. I was struck by his groundedness and his humility.
