Hearts and Minds

An old friend of mine is an addiction therapist in Boston. He came by his line of work honestly, as an alcoholic. The addiction ran roughshod through his marriage, family, and career until finally his life collapsed. But he used his self-destruction to get sober, obtained a professional counseling credential, and went to work helping other alcoholics and addicts toward sobriety.

Today he is a sort of evangelist for recovery and often says, thumping his Big Blue A.A. Book with wild eyes, hair that looks like a bird’s nest, and trembling with ticks leftover from his days drinking: “Nobody’s gonna change ‘cause they feel like it. That’s a smokescreen. A man’s gotta change his thinking.”

He likens this change to computer programming and he has an illustrated drawing of it (multiple copies actually, as he carries them around in a tattered briefcase, distributing them like Scripture tracts). He was convinced…