Alan Levinovitz

You become addicted to alcohol or drugs

physiologically, and then it's not magic, it's not that the addiction is all in your head, it's not that the symptoms of withdrawal are all in your head, that would be absurd to say, but some people kick their addictions through a combination of community

And thinking.

I mean, it sounds sort of bizarre to put it that way, but that's really what happens.

Some people don't.

For some people, it doesn't work.

Some people have to find the right community for them.

Some people try six times to kick their addiction until they finally find, at the right time in their life, the community that works right for them.

None of that is unscientific or woo-woo.

None of that implies that if only addicts changed their minds,

they would just heal, even though there are, of course, some cases of people who, after like a car accident with their kid in the back or something, just instantaneously kick their addiction.

So I think that's actually, I mean, there's no perfect parallel.

And when people hear addiction, they often think, well, that's caused by choices you've made as opposed to post-viral infection, which isn't, whatever.

That's not really the point in this analogy.

The point is there are physiological states

really entrenched ones that cause physiological symptoms that we know can be resolved through effortful involvement in a community and a set of beliefs that often doesn't work the first time or the second time or the third time, and often will work for one person and be deeply alienating to someone else.

Again, I don't want to get into AA or anything like that, but for some people, AA is a nightmare.

They hate the God talk.

They hate the higher power talk.

And