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THE WORLD BREAKS EVERYONE AND AFTERWARD MANY ARE STRONG IN THE
BROKEN PLACES ...
Oliver J. Morgan, Ph.D.
Professor, Counselor, Author
In This Issue
Personal Notes What’s happening with my wpcoming book, titled Hungry Hearts? Essay about Johann Hari’s TEDTalk, his new book Chas- ing the Scream , and a sting- ing review of same. See my website at http:// www.scranton.edu/faculty/ morgan/
Panuska College of Professional Studies @ University of Scranton
Personal Notes
Welcome to the second issue of my Broken Places newsletter! My hope in
issuing a bi-monthly newsletter is to build a platform from which I can make a
contribution to the fields of Addiction Studies, Counseling and Spirituality. I
also want to keep readers up-to-date with my scholarship and my thinking on a
variety of professional issues.
I am a tenured Professor of Counseling and Human Services at the University
of Scranton in Scranton, PA. This is my twenty-sixth year of teaching at the
University and I have been privileged to pursue scholarly and clinical interests
in addiction, family therapy, medical family therapy, and spirituality. With over
25 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and five edited books, I believe that I
offer a unique and needed perspective in my teaching and writing.
UPCOMING BOOK
Hungry Hearts: Unlocking the Secrets of
Addiction
I am currently working on a new book, Hungry hearts , that will offer an inclu-
sive model of addiction and move beyond the polarizing debates between dis-
ease and choice models. As I finish a query letter, formal proposal and chap-
ter drafts, the book moves closer to becoming a reality.
Newsletter for Oliver J. Morgan, Ph.D. August 2016
JUST SAYIN’...
Although I have never met him, I am an unabashed fan of Johann Hari. Last year, while preparing to teach a graduate-level class in Addiction at my university, I ran across the June 2015 TED Talk by Hari titled, “Everything You Know About Addiction is Wrong.” I was fascinated and after watching the 14 minute presentation, stunned, delighted, and frankly liberated. He uttered a phrase that sent me reeling: “The opposite of addiction is not sobriety; the opposite of addiction is connection.”
Connection. It is clear that Hari is speaking here not just of intimate human bonds of attachment and affection, although these are central to his argument. People are also connected to one another, to their society, to families, neighborhoods, organizations, to their nation, to a sense of meaning and purpose, to a higher calling and sense of how they “fit” in the world. A sense of connectedness is rela- tional, systemic, and deeply spiritual. It is inherent in the ways we are built as social beings. All these meanings flashed in front of me as I heard that pregnant phrase, and it sent me on my own journey of revisioning addiction for myself, my clients, and my students. This new frame of reference liberated me to explore.
Let me take a step back and explain. I have been a professor of counseling and human services for over twenty-five years and throughout that time I have been privileged to know and work alongside some of the brightest lights in the field of Addiction Studies: Ernie Kurtz, William Miller, Stephanie Brown, William White, George Vaillant, and many others. I have kept up-to-date with trends and changes in the literature and practice of counseling with addicts. But, this phrasing was so straightforward and apt that it left me breathless. In retrospect, it framed the insight that I had been waiting for.
And so, when less than a year later Hari’s book, Chasing the scream: The first and last days of the war on drugs (Bloomsbury, 2015) made its appearance, I bought it quickly and gobbled it up. The book documents his journey into the depths of our American and global history with the war on drugs and tells, through the stories of seminal characters in that drama, a potent narrative of why the drug war has failed and how we might do better. It confirmed some of what I knew and taught me even more. Here was a journalist at the top of his craft reviewing and assessing the best information available. His interview subjects were well-chosen and the interviews themselves were revealing.
Throughout the TEDTalk and the book, Hari conveys some real affection for the main characters that challenge our own thinking about addiction. His portrait of Bruce K. Alexander, the Canadian research scientist who first designed Rat Park, is full of insight and suggests the gentility and erudition of the man. The description of Dr. Gabor Maté, physician to the “hungry ghosts” of Vancouver’s addicted under- world, makes a powerful case for the influence of trauma and childhood adversity on the development of addiction. His brief discussion of Professor Ronald Siegel’s career-long studies of buzzing cows, tripping bees, and loco horses, and the ubiquity of intoxication in the ani- mal world, is delightful and inspiring.
I have spoken about these insights to any who would listen, including my students. I am currently writing a book, Hungry Hearts: Unlock- ing the Secrets of Addiction , which takes its inspiration from Hari and the many figures he describes. This has been a fruitful exploration for me and its benefits are not yet complete.
Johann Hari
TEDTalk, Everything You Think You Know About Addiction IS Wrong
A N D
Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs
(Bloomsbury Publishers, 2015)
Continued from inside...
Dobbs’ objection to Hari’s phrasing is that an opposition of addiction and connection is somehow wrong. To me, it seems that Hari views a lack of connection as predisposing to addiction and the restoration of connection as the way to recovery. If you are a bit baf- fled here, you are not alone. I do not understand why Dobbs is quibbling.
- Dobbs saves his major criticism for last and it is a doozy. He rehearses Hari’s ethical shortcomings as a journalist, pointing out the incidences of plagiarism in Hari’s past and his use of pseudonyms to discredit others in his profession. Dobbs then goes on to assert that Hari has been insufficiently contrite for these failings and has not utilized the rigorous honesty that is needed for recovery. Hari is, then, in Dobbs’ estimation someone whose work on addiction cannot be trusted.
Dobbs has taken Hari’s inventory. In addition, Dobbs believes that Hari is still trying to “plagiarize” the insights of others, namely re- covering people, by claiming that isolation is the root of addiction and connection is the way home. Even worse, Dobbs believes that Hari is “seeking a return to journalism on the backs of people too marginalized to protect themselves,” and reminds us that recovering people, like Dobbs himself, value honesty above all else.
While all this is a bit self-serving and grandiose — does he really believe that all 23-plus million of us in recovery are “too marginalized to protect” ourselves? — it also flies in the face of the facts. Months before Andrew Dobbs published his essay in The Fix, Hari had given an extraordinary interview to Decca Aitkenhead that was published in The Guardian (Jan 2, 2015) and is widely available online.
I do not wish to rehearse here the egregious nature of Hari’s failings or speculate about the “defects of character” that might have led to them. Hari himself did so in the interview. I do wish to point out, however, the honesty and authenticity that permeate his remarks. First, Hari is at pains to separate his failings from his own drug use (Provigil). He does not take the convenient “out” of blaming his own struggle with addiction for his shortcomings. He claims his failures straightforwardly and takes responsibility. A quote might suf- fice:
“Look... I can talk to you about why what happened in my life happened. But I just think that’s a way of trying to invite sympa- thy, and that would be weaselly. If you tell a detailed personal story about yourself, you’re inherently asking people to sympa- thize with you, and actually I don’t think people should be sympathetic to me. I’m ashamed of what I did. I did some things that were really nasty and cruel.”
Toward the end of this long interview, Hari is asked about the consequences he faced (loss of job, loss of profession) and the disgrace he continues to endure. Hari makes it clear that he believes the punishment fits the crime and that he does not want to talk about the repercussions as a kind of “redemptive fable.” Fair enough. But I see it differently.
Frankly, I’m a sucker for redemption stories. Hell, my own recovery story certainly fits into that genre as I suspect do the stories of countless others. What else is recovery but a story of redemption, writ large. I can’t get enough of them. And Dobbs is correct: radi- cal honesty is an absolute requirement. Reading the Guardian interview, I believe Hari has met that test. And besides, what he is saying about addiction and recovery is so right that it’s hard to disagree with.
Of course, there will be quibbles about this and that. But they don’t add up to a serious indictment of Hari’s work. I believe his in- sights, and what he has learned during his journey into the heart of the drug war, will stand the test of time.
I urge anyone who is interested to follow that journey. Review Andrew Dobbs’ essay and Hari’s response at…
https://www.thefix.com/content/4-things-hari-gets-wrong-about-addiction as well as the Hari interview with Decca Aitkenhead at …
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/02/johann-hari-interview-drugs-book-independent
Then, if you remain interested, you might wish to view the TEDTalk, Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong , at…
http://www.ted.com/playlists/320/the_most_popular_talks_of_2015_
and finally read Chasing the Scream: The first and last days of the war on drugs (Bloomsbury, 2015).
http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/chasing-the-scream-9781620408926/
