The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety. It’s actually connection.

I just watched this belowTED Talk — it’s titled “Everything we think about addiction is wrong” — this morning. I had seen a few people share it on social since TED released it about a week ago (it’s from a TED event in London). I had probably been dreading watching it, to an extent. I have a bunch of addiction in my family, and I myself sometimes think I’m addicted to some not-so-good things. Here’s a bit more on that.

Around 2008, I was having a pretty tough time with some of these themes. I myself felt like I was drinking way too much, and I felt like I was coming to grips with a few things about the world all at once. Notably: jobs can often suck (and at the time, I worked at ESPN, which is a dream job for most people), people can often totally ignore you and/or not be there for you, and eventually you start learning that your parents are guiders of your life, but ultimately flawed beings in their own right. I was going through a lot of stuff, and I went to church more, I went to a few AA-type meetings, and I ultimately just chased purpose.