Not by any means an expert on addiction. Glad I've never had to be, to be honest, and full of admiration for those of my friends and acquaintances who've worked with it in themselves or others.
But yesterday, during my NESTA discussion Mark told this beautiful anecdote which shows how important other people are in managing addictions.
Some years ago, he was working in a Family Theraphy context on addiction and learned that for all the willpower, support and other stuff a heavy drugs user might have, a really important indicator of whether the addict would stay clean or not was whether they had it in them to make new friends and see new places or whether they would simply return to the old circle of fellow users.
How much they shape us - all those around us. Thanks, Mark.