A word before I continue: I do not equate my music obsession with the life-threatening habits of my Portland patients. Far from it. My addiction, though I call it that, wears dainty white gloves compared to theirs. I’ve also had far more opportunity to make free choices in my life, and I still do. But if the differences between my behaviors and the self-annihilating life patterns of my clients are obvious, the similarities are illuminating—and humbling. I have come to see addiction not as a discrete, solid entity—a case of “Either you got it or you don’t got it”—but as a subtle and extensive
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