Addiction is seen in the legal world as some kind of a choice somebody makes.

Well, believe me, I've worked with hardcore addictive people.

Nobody ever chose to be an addict.

I've had my own addictive issues.

I've never chose to be an addict.

I didn't choose it.

Hi, Mary, I'm Williamson here and welcome to this week's podcast.

You know, I began lecturing on a course in Miracles back in 1983.

And the world in many ways was quite different then,

but many things were very much the same.

And one of the things that became a very big issue in the middle of the 1980s was the AIDS crisis.

And because I was giving lectures about miracles and spirituality,

I had a lot of experience very up close and personal with people who were suffering through that crisis.

But there was another issue that I came up close and personal with during that time

because of all the people who came to the course in Miracles lectures

and who were reading the course in Miracles, who were involved with that.

And that was people with 12-step program issues,

also in my own life dating someone who was an addict for quite a while,

even though at the time I thought, because of his involvement with AA,

with NA, actually, I didn't realize he was still using.

But in my own life, two years living with an active heroin addict,

although, like I said at the time, I didn't realize he was active,

...