How Can We Heal In These Challenging Times?

In the late 1980’s I read a book entitled; When Society Becomes an Addict by Anne Wilson Schaef (1987). This book had a profound effect on me then and continues to do so. At the time she was talking about the U.S. culture under President Reagan. Here is a synopsis:

A society and the individuals within the society act as a hologram, ie. they reflect one another. The characteristics of an addict include self-centeredness and grandiosity, the illusion of control, dishonesty, denial, perfection (nothing is ever good enough), lack of responsibility (everyone else is to blame), forgetfulness eg. promises, loss of contact within and without, and confusion (no one is more controllable than a confused person.) An addict is apathetic and numb. One lives from crisis-to-crisis, because this creates a feeling of aliveness. Eventually