TRIUMPHANT TIMES

What a year 2011 has been, one of those crossroad years that the world seems to reach every few decades or so, when amidst the gloom and worry, opportunities for freedom lie.

In the midst of financial crises, Syrian despots, collapsing currencies, corrupt journalists and persecuted victims of press intrusion is a flowering of courage, honesty, integrity and perseverance.

The current state of the world is strikingly similar to the drama of recovery from addiction, and the similarities are so close, that perhaps there are broad human truths that run through both narratives.

As a society we have been debased by the narcissistic culture we have adopted in the past few decades, and 2011 was the year Britain's chickens came home to roost. We learned the real cost of endless spending and indulging. We learned the real cost to human beings of our gawping and prurient celebrity culture. We learned the real cost of marginalising our young people, and felt their anger boil over in the streets.

There will be many tired, ill, lonely and despairing people this Christmas who will be counting the real cost of 'good times' gone terribly wrong, people who are waking up to the realities of their addictions, just as society has started to wake up to its problems too.

For them, the sense of prevailing gloom and fear will be greatly amplified, and for a moment, for every addict who has reached the end of their ability to cope with their illness, a terrible moment of fear and powerlessness will envelop them.

In the midst of this, however, there is hope. The addict has a chance of a fresh start, the realisation that previous behaviours do not work any more, that old ways that seemed like solutions have only led to crisis, can give the addict a much yearned for doorway to freedom.

Sometimes it takes a disaster, the loss of a job or a relationship, to wake the suffering individual up to the truth of their situation and give them a new direction.

As with the addict, we have all had the truths of our societal addictions revealed to us, we have been shown the toxic nature of a society based on egotism and self obsession, and we too have an opportunity to get well.

The heartening fact is that many of us are taking that opportunity; banks, media barons and dictators the world over are being challenged and in many cases overthrown.

We must not only take heart in the knowledge that in the most difficult times that the world is in many ways actually getting better, but also that in every generation people seem to be becoming more caring and thoughtful, not less.

We must transfer our sense of optimism, of hope and of new beginnings to addicts and sufferers everywhere, and demonstrate to them that they can fight their own struggles for freedom, independence and sanity, and by just staying in the fight, day after day, they will inevitably triumph.