One of the hardest things about living with, working with, or staying attached to someone with a severe dependency problem is reckoning with the gap between their rational self and their utterly wrecked self.

I’ve heard so many people in early recovery explain, with impeccable logic, why they need to keep spending time with someone who still uses enough drugs to drop an elephant — or why they still frequent the same bars that have been the graveyards of their dignity.

It’s easy to get drawn in. Their reasoning will always sound convincing — until you remember that, not long ago, this same person was drinking to blackout, nodding off at the wheel, maybe even while driving a train.

This seemingly rational person is also, I’m afraid, a bomb of chaos waiting to go off.

But give it time. The shift comes when they start sounding less sure, less rigid, less self-righteous. When they say things they regret and truly regret them. When they pause, reconsider, hesitate. And, at times, when they are still resolute, clear, full of enthusiasm.

That’s normal. That’s good. Just give it time.

Which brings us to politics.

People who are very good at sounding fiercely ‘right’ — aggressively correct — should never be left in charge of anything, let alone a nation. When people talk about ‘the right,’ they usually mean a political stance, not a deeply troubled, divided state of mind — the one behind I AM RIGHT. But maybe they should. A mind like that doesn’t unite. It carves us into factions, whips us into certainty, turns doubt into weakness and opposition into enemies.

We’d better look out.