Reply #37: That's absolutely true, and the challenge is...

[Amerigo Vespucci]

...if we choose to forgive, to somehow not provide an opportunity for people to do the same thing again in the future.

I have and acquaintance who is an alcoholic...it would be a real stretch to call him a "friend," because we simply have mutual acquaintances, and to be honest, I don;t really like this guy at all...who claims he has been sober for 17 years...but exhibits all the signs of "dry drunk" behavior. One little thing will set him off and he'll fly into a rage. He is always referencing AA and quoting their "principles" but when you witness his behavior you wonder if any of that helps. For some, I guess it does. For others, attending AA meetings becomes just one more form of addiction. I don't mean to minimize what the group accomplishes...I'm just saying that in my personal experience, whenever I have met someone in AA and gotten to known them for any length of time, I hear a lot of "AA-speak" but can see them still dragging all of their baggage along on the journey. The fact that they may or may not be actively drinking doesn't necessarily mean that they have been "healed." And if a person finds themselves in the crosshairs of someone like that, and they find themselves wronged, there is an excellent chance that being in that person's orbit in the future will increase the likelihood of a repeat performance.