A while ago, a journalist, who is not an addict, alcoholic, or psychologist, said that the opposite of addiction is connection.
Is that correct?
The question cannot be answered, because the statement is itself ill-formed. Only bipolar pairings contain opposites. A street has two sides. The presence or absence of light exists along a spectrum with two poles: no light and (a large 'amount') of light [sorry, physicists]. Addiction is a complex phenomenon spanning a number of different aspects of human experience. It's not capable of having an opposite.
There is a central idea, though, which is not entirely unhelpful. The Big Book, on page 17, refers to the bond formed through recognition of a common problem and engagement in a common solution. It is certainly true that the solution to alcoholism involves many different forms of connection: specifically with others and with a Higher Power.
The trouble with natty little slogans is that, in reducing complex phenomena to soundbites, they can be dangerously misleading.
Just about the only natty little reduction of the programme I think I can subscribe to is 'Trust God; Clean House; Help Others'. That does in fact tidily encompass various aspects of the solution, and also gives a good indication as to what must be done and how. Genuinely useful, I think. But then read the actual Book and take in the full breadth of what the slogan represents. The Book comes first: then the formula. You can't take a formula and populate it with any content you want.
A further difficulty arises with the word 'connection'. Not all connection is good. Healthy connection is good. Unhealthy connection is actually precisely the problem in most if not all addicts, alcoholics, Al-Anons, etc. A good Step Four will reveal a huge amount of incredibly damaging psychic and actual connections. Resentment is a tight bond between the victim (me) and the perpetrator (you). Rampant Al-Anonism might manifest as the rescuer (me) rescuing the perpetrator (you). In the SLAA domain, the intense connection achieved through sex, stalking, possession, and other obsessions is what we're seeking to recover from.
One might actually say that, beneath addiction, unhealthy connection is actually the problem, and that slicing through these Gordian knots is the real solution.
A Course In Miracles understands this well, with its chapters on Special Relationships, Special Love Relationships, and Special Hate Relationships. Anthony de Mello talks about the hell of intense attachments to other people. Anne Wilson Schaef talks at depth and length about the toxicity of entanglement and enmeshment. Tibetan Buddhists talk about the eight worldly concerns, at least four of which concern dangerous emotional ties to other people. In entanglement and enmeshment, love and hate are bound up. I want to possess you. You don't want to be possessed? Fine. I'll hurt you instead. Just as intimate. Psychic bond transfigured but intact and in fact tighter than ever. Wet cords cutting into flesh. Is there a closer bond than between spider and fly?
So I'd be very cautious about the notion that connection is a universal ointment for addiction and related phenomenon.
In Al-Anon, a key element of the solution is actually detachment, not attachment. It is only by detaching that I can really experience the other person. True compassion presupposes neutrality. Non-neutrality means that what looks like compassion is actually the theft and reconfiguration of your suffering to make it my own.
In intense, unhealthy connections between two people, there are four entities in the room. You, me, my notion of the relationship, and your notion of the relationship. The two notions dance above our heads and become the focus of our discussion. Meanwhile, there is no real connection. Only the facsimile of connection created by attachment. It's the glove-puppets who are talking, not us.
What does healthy connection look like?
Detaching from the individual entanglements and finding my place into the whole. Common problem. Common solution. One of the gang. That allows me to discover and foster a genuine and independent identity, and it is that independence I can bring to alliances with other people.
How is this facilitated?
Sponsorship is a chief vehicle. But the sponsorship must not become yet another entanglement. As soon as it's entangled, it becomes a venue for acting out (on both parts), and progress stops. This is why it's up to the sponsor to hold the line, to remain above the battlefield, and to stick to the business of sponsorship: Steps, Traditions, and Concepts. The veil separating sponsor and sponsee must remain intact. There is ideally cordiality but not enmeshment. Once the Steps disentangle the individual from their Special Relationships, there is only one thing for it: to go to God, for which all of those Special Relationships were the substitute. Once the individual has established the relationship with God, they are safe, and can build their relationships back up on an entirely new basis.
That's the theory, anyway. The practice can be messier, but, with some vigilance on the part of the sponsor and sincerity on the part of the sponsee, the pitfalls can be sufficiently avoided for the destination to be reached.