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 I had a friend named Alan. A couple of years ago, he died suddenly due to a congenital heart defect, and when he did, I lost a friend. I lost a champion, a role model, and the world got a little less safe. He used to say to me all the time, "we've forgotten how to listen to each other! We've forgotten how to talk to each other!"

While I always believed that he believed what he was talking about, I couldn't quite tell what he meant. I didn't understand it. Now I do. Save the Canaries is my attempt to share his insight and that of many others. It is to show what it means to really listen and communicate as we're meant to. I know it's not enough, but it's worthwhile and I need your help.

I know that you understand on some level what Alan was talking about, and I know you want that to change. The good news is that we don't have to invent anything new. We just have to understand and practice what we already know. That is, practice a better form of honesty and a more rigorous sense of integrity, to create trust through vulnerability, to truly understand our wants and needs, and listen to those who've gone before us.

Long ago, men used to bring canaries into the coal mine with them. If the canary died, it was time to evacuate. The canaries died so that those men might live. They loved their canaries. For a long time, there have been human canaries among us, warning us to get out of this toxic mine, but instead of listening, we blame them for dying. Where would the coal miners be? If they did that. Where are we now? And what do our canaries have to teach us?

I will tell you what they have to teach us.

I have an idea for at least two books, and I need your support to make them happen. I have a publisher and book one is more than halfway complete. It's called Save the Canaries, and this is my idea. Addiction recovery isn't just something you do after treatment. It's an environment in which we learn how to talk to each other and treat each other in a better way. It's a manner of living that is both more rewarding than and incompatible with addiction. Once I learned about this manner of living, the widespread consequences of its absence became readily apparent to me.

Now, this manner of living isn't specifically created to deal with addiction. Rather, it's things we all should do, but don't because we think we get away with it. But take a look at the state of our planet and our wellbeing. We're not getting away with it. People need to know what this is, how it applies to them, and how it can improve all our lives.

The language needs to be on more lips. The ideas need to be in more heads. And the feelings that come with it need to be in more hearts. In the first book, Save the Canaries, I will use the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as a framework because while everybody knows they exist, few know what they are and fewer still know what they mean.

Having gathered the insights of many others, including some 50 interviews, I will offer interpretations of each step to show how they contain valuable wisdom for all of us, not just alcoholics. The principles and practices apply to work, school, the economy, consumerism, and how we go about our daily lives.

They have the power to help us fend off dangerous narratives and to write better ones that more align with our humanity. The good news is that we don't have to invent anything new. Today, conversations abound about stepping out of the old ways of thinking and being, noticing those sneaky and sticky nuances so that we can live a better way.

We have an opportunity to anchor these new ideas in the ideas of those who've gone before us. Many people around the world are searching for bridges that can help us cross from old ways that no longer serve us into new ways that do, while preserving some of the old ways that continue to serve us. The 12 steps are such a bridge if we can see them for what they are.

The first book, phase one, will contain many ideas and examples for the readers to unpack. It will also contain many prompts and questions directed to the reader for phase two. Perhaps a book or something better. I will invite people to submit their responses, perspectives, experiences, insights, examples, et cetera, and we, by that time, it will require a we, a team will assemble them into a cohesive text.

It really does take a lot of perspectives and different kinds of people to actually see this almost invisible problem. With enough of them, we will finally see the elephant in the room. Besides, you never know whose point of view will really register with you. In many ways, our culture, our way of life, is just like addiction. I will share with you some details, and I'll do this by incorporating my own experiences and insights along with the perspectives of other people, including those I've interviewed personally. It can't just be my point of view. This is a pluralistic problem and requires many perspectives to understand it when many voices are talking about the same big, invisible thing.

There is a much greater chance that at least one of those messages will resonate with you. I cannot deliver this message alone, but I can get you thinking about it differently. Once we see enough of the parts, we can finally see the elephant in the room.