A bicycle ride to fight AIDS

I couldn’t help but wonder whether all of us could benefit from rehab. . .

I produced a new multimedia interactive feature for this past weekend, about the AIDS/LifeCycle event – a 7-day bicycle ride by more than 2,300 bicyclists from San Francisco to Los Angeles (more than 500 miles!). The event raised money for combating AIDS.

I interviewed two participants of the ride – one lost a brother to AIDS a decade ago and she rode to honor his memory. The other was a man, James, who had been a drug addict, had unsafe sex, contracted HIV, and “ruined” his life – as he put it.

In one part of our interview, which didn’t make it into the final piece, James referenced something he learned in rehab – the idea of pausing and evaluating your actions; ‘is this something that has a positive or negative impact not only on myself but others and the world at large?’ If it’s a negative impact, then “I don’t do it,” he said.

I couldn’t help but wonder whether all of us could benefit from rehab, whether we’re nursing an addiction or not.