Defective Characters: Understanding the Underlying Ideas, Beliefs, and Principles of ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781477518496)

Artist, writer, producer, business and marketing consultant, entrepreneur and a voracious pursuer of the nebulas and elusive truth, John David Balla's life is a voyage of multiple dimensions that bridges the conventional with daring exploits sometimes far outside the mainstream. As a business and marketing consultant, John has advised some of the largest software and Fortune 500 companies in the world, including Microsoft, IBM, Xerox, Kaiser Permanente, John Hancock, The United States Postal Services, and countless others on emerging technologies and marketing strategies. John has addressed audiences on the state of market conditions, strategies, and usability issues across North America and Europe. His articles have appeared in many industry magazines and publications, including Information Week, INFORM, Group Computing KMWorld, eDoc, Knowledge Management Magazine, and many others. Formally schooled in psychology, sociology, and economics, John is an avid reader and researcher of physic, metaphysics, mysticism, history, and philosophy. Along these lines, he has experimented with a myriad of alternative states of consciousness, from conventional yoga and meditation and Jungian analysis, to forays into psychotropic medicines of ayahuasca and waschuma, and earlier in life, psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline. As an online marketer, John specializes in music and book publishing, providing soup-to-nuts consulting and implementation services. He also serves the medical/alternative medicine, hotel/motel, real estate markets, as well as a select few startup companies. As a musician, singer/songwriter, and music producer, John created the 1st MultiMedia eBook in March, 2011 that integrated a scholarly theological essay, entitled, The Big Bite: The Two Creation Myths of Genesis and the Shocking Truth About Original Sin with his music video, In Heaven (there ain't no) which plays in the chapter of the same name (ePub version only). John also produced the album, The Sedona Sessions the music companion of the 1st MultiMedia Music Novel, "Cathedral of the Senses" in March of 2011. In May of 2012, John published the critically acclaimed DEFECTIVE CHARACTERS: Understanding the Underlying Ideas, Beliefs, and Principles of ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS. Fascinated with South America, John regularly travels to Peru and Ecuador to study the culture and unplug from the Western MATRIX.