Several years ago I began to notice how many people buy into a disturbing fantasy. First, I watched a dear friend jump into a sinful and dangerous relationship. She tried to numb her guilt through drugs, alcohol and self-injury, in escalating amounts of each. She ended up losing her job and her freedom—first in a hospital, then a psych ward, and then months in a rehab facility that consumed every penny of her considerable savings. Later she confessed to me, “I thought I could get away with it.” This summer I served over a month on a jury for a drug conspiracy trial. (I blogged about that here.) After we…