I don't know if it would have the same resonance to someone who hasn't gone through a 12-step program but to me, Cary's response was perfect and brilliant. Not everyone has to go through such a program, that's not what I mean!! Some people are "there" and I've met a few, who didn't have to do anything except wake up and start walking around on the planet.

I did go through a "program," and after 10 years, have switched to different addictions but struggle with the same issues. Cary nailed it; "sitting with" the existential anguish (or as one of the girls said in "Sex & the City," "What do we really need a man for? Except, you know, the dying alone thing..." But seriously -- we usually die alone anyway so what is it we seek and are so afraid of?

Unlike Cary I do think acid was a great experience although I hasten to add at my age I don't think my system could handle it again -- nor could it handle a lot of the other stuff (emotional as well as pharmaceutical) that I blithely indulged in, thinking I was "having fun" or "being real." But I dislike revisionism about those days, historically and sociologically a lot was accomplished that is being turned away from -- hey just like our addictions. There was some pretty real stuff going on back then, and we turned away as a society just as we now do individually.

But I digress. I feel for the LW, I really do. It's a truism that addictions don't get conquered they just move around -- unless (!) one can get to the bottom of them. I think I am approaching the moment (probably "again") (but we continually must) where I can (and have to) sit on the knife-edge, contemplate the abyss, and absorb it rather than turn away. My guilt, self-hate, fear of self-hate, anxiety (about death, frankly -- as the comedian said, "That hand sanitizer? Ain't gonna help ya!"); it's time to just "be" -- and let the impulses and feelings that make me act out addictively, run their course. I'm scared. But maybe today's the day!! Thanks, Cary. This was a great answer today (and a great question).