While AA does not appeal to me (and I don't, thank goodness, need it), I have had three alcoholic friends who joined it and none of them have had a drink in years. None of them were particularly religious before using AA, and none of them became particularly religious. I have not known anyone who tried AA and relapsed. I am sure there are such individuals, and I know what I have said above is purely anecdotal. Still, I'm impressed.

Dealing with frequently severe fear and depression has forced me to realize that, indeed, as AA says, willpower is not adequate. Zen is truly helpful, but it is not necessary to resolve the issue, since no paradox is involved.

I take a clue from recent research that indicates emotion is necessary to thought, not its opposite. I suppose that our emotional lives are regulated by our bodily chemistry, and that addictions always are coupled with chemical dysfunctions. However, there is a feedback effect. You CAN change your body's chemistry by continual practice. You work the system not in blind faith but because you have realized that you cannot rely on your emotions, and that if you perform this given set of actions, they will help. It is not will power as it is usually defined. More like unavoidable logic. This helps. If you do it no matter how you feel, you will do better. If you don't, you will do worse.

Very much like remembering to breathe naturally during a panic attack. It is not the intuitive response. The intuitive response is to tighten the breathing further because of the fear. It is just the only response which works.

However, this approach requires a great deal of practice and effort. Obviously an appropriate prescription can have the same effect, at least temporarily. On the other hand, drugs can be tricky, since we don't know what other effects they cause. I quit antidepressants because I became convinced they were making me sicker--weaker, nauseous, and suicidally depressed in flashes. One must be aware. One must reason from cause and effect, one's own behavior and condition.

It might be useful to compare the body/mind's emotional force and its intellectual force to momentum: There is simply far too much momentum attached to the older emotional framework for the slighter if more accurate forces of reason to be able to deflect behavior very much except over long periods of time by means of constant application, the way a small man can tow a battleship along a canal if he simply keeps pulling.

I say if you find yourself in such a situation, get help however you can, use your wits, and good luck.

In case Schlussel missed it, Marvel just put on a long long (way too long) Civil War story in which the superheroes were required to register and half of them rebelled for independence and the militaristic rightwing half, headed by Ironman Tony Stark, won. In addition, there is the ongoing S.H.I.E.L.D. theme, in which a massive and monolithic secret agency which is willing to do anything directs the activities of all superheroes in America.

Almost every comix fan in America hated the Civil War episodes, which were directed, incidentally, by a couple of people who aren't even U. S. citizens.

I despise this stuff. I despise the mindless way in which all free endeavor is turned over to a bunch of militaristic bureaucrats who are treated as the only patriots. In my opinion, the comix are way too right-wing. As an adolescent and later a young man, I wondered why all Superman did was, as I wrote in a poem at the time, "foil bank robbers and jewel thieves,/break up smuggling rings, and put on shows/for charity." Was he neutral on Viet Nam? If so, he was chickenshit. His advocacy, as I pointed out, would have made a difference. Might have saved thousands of lives.

From experience I will say that after you lose everything there is something worth having: Life itself, which is not predictable or secure, but is the actuality. If you are breathing, you have as much as anyone else. Hang in there.

Why hasn't anybody mentioned ads and laugh-tracks? I know these are old problems, but I find them at least as annoying as ever. Have not watched any tv in over a year, and no more than a couple shows a week for years before that. I simply find it impossible to focus on a story-line, however intelligent and well-written, which is interrupted every ten minutes by loud and falsely jovial morons. As for laugh-tracks: Is there anything LESS funny than being told when to laugh?

Despite a few good shows, tv sucked forty years ago. Despite a few good shows it sucks now. Some on this thread have suggested there is good tv if you know where to look. I suggest there is amusement and intelligence aplenty if you know where to look, and mostly that means looking beyond tv.

For me, the basic equation is this: How good does something have to be before I am willing to trade away any of my precious life watching it? The answer is, Pretty damn good. If there isn't something in the performance that enriches my being, why would I waste time on it? Why would I trade the pleasures of existence for the productions of inferior minds and spirits?

Of course I am a reactionary oldster with a love of writing, thinking, painting, science, music, dance, yoga, swimming, the outdoors, and many other wonderful ways of spending time, so I am sure my attitudes are hopelessly outdated.

I suspect "bloggers" have become the new code for hated people, like "liberal" and "community service."