Spirits (was RE: [extropy-chat] Qualia Bet.)

[Amara Graps]

Emlyn emlynoregan at gmail.com :
>As for alcohol, well I come from a family of alcohol dependants. My
>mother, who took every drug that you can name, I'd reckon, with
>extensive habits around anything addictive at one time or another
>(including all the big ones), managed to kick everything except
>alcohol. She died about almost 2 months ago, aged 55, of a hemorrhagic
>stroke (doctors on the list will know the risk factors here, or google
>it) after being warned for years to stop drinking or die.


A family member who raised my sisters and I in the sixties from my age
6 to age 12 has a serious alcohol (and cigarette) dependency; I still
wonder why her driving (swerving all over) the Honolulu freeways after
one of her 5X per week drinking sprees didn't kill us. I am sure that my
aversion to strong drinks (and cigarettes) stem from that time in my
childhood. When I saw her again last October, ~thirty years after my
last visit with her, I learned that her drinking didn't change. She
had thirty years to solve the problem, (and thirty years of
experiences showing it's terrible for her life) and she didn't solve
it. I tried very hard to feel compassion and I did not succeed, I could
only feel anger. I have no idea what feelings I will feel at the end
of her (probably not too much longer) life.  I feel sympathy for your
own situation Emlyn; I don't know if there is a resemblance to my own,
but I think I can understand something. Take good care of yourself
through this difficult time please.

Amara

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Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara at amara.com
Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
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"Our own life is the instrument with which we experiment with truth."
                              --Thich Nhat Hanh