Wendy,
I think I would make a good alcoholic. When I do drink I can't drink just one glass, I have to reach the stage of drunkeness that makes me not care. I decided long ago that I must be careful when it comes to alcohol.

Anerexia is out of the question but I do edge over to the area of compulsive eating and feel guilt after a binge. But I have always been been able to pull out of it. Then I go into a compulsive healthfood craze. It concerns me when I hear people talk about their difficulties with food because I have ridden the edge of that world, just enough to get an empathy for just how difficult it must be to need to excercise, to need to eat, to want to throw up (I have sat before the toilet with that intent, but a previous training has severely reduced the gag reflex so I was unsuccessful, grr), and the desire to starve one's self. I count my blessings that I have only flirted with the idea and have never been drawn into it. You know, I have absolutely no idea where I was going with this...

Oh yeah methods of self destruction. I have been watching the "normal" people over the years with fascination because they are living these so called "normal" lives without being aware of just how close the to well they are. We have our list of things that we know we do that are self destructive. We have our lists of things we do that we know are not a healthy way to be living. These people have no clue. I see them fumbling along just as poorly as we do, doing just as dumb of stuff. I have to wonder why we are on this side of the fence and they are on that side. I know some of it is chemical. I know some of it is genetic. But I have got to wonder just how difficult it would be to climb that fence and join them in their stupidity and just leave this stuff behind. Then I realize I don't want to live in ignorance like they do but would rather figure out what it is we can do to make things less destructive and more constructive. Jeez, I am all over the place today. Please forgive me for my path of thinking. I just can't seem to focus on what idea it was that I started the response with. I hate it when this happens.
Carrie

<font color=green>But the implicit and usually unconscious bargain we make with ourselves is that, yes, we want to be healed, we want to be made whole, we're willing to go some distance, but we're not willing to question the fundamental assumptions upon which our way of life has been built, both personally and societally.--Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft