Hi again, James!  This is a continuation of my previous message to you:

AH>  Well... many people regard addiction as either a disease
AH>  or a choice. I suspect your intuition is advising you to
AH>  keep digging below the surface.  :-)

JB>  Still shovelling. (...As I hoard more hardwood flooring.


          I think we're on more or less the same page there.  Awhile ago I was
waiting for an appointment with our GP when one of the other patients, a grey-
haired man with a cane, started chatting with the receptionist.  I noticed him
out of the corner of my eye but didn't pay much attention until he told her he
was a drummer & he was planning to visit the "Ukrainian
boutique" (by which he
meant a charity resale shop nearby) after his appointment.  When he said that,
I thought "No... it can't be!"  AFAIK you weren't in Vancouver at
the time & I
guessed he was sixty or seventy.  But I just had to do a double-take....  :-))

          I had older parents, both of them raised on the prairies.  The
Great Depression left an indelible mark on them... and probably on me. 
When I was a kid I often heard maxims such as "waste not, want
not" and "one man's trash is another's treasure".  As I type
this message I am sitting at a table my father built for me when I was
twelve years old.  I must also confess I save string & rubber bands
& other stuff which many people consider to be useless junk until they
need it.  Then they either shell out money to replace what they discarded
earlier... or come to me!  Some of them return the favour by giving us the
old furniture & appliances which their favourite charities don't want
because they aren't good enough for the poor folk nowadays, although they
don't have a mark on them & still do precisely what they were designed
to do.  Our friends don't have to pay somebody to haul their castoffs to
the dump & I get at least a few more years of useful life out of them. 
I wouldn't want to resort to the hard- core penny-pinching my parents did. 
But I appreciate what they taught me, and I'm glad to know there are folks
who understand where I'm coming from.

          Sounds to me as if you've done a great job of remodelling your
house with stuff you got for next to nothing because other people didn't
want it any more.  So you make mistakes now & then... I do too.  When
we were cleaning out my parents' place I gave away a bunch of plastic
flowers because I didn't know they might fetch quite a good price at
auction in Calgary.  But that's nothing compared to what I heard from my
father many years ago.  One of his co-workers was cleaning out his
grandmother's house & didn't understand why she kept "all those
jam jars".  I can well imagine the exasperated tone of voice. 
Sometimes people say such things when in reality they don't want to know. 
Maybe the old gal was a bit deranged... maybe she knew something he didn't.
 I don't suppose he felt very happy, at any rate, when my father asked for
a few more details & then informed him he'd just thrown away $14,000 in
today's money.  Some people may think we're nuts.  OTOH, they may not have
all the answers either....  ;-)



AH>  I reckon this guy was examining bodies.  In my experience
AH>  the medical literature doesn't usually pay much attention
AH>  to what's going on in people's minds.

JB>  I think the doctors - as a whole - are much more admissive.
JB>  True, "emotions" is likely not found too many times in the
JB>  text books, however.


          Agreed.  Prednisone, for example, has certain mood-altering
effects. These effects are well recognized among experienced oncology
nurses.  They are also well recognized by many of the friends, family
members, and neighbours of those who use it.  I imagine doctors - as a
whole - are probably aware of such effects.  But according to the medical
textbooks I've read these effects don't really matter because they're not
life-threatening & because anyone who reacts in such a way must have
been unbalanced to begin with.  I've lost count of how many people I know
who reacted essentially the same way.  It's as if they have just been given
a shot of adrenaline.  A few weeks ago we visited a friend who was taking
it for her allergies.  We figured that out long before she told us. IMHO
she's quite sane under normal circumstances... like all the others.  When
she's hyperactive & can't sleep or when a neighbour is unusually
argumentative it may not matter very much in the grand scheme of things. 
But sometimes it's adding insult to injury.  If my three-year-old has a
life-threatening illness, and others believe I'm a bad mommy because I
can't get her to sleep at 7:00 PM as all good mommies should, they may find
me rather argumentative too....  ;-)



JB>  The first time I heard, "Mind - body - spirit - emotions"
JB>  I was lax at the first three words, then, "Emotions? Vas
JB>  ist das, 'Emotions'?" 


          Uh-huh.  Emotions *can* make people sick & those who spew
negativity may be endangering your health.  But a word to the wise is
sufficient....  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+