Regarding my use of alcohol which I wrote of several months ago, I have found something I greatly....

Regarding  my use of alcohol which I wrote of several months ago, I have found something I greatly..... prefer, these recent 4 or 6 weeks. Unlike the prior six months where I was hitting two or four beers each night. But like the prior 17 years. For me, anything I depend on externally for positive, joyful, life, I see it as a crutch. Who wants to go mountain climbing with a crutch if they can figure out how to do it without a crutch? During the six months I allowed myself the crutch, I was under tremendous psychological and physical stress, and I was unable to see how to conduct my existence as positively without the crutch as with. But it remained a challenge for me. 4 or 6 weeks ago the solution, the Improvement, the more Joyful Way to be presented itself to me. It is not the case that the conditions of psychological stress, the horrors in the world, went away, they have intensified. What presented itself to me was, James, intensify your focus on using every breath to try and channel good in the world. That was it. I did. I do. And those times when the stress would have made me consider the crutch of alcohol, I have found the option of using those breaths to try and channel a little bit more good into the world, I have found that clearly preferable, more joyful, then the solution of alcohol, which has once again lost all my interest. LOL, it is true that now at the time I would be having a beer before going to bed, I do nurse a hot chocolate.