Taking personal responsibility for your own sanity

 There are things that everyone can do to take an interest in their own sanity. For example, last night a relative had brought some Schnapps which is an alcohol drink back from Europe with her but it is very strong sort of like Vodka (and proof wise is similar). It is about 30 to 40 proof so very high alcohol content. I had a sip of some and I noticed it affected my brain chemistry. I was wondering why as I tried to go to sleep that I kept going into a place where I was having arguments with myself about whether choosing to have a pacemaker put in an staying alive was a good idea or not after a few sips of Schnapps.

Now, for people who might drink alcohol on a regular basis (I do not) this might seem like a silly thing I'm talking about. But, for me, this was serious until I realized that I had had a sip or two of Schnapps with my wife and daughter out of politeness and realized later this was too strong for me at age 73 and being somewhat allergic to alcohol anyway. So, I gave the rest of mine back. But, here I was in bed trying to go to sleep and dealing with this argument with myself over whether I should have stayed alive or allowed myself to die.

The basic argument went like this: It was good for my family that I'm still alive but not necessarily for me personally. And I felt upset by this thought and it wasn't until I realized that the alcohol was messing with my mind that I was finally relieved and not upset by all this.

So, what am I saying here? I guess what I'm saying here is that getting altered through alcohol or drugs isn't necessarily helpful to anyone during these times. At least it is counterproductive for me personally.

Life is weird enough without any of this. Besides I have to take around 7 medicines a day just to keep my body working now at 73 so I don't need anything else to throw off my balance too.

So, however you can maintain balance and sanity in your life you should do this because "These are the times (the last year) that Try men's souls" (and women's souls too) worldwide.

By God's Grace