I had completely forgotten the gift exchange. I had published a morose, negative description of myself and was later to have the feeling confirmed by an attack of contact dermatitis, that left my right forearm blistered and bleeding. Nice Christmas! So I opened the little package and found the following items: A blue ray copy of the film Wall E. Most appropriate because I had complained about sitting around too much and the film is about a culture that has evolved into doing only that. Next was a nice letter, explaining that the sender felt somewhat at a loss to try and find me a gift because it sounded like my life was throwing me some curves. He made some positive suggestions and even did some research on local groups that might spark an atheist, photographer's interest. The third item was three little colored throat lozenges, which I thought strange until I read the letter. They were medicinal but the main ingredient was a form of Cannabis Sativa available to certain people that need a boost without smoking. So I tried those out and discovered that I am more dependent on pain medication than I thought I was. So now I'm trying to wean myself off of them but it's slow going. You can't just quit, the body won't hear of it and without the level of medication I was taking, the body goes into a sort of panic mode. I have headaches and feel blurry but if I hadn't had the time to step back and examine what was happening to me, I would have continued doing what I was doing. So just those three lozenges and a very polite, even gentile letter have helped me to see a way through. It won't be easy, I know there will be a physical rebellion. I have been taking pain meds for years and finding ways to supplement or enhance their effect by taking other drugs. Over time, however, the pain response is heightened and it takes ever increasing doses of medication to ward off pain. A doctor recently told me to begin the process of weaning myself off opiates and thanks to a perfect stranger, the process has begun. Although only three days into it, I have eliminated about 30% of the various combinations of drugs that I was ingesting and have made a plan to continue until the 14th, when the amount of opiate will be just one pain pill. At that point I will stop completely and use opiates for extreme pain. Cross your fingers.