Self-reliance: a Skeptic's Story

I was a happy-go-lucky child. I had a loving family and I always tried to live up to the values I was taught by my parents. But, by the time I was in my teens and early twenties, I had acquired a very pessimistic view toward life. I didn't realize that I was pessimistic--I just thought that the reality was that life sucked. My alcoholism became clearly evident in my late twenties. Since alcohol is a depressant, it undoubtedly added to my dark view of life. As I look back, I can see that mild depression was bothering me by the time I was in my thirties (I'm seventy-one now), but I brushed it off.