Thank you all so much! Your responses make me so very, very happy! We have been through so much together and, as I have often felt and said, those with substance dependencies (I dislike other terms for it) are among the nicest, kindest people I have ever known. No doubt like me, you regret the past, feel shame, are depressed at times. But you make it all happier and now for some reason, perhaps because death may come for me in a few years, I am beginning to see more sunlight. Life has meaning. I sense that we have been sent to do something here and that is enough, leave it a little better when we go. Enough even if the so called "self" does not survive. After all, if nothing remains of us, there is no one, nothing, to suffer.
Thanks again.
Bill