I just came to an extremely depressing realization: music is my opiate of choice. I have been condemning my computer for wasting my time, when my computer is merely a friend that always has a supply of drugs at hand. He is not the devil, and it is not his fault that I am hopelessly addicted to the PASSIVE action of music-listening. I avoid the drug that is television and the drugs that are psycho-stimulants and I even usually avoid that legal depressant that we all feel is necessary whenever several people come together for a good time. But I self-medicate myself with that beautiful thing that is a hard-drive full of music (of course I own all of these cds, officer), and that sole source of destracting relaxation while driving, the radio. I can't write while I'm listening to music, because the music interferes with the words in my brain so that they can't come out properly. Like, we have cordless headphones for the tv, but they're on a channel too close to the cordless phone, and so using the headphones causes the phone to mess up (the music has a much stronger signal than the phone base). The music has a much stronger hold on my brain through the listening circuits than my thoughts do on the thinking circuit. I sometimes wish I were blind so I would learn to think about my surroundings, or deaf so I wouldn't be distracted from the words in my head. [laughs] of course, exploding my ears with REALLY LOUD MUSIC or blinding myself by LOOKING AT THE SUN TOO LONG are not really options I'd care to consider, so I'm stuck with all these freakin' distracting senses. I'm so addicted to music that, when I'm not listening to music, I prefer to attempt to recall songs and sing them, rather than some more creative outlet like writing my own songs or stories or poems or ANYTHING of my own. Like the neurons have been fried from too much drug use. And I know the solution. Silence. Forced silence. Quit cold turkey. The only things I'll hear are voices of people talking to me or around me. But it's so scary. And so hard. I feel like such a coward. Can I ask anyone for help? Is there such a thing as AA for music addicts? Do I get a program sponsor who I can call when I'm close to breaking down and turning my speakers back on? Will my friend the cpu be too much of a temptation, or can I still be friends with the source of my would-be creative euthanasia?