Laura Belson

High School Zen Laura Belson

I thought for years that marijuana had solved all my problems. I was continuously stoned, continuously happy, and then it stopped working. Happiness was replaced by anxiety and paranoia. Nine years in AA solved the pot problem, but I wanted more. I wanted to be happy all the time like I had been on pot, and it took a few more years, but eventually I got there. Life got so much easier and happier that now it's hard to believe how miserable I once was, except that I see other people still struggling like I did. They remind me of how lucky I am in having had help along the way, and I would like to make it easier for them, too, if I can. What eventually worked for me was a combination of Eastern Philosophy and brain science, but it took a lot of cutting and pasting to make them fit together the way I thought they should; years of reading, writing, thinking--wondering if anything coherent would ever come out of it. I had posted the early chapters of this book on my web site when Eve's 17-year-old cousin, Laura, came from the East Coast to visit us for a week. Eve was showing her the wonders of Macintosh computers and in the process took her to the site, which she read at leisure when she got back home. She had questions, and by the time we were done emailing each other our output had become rather sizable. Our dialog in cyberspace ended up on the web, too, and while the response has been gratifying, it is possible that people who might find the information useful have not found their way to it there; hence this book.