How do you break a good addiction ?

ADDICTION = obsession, enslavement, fixation, enthrallment, mania, compulsion, craze, fetish, quirk, hangup, preoccupation

Not all bad words and I guess compulsion, preoccupation and obsession fit the best for my latest "addiction". I got it in Tucson and have been "hooked" ever since...hooked on identifying dogtags which belonged to Vietnam veterans. These dogtags are still being recovered in Vietnam and our friends at TOP (tour of peace) Vietnam Veterans have an "inventory" of 1100 of them waiting to be matched to the names of veterans killed in action, deceased since the war or in some cases still living.

I have taken on the challenge of identifying as many of these as possible. Being the wife of a Vietnam Veteran myself I can imagine how important and significant it is to return these to the veterans and their families.

While they are returned without any monetary obligations involved, I can also see this as a source of donations to TOP from grateful families...donations which could help to fund further humanitarian causes in Vietnam.

I guess that explains why I have become literally addicted to the search and the joy of locating the families. At home I can hardly resist the urge to turn the computer on and look for "just one more". I had committed to Jess Devaney at TOP that I would find one a week...10 by the end of the year...well I have found 8 now and it has just been a couple weeks.

Daughter, Cindy, has a heart big as mine and also the analytical mind it takes to find these (we both "think" in Excel spreadsheets and do logic puzzles all the time). She has jumped on the bandwagon and is helping also...what a team...hope Jess at TOP can keep up with the letter writing this all generates.

So, while I must obviously find some balance in my new obsession, I will continue with it and hope to do some good in the process.

An addict refusing to quit...