Shrinking Away Survived the war, but was having trouble surviving the peace, couldn't sleep more than two hours was scared to be without a gun. Nightmares, daymares guilt and remorse wanted to stay drunk all the time. 1966 and the V.A. said Vietnam wasn't a war. They couldn't help, but did give me a copy of the yellow pages. Picked a shrink off the list. 50 bucks an hour, I was making 125 a week. Spent six sessions establishing rapport, heard about his military life, his homosexuality, his fights with his mother and anything else he wanted to talk about. At this rate, we would have got to me in 1999. Gave up on that shrink couldn't afford him and he wasn't doing me any good. Six weeks later my shrink killed himself. Great. Not only guilt about the war but new guilt about my dead shrink. If only I had a better job, I could have kept on seeing him. I thought we were making real progress, maybe in another six sessions, I could have helped him. I realized then that surviving the peace was up to me. Jim Northrup