Several years ago, a friend of mine confessed to me an alcohol problem. Let me be clear: 1) I'm no priest, and 2) I'm not into forgiveness.

This friend was not requesting my intervention. No. The realisation of his unpredictability was enough to shock him awake. "I don't like it" he told me. "I get mean, and I don't understand why."

This conversation took place over fourty years ago, yet I have never forgotten it.

Fast forward to this evening. I'm watching an episode of 'NYPD Blue' from the ninties. Dennis Krantz's character, Detective Sipowitz, is struggling with an alcohol addiction. After attending a Greek celebration, he gets sloshed, and turns into the consumate asshole. Krantz played the part extremely convincingly. Later I was reflecting on what it was that he had done that sold me on his rôle. Then it hit me.

I've known several people with alcohol problems, but I've never been able to identify with their struggle. Krantz epitomised the one feature that they all exhibit: self-loathing. They all tend to hate themselves so much, they destroy anything that pops up in their lives that is remotely positive. And in this, they insure their own failure.

My friend from fourty years ago quit drinking, cold turkey. So far as I know, he never had another drink. He afterwards began trading penny stock, in which he was surprisingly successful. Last time I saw him, he was driving a new BMW. He's probably worth over a million dollars now.

My friend could have just as easily become a penniless drunk, contributing nothing whatsoever to society. It all boils down to individual choices. Action or inaction. It isn't rocket science.

Back to NYPD Blue. Later on, in the same episode, an individual who had admitted to murder resigned himself to a lifetime in prison. The attorney responded, "We're all going to die. That's no reason to camp out in the cemetery."

Truth. The writer of this line should have received a bonus.

Several years ago, I taught my son the importance of taking the proper turns in life. Everything depends on your direction. Turn left, and you enter a completely different reality. Turn right, and the same rule applies. Fate is not arbitrary, and nothing is predestined. I don't give a damn what the Bible states. The Bible was written by a bunch of superstitious Jews.

We decide our own future.

We are our own Creator after our feet hit the ground. Feel free to comment below, but this is my final answer, and I'll argue it to the death. The idea of God is our tendency to pack our problems off on 'predestination' so that we are free of guilt. Our notion of 'forgiveness' is of our own design.

No. We're guilty of everything we've ever done, and we're going to take that baggage with us into the next world.

I don't care what you believe. This is what I believe. Just so we're clear. If you realise that you'll wear all of your lies into the next world, perhaps you'll stop lying to yourself as well as everybody around you for the sake of appearances.

My belief is much less forgiving. It lays all of the blame squarely on my shoulders. Christianity is so popular because the very opposite applies. It wasn't about the way Jesus died. It was about the way he lived.

Choices. Decisions. You own them. You own your life. Grow up. Start right now. It's never too late, until it's too late.

Your salvation lies in yourself and your own decisions. I'm not denying a Creator. I'm just saying that if you carve the path, don't cry about it when you reach your destination.

Don't blame somebody else.

If you don't like your direction, change it.

Own your life.

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