Chapter Four
Becky Gets a Phone Call From an Old Friend Who's Been Feeling Down and Needs Cheering Up

Not long after she left university, Becky got a lucky break when she approached a radio station and asked if she could do voluntary work, telling stories she'd read about in psychology books on a weekly psychology programme they had. She was accepted. She started telling stories related to whatever topic was being discussed on a programme.

People started writing in and asking for her advice about various problems they had, and sometimes she would answer their letters on a show.

Not long after she started at the station, she told a story on a programme discussing depression about how someone recovered from it. A couple of hours later, she got a phone call from a girl she'd known at university, Tina.

Becky Tells Tina an Amusing Story She Was Told By Someone At the Radio Station, and About a Funny Old Memory

First of all they told each other their news. Tina was interested to know what it was like at the radio station. Becky made her laugh, by telling her she'd been speaking to a journalist who'd told her he'd been out to do an interview with people on a farm, and he'd taken a microphone with furry padding on it to shield it from the wind so the wind wouldn't make a loud noise on it that would ruin the quality of the recording, and a dog tried to eat it! She said that perhaps the dog thought it was a little furry animal!

She said it reminded her of a time when someone had given her mum a budgie that had been injured and couldn't fly, and they used to let him hop around their kitchen. He used to squeak rather than chirp, and when someone's trainers squeaked on the floor, it sounded a bit like the noise he made. He might have thought they were other budgies, or just really wanted to investigate what was going on, because he always used to jump on a trainer that squeaked on the floor near him, or go up to it and investigate.

Becky asked Tina how things were going at the university, and Tina told her how some of the people she knew were getting on.

Becky Gives Tina a Bit of Advice About Easing Pain, and Trying to Stop Depression Getting Worse

Then Tina told Becky that the reason she'd phoned up was because she'd heard the show about depression that afternoon and had liked it. She confided to Becky that she'd struggled with depression herself a few times, and had been feeling down for a while, especially since she'd broken her ankle a few weeks earlier when she slipped on some late winter ice. A doctor had told her it might take months before the pain went away, and she'd been worrying it might stop her concentrating on her studies and even her exams later in the year. She asked Becky if she could give her some advice, since she seemed to know quite a bit about depression.

Becky asked her if she was taking painkillers, and she said she was, but that they didn't get rid of the pain altogether, and her doctor had said he wouldn't prescribe her anything stronger, because the stronger painkillers could be addictive.

Becky suggested she go to another doctor to ask for a second opinion about that. Then she said:

"If you can try and relax, it might ease the pain a bit, because when people's muscles are tense, if they're in pain, then the pain will feel worse because the muscles will be in more awkward positions because they're tense. When they relax, that's one thing that won't be adding to the pain, so it might feel a bit better.

"Also, if you can spend some time every day doing things you really enjoy, it might lift your spirits and help you not notice the pain so much; I heard about a study where a young man had to go into hospital for some kind of painful procedure that he needed regularly, and he usually hated it because it hurt quite a bit, but one day they gave him a computer game to play while they were doing it. They waited till he was absorbed in the game and his adrenaline had kicked in and he was enjoying himself, and then they did what they had to do, and afterwards he said it hadn't hurt nearly as much as usual. That might have been partly because he was distracted from the pain, and adrenaline helps people tolerate it too, whereas if people feel miserable about it and they're concentrating all their attention on it, it can feel worse.

"Maybe they'll do that study on a lot more people to see if a lot more of them don't feel as much pain while they're having fun and they've got their attention on other things. If they do find that, wouldn't it be good if they started giving people computer games to play as a matter of routine!"

Tina loved the idea of National Health Service computer games! She was feeling more cheerful already just thinking about it! Then Becky said,

"If there's any time when you notice that your pain hasn't been so bad for the past ten minutes or so, you could try to work out what you did around the time it calmed down; and if you think it was something you did that helped, you could plan to do it some more. And if it wasn't something you did, at least you can be more optimistic that the pain isn't there or at its worst all the time. The more often you notice it's not that bad or not there, the more optimistic you can be.

"As well as that, there are things people can do to try and calm the mind, which can lead to the body relaxing, which can sometimes lead to pain not feeling so bad, because at least it's no longer being made worse by tense muscles. You might be having thoughts about how you don't know how you'll be able to cope with all your work while you're in pain, but apart from trying to sort the pain out by going to see a doctor, relaxing your mind can help with your mood so it's easier to concentrate on work and things.

"You might think that any miserable thoughts you have are just a result of the way you're feeling because of what's happened so there's nothing you can do about them, but actually, people can control their thoughts to some extent, and that can stop their feelings getting so bad. Miserable thoughts can make feelings a lot worse, and then the worse feelings can make you think life must be even worse than you thought so you think worse things, and those things make you feel worse; so if you can stop yourself having miserable thoughts, your feelings likely won't get so bad.

"Say, just as an example, that you think, 'My life will be ruined and I'll never get anywhere if this carries on', - well apart from the fact that things might not be anywhere near that bad, so worrying about them won't be doing you any good, - every time you have a thought like that, it'll probably make you feel that little bit more depressed; and the depressed feelings will make your thoughts more gloomy, and then the gloomy thoughts will make you feel worse, and then the worse feelings will make you think that things must be even worse than you thought, so you'll start thinking worse things, and it could go on and on like that; so it'll be like a vicious cycle that makes you feel worse and worse and worse the longer it goes on.

"You can try to stop yourself thinking gloomy thoughts about things in the past that make you feel more miserable, as well as trying not to worry about the future, such as if you ever get annoyed with yourself for not being more careful on the ice, and keep telling yourself you should have known better, or anything like that. There isn't much point in doing that kind of thing, unless you're planning how to do things differently in future, since even if you could have done anything different, what's done is done, and it can't be undone. Bringing your mind back to what's going on right now in the present can stop thoughts like that, so the bad feelings they're creating subside, so you start feeling more relaxed.

"One thing you could do is to spend several minutes before you need to study or do some other important thing, or just if you notice you're feeling worse and worse, concentrating on something that's going on right then and there, even just maybe the sensation of your breath as you're breathing in and out. Or it could be a picture you're looking at, or just a word you keep repeating to yourself or something. Then when a worrying thought comes to mind, instead of concentrating on it or taking it seriously till you feel worse and worse, you could just imagine it flowing into your mind and then gently flowing out again, and away into oblivion. When you've done that for a few minutes, with whatever thoughts come into your mind, you'll probably feel calmer and less depressed, because you'll just be getting rid of all the thoughts that were upsetting you instead of getting worked up by them. So you'll be in a better mood to concentrate on what you really want to do."

Tina thought about what Becky was saying, and then thanked her for her advice and said she'd try it. She said she'd started feeling more optimistic already, especially since it had just occurred to her that even if her pain did last months and months like the doctor said it might, it would probably get less and less painful over time, so that by the time her exams came around, it would be much easier to concentrate on her work than it had been up till then.

Becky and Tina Have a Laugh

They chatted some more about what they'd been up to since they last met, and the conversation became more light-hearted for a while.

Becky said she'd found some funny quotes about pessimism and optimism on the Internet. One went: "Both optimists and pessimists contribute to the society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute."

Tina liked that quote, and Becky told her another one: "An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves."

Tina laughed, and asked Becky if she had any more quotes. She said,

"Here's one: 'The nice part about being a pessimist is that you're always being either proved right or pleasantly surprised.'

"And what about this? 'An optimist might see a light where there isn't one, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?'"

Tina chuckled and said, "I know a quote that I think is quite famous: 'The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears that's true.'"

Becky said she could think of another quote too: "In the long run, the pessimist may be proven right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip."

Tina grinned. Then she said, "There's a girl who lives just a few doors down from me in my hall of residence who reminds me of you; she likes to come up with daft ideas just for fun. There's another student who lives in our block who studies physics. She likes to tease him sometimes. He's very intelligent, but he doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humour at all, and he gets impatient really easily. He reminds me of Nicholas - you know, that militant atheist who used to try to convert us to atheism in the chaplaincy. He's a militant atheist too. He's probably got a heart of gold somewhere, because if anyone mentions anything about someone abusing someone else, he'll get angry and say he'd like to beat them up.

"The thing is though, he gets angry really easily at other times too. He might do some great work for humanity one day; but it might be better if he does it all alone in a lab somewhere instead of where he has to work with people, because he's always getting annoyed if he thinks people are saying things that don't sound that intelligent or if they disagree with him.

"Anyway, this girl on our corridor, Karen, she asked him some daft questions for fun, before she realised how easily he got angry. We thought they were amusing; but he didn't.

"One thing he often gets heated about, and she just thinks is amusing, is that apparently in America, there's a great big argument going on all the time between people who think evolution should be taught in science lessons in schools, and people who don't believe in it and think people and animals were designed by God, and that that should be taught in schools instead, or that at least people should be taught that things were intelligently designed by something, even if God isn't specifically mentioned. He goes on about it quite a bit, and it gave her some daft ideas for questions to ask him just for fun.

"So one day, she teased him, in the lounge in our block, when quite a few of us were there. I'll tell you how the conversation went as best as I remember it. She said, 'Do you think it's possible that the sun could evolve not to give people sunburn in future?'

"Jeremy, the physics student, said, 'No, only living things can evolve.'

"Karen said, 'But I think the sun might be alive. At least, it reminds me a lot of someone I know, who's nice to your face, but then later you discover they've said bitchy things about you behind your back, and when someone tells you about them, it kind of stings mentally. It's a bit like the way the sun seems to be all warm and welcoming and can cheer people up, only for them to realise later that it's burned them, when they start feeling sore!'

"Jeremy said, 'If you ate too much and got a stomach ache, you wouldn't start wondering if your food was alive, would you! Especially since you'd just chewed it to bits!'

"Karen said, 'That's true. But if none of the sun's alive so it can't evolve itself, I wonder if it would be possible for scientists to invent spaceships they could fly there in and then evolve it themselves, say by spraying it with tons and tons of sun cream so its radiation couldn't get through it ever again, but it would still be nice and warm for people. If that happened, the scientists could say the sun evolved with their help. I mean, it must be possible for dead things to evolve in combination with things that are alive if humans evolved, because don't scientists say people's hair and nails are really dead, or something like that? So if humans could evolve even though we're part-dead, then if live scientists could connect with the dead sun to evolve the sun not to burn people by spraying tons of sun cream on it, then the sun would have evolved, and its evolution would have been intelligently designed.

"'And if scientists realise they've managed to evolve something by intelligent design, they might not mind intelligent design being taught in schools any more, because they'll know it can happen after all. So all these big arguments in America about whether it should be taught in schools will die down. Won't that be good? We'll all benefit! Actually, don't scientists evolve things by intelligent design already? You know, like the way they put fluoride in water so it'll evolve into better water that helps people prevent tooth decay? So scientists could already start telling people they've realised intelligent design can happen after all, and not mind it being taught in evolution lessons in schools any more.'

"Jeremy said with a little bit of impatience in his voice, 'Carry on dreaming if you like, but it's obvious you don't have even an elementary grasp of science!'

"Karen said, 'Well I can't help it; I'm an arts student. But I reckon I need to know this stuff. What if scientists have a go at fitting a massive greenhouse around the sun? That way, even less radiation will be able to get out to harm us; and if they spray trillions of tons of sun cream on the sun too to keep even more radiation in, that'll make it evolve to emit less radiation, like I said it would; and just as plants evolve more quickly in a greenhouse ... I mean grow more quickly, then maybe the sun would evolve even more quickly because of the greenhouse so it would become even less harmful.'

"Jeremy got really impatient and banged his fist on the table, saying, 'You clearly know nothing about science! Stop wasting my time with this nonsense!'

"All the rest of us thought it was amusing; but he didn't. Karen should have just apologised for disturbing him and left him alone. But she said,

"'Actually, talking of time, I sometimes wonder if that's alive too. I wonder if time's been intelligently designed. It seems to do intelligent things sometimes, although not very nice ones. I wonder who intelligently designed time. I wonder if it was ancient scientists, who lived before time existed. Or do you think time evolved, like an animal? I think it behaves like an animal sometimes. Well actually it behaves more like a mean human.'

"Jeremy said angrily, 'Listen, are you going to say anything interesting, or do I have to walk out of here to get away from your mindless chatter?'

"I'm surprised Karen didn't just leave him alone. It might have been kinder. But she said, 'But this isn't mindless! I'm wondering if you can answer a few questions for me: One is whether there's a special law of physics that can explain why time goes much faster than expected a lot of the time, so you can end up being late for things when you thought you had time to spare. Is time intelligently designed to have human traits of malice and mischievousness so it can trick people into thinking it's going slower than it really is, or it can suddenly whizz on a few minutes when people aren't watching? Can it go faster in some places than in others simultaneously, which could explain why some people say time's dragged, while other people on the same day can say it's whizzed by?

"'Some people say time goes more quickly as they get older. How does time know how old you are? Is there a special law of physics that explains how it can know people's ages? And why is time ageist? I think time must have been intelligently designed, even if ageism isn't all that intelligent. ... Or maybe it is sometimes, for all I know. But I wonder if scientists in combination with lawyers could devise a way to materialise time and take it to court for discrimination against old people. I wonder what a case like that would be like to sit in on. What kind of punishment do you think would be appropriate for it?

"'Anyway, if time really was intelligently designed, it must prove intelligent design's true and evolution's false.'

"Jeremy was going red in the face, probably with anger. But it didn't put Karen off. She said, 'The thing is that if time is intelligent, I wonder if it can understand English. If it can, I wonder if it would get ashamed and start behaving itself and going at the pace it's supposed to if someone gave it a really good telling off. Have scientists tried it and done any research into whether it ever works?'

"Jeremy said sternly, 'I think you're on another planet!'

"Karen said, 'I wonder if time plays havoc with other planets as well as with people on earth. Its behaviour bothers me, because I'm sure it speeds up just out of mischievousness in my room sometimes so I can't get as much work done as I should. But I wonder if it does that for everyone. I wish scientists could do some research into how to control this naughty thing called Time so we could make it do what we want, so we could stop it playing tricks on us! I'd love to be able to slow it down so days could last twice as long as they do at the moment. I think it speeds up when I'm not watching! I get a bit upset sometimes when I suddenly realise it's a lot later than I thought it was! I think some scientist really needs to bring time under control!

"'And I think time even goes backwards sometimes. I mean, I sometimes read part of a book for my course, and then realise not long afterwards that I can't remember what it says. Maybe it's because time's gone bac to before I read it.

"'But even if it can't do that, I bet people revising for exams would like to use that excuse, so maybe if some scientists claimed it did, people who would want to use it would be pleased. Maybe they could say they're sure time in their house went back a week so it was as if their memory of what they've just revised got wiped out, but since time in the rest of the world still moved on as normal, they still had their exam at the same time, so they still had to go then, but it meant their mind kept going blank and they found they didn't know anything and failed. Maybe they'd be allowed to retake their exams if they used that excuse.'

"Jeremy had at least been patient enough to listen without interrupting all the while Karen was talking. But when she'd finished, he said sternly, 'You're living in a fantasy land! I might fail my own course if I spend too much time listening to nutty nonsense like this! Since I can't study in peace in here, I'm going to my room!'

"He picked up his books and stormed off.

"While the conversation was going on, me and the others listening had been doing our best to stifle the urge to laugh; but when he left, we all couldn't help bursting into a fit of the giggles!

"There was another day when Karen came into the lounge and said to Jeremy, 'Do you think chocolate bars might evolve if they're around for long enough? It would be good if they evolved to get bigger! And just imagine if they sucked on hallucinogenic toads so they evolved to have drugs in them! It would become illegal for anyone under 18 to buy chocolate! And there would be a new offence of driving under the influence of chocolate! But then, I don't know if anyone would dare eat chocolate any more anyway; I mean, if chocolate could suck drugs out of hallucinogenic toads, it would mean chocolate bars would have little mouths, and they might suck on humans while they were trying to eat them! So you'd be trying to eat it, while it was trying to eat you! Would you dare eat it if it did that?'

"We all felt like laughing except Jeremy. He didn't think it was funny at all. He said, 'Why do I have to put up with twaddle like this when I come in here? You're obviously not acquainted with even the basics of science! Go and read a few of the science books you probably should have read at school when you were 12!'

"Karen said, 'Well I might do that. But what if I turn out to know more about evolution than you think? I mean, I've got this gut feeling that's telling me you yourself are slowly evolving, into a pig!'

"Jeremy didn't seem to realise he was being insulted. He took what she said deadly seriously and said sternly, 'Gut feelings are often unreliable! You should learn about the scientific method!'

"Karen said, 'OK, sorry,' and walked off."

Becky had been grinning while Tina was speaking. But then she said, "It's interesting that he takes everything so seriously. I wonder why."

Tina said she didn't know. They discussed possible causes for a little while, such as pondering on whether he might be a little bit autistic so he didn't find it so easy to tell when people were only pretending to be serious, or whether he might be stressed and under a lot of pressure to work, so he got more annoyed than usual when he was disturbed.

Tina said, "I don't even understand why he comes into the lounge to do his work if he doesn't want to be disturbed though. I suppose I could ask him, but he's a bit scary really; he might think it's a stupid question, for some reason, and tell me I'm silly to ask it."

Becky laughed and said, "Well then you could ask him to give you scientific evidence for why it really is a silly question."

Tina sniggered. She said, "It is strange though, that he should keep coming into the lounge when he wants peace and quiet. Maybe he's worried he'll miss out on something if he doesn't come in."

Becky giggled and said, "Yeah, maybe he sits there in the hope that someone will pass cakes around or something; or maybe he thinks someone might announce that there's a party on somewhere and he doesn't want to miss out on hearing about it."

Tina said, "Maybe, but he doesn't seem to be the partying type. I think he does like cake though. I don't know if he likes it enough to be willing to put up with being disturbed while he's trying to work though. And after all, if he was that keen on it, he could always buy his own."

They both giggled.

Becky said, "My auntie Diana probably wouldn't get on with Jeremy. She likes to make up jokes about evolution. She thinks it's a laugh to think of humans evolving from things like amoebas, because she thinks it sounds like such a zany idea. She said she's heard that In America there's this heated debate about whether evolution should be taught in schools, and there are some people called creationists who think school kids should be taught that everything alive was designed by an intelligent being instead of evolving, and people who believe in evolution get angry about that."

Tina said, "Tell me one of her jokes."

Becky said, "Allright. Here's one she told me recently, as best as I remember it:

"A man went for therapy for a phobia of spiders. The therapist wasn't very helpful; he said he was an evolutionary psychologist, who believed fears of spiders came about because millions of years ago, monkeys were scared of them and the fear was passed down the generations. He said that since the man's fear originated millions of years ago, all psychologists who could get to the root of his problem and thus cure it for him were long, long dead. So he said the man would have to put up with it.

"I suggested to the man that he go to a therapist who believed in intelligent design instead. But he said he was scared the psychologist would say spiders were God's creation so how dare he be scared of something created by God. I tried to reassure him by pointing out that creationism teaches that lions are created by God, but no one in their right mind would suggest people shouldn't be scared of those.

"So the man went to a creationist psychologist. He was a bit scared to say what his problem was straightaway, so he shyly asked, 'If I tell you I'm scared of lions, will you say there's anything wrong with that?'

"The psychologist assumed the man must be so scared of lions it was badly affecting his life. So he said, 'There are ways I could help you over a fear of lions. For instance, we could go to the zoo, and you can get gradually closer to a lion till you can tolerate being just on the other side of its cage and you're not scared.'

"The man remembered what I'd said about how no one in their right mind would suggest people shouldn't be scared of lions. He came home, and said, 'Now I know people who believe in evolution have been right about creationists all along - creationists are crazy!'"

Tina tittered.

Becky and Tina Talk About Daft-Sounding Theories, Confessions, and Good Ideas

Becky said seriously, "Mind you, evolution and that kind of thing isn't just a joke. There's a lot about evolutionary biology that's worth knowing, such as about how germs can change over time, so you can be vaccinated against a disease, and then your immune system will protect you against it for a while, but over time, the germs that cause it can change in certain ways, so eventually your immune system can stop recognising them for what they are, so you can be in danger of getting it again, so you need a top-up vaccine.

"But you do get theories that just sound daft. I mean, when I was still at university, we had a guest speaker one day, who they said had been studying evolutionary psychology. They said he used to be an alcoholic, but he'd managed to stay sober for ages, and he was going to talk about alternative options to Alcoholics Anonymous that alcoholics might find a lot more effective. But in the end, he hardly said anything about them! I didn't think his talk was very good at all really. I don't know why they invited him to speak. Mind you, some of our tutors weren't very good, so maybe one of those invited him.

"But he said daft things like, 'The reason people become alcoholics is because millions of years ago, when we were all living in the jungle, the pre-human whatsits that were most likely to survive would have been the ones with a nose for alcohol, because alcohol is formed naturally in fruit by yeast landing on it and reacting with it to form alcohol, which makes fruit take longer to go rotten, so whatsits with a taste for alcohol would have been able to sniff out the fruit that wasn't rotten better, so they'd have got to eat more, so they were the ones most likely to live and pass their alcohol-sniffing and craving genes down to humans."

Tina chuckled and said, "Did he really say that?"

Becky said, "Well, something like it anyway. He didn't use the word whatsits; I can't remember what word he used; and some of what he said might be true; but he made it sound as if only beings who somehow had the ability to sniff out alcohol would have got to eat enough fruit, as if all other beings would have been bound to be too stupid to hunt for food.

"Actually, he said that when he used to drink, he'd use all kinds of excuses for drinking, blaming other people. Well it sounds as if he's just swapped one set of excuses for another! Now he blames the clever pre-human whatsits for the alcohol problem he used to have. Still, at least there doesn't seem to be any harm in the excuses he uses nowadays! He said he used to keep criticising his family, telling them that if only they'd stop being annoying, he wouldn't have to drink so much; but really he drank so much because he wanted to. He would actually Look for reasons to get angry, such as the television being on too loud, or the dinner not being ready, and that kind of thing, and he'd say it was all his family's fault that he drank, and that if they'd only do more things right, he wouldn't feel as if he needed to drink; but really he just blamed them because then he knew he wouldn't have to feel guilty about drinking. It sounds as if he's still finding reasons not to feel guilty about having drunk so much now."

Tina said, "aww, his poor kids! Maybe they believed all that stuff so they went around thinking it really was their fault! And I wonder if his wife thought that too! And I wonder if lots of alcoholics try to blame their families for them drinking, criticising them so they won't have to feel guilty about drinking! Hmmm! If they do do that, it's funny how they never seem to feel guilty about doing all the unfair criticising they do!"

Becky said, "Yeah! I don't know if the kids of the man I heard give that speech really did end up thinking his drinking was their fault; he didn't say. But anyway, he's probably told them since that it wasn't really their fault, so at least that's something. But now he seems to think there are even weirder reasons why he drank, and why other alcoholics do!

"Actually, what he said reminds me of something I read at university, about a woman who would always blame her husband for all the problems in her marriage, but then she realised that the reason she was doing it was partly so she wouldn't have to take on any responsibility for them herself, and feel any guilt about the fact that the marriage was failing, and start thinking she needed to make an effort to do things to change.

"And actually, that reminds me of something I read on an Internet forum, where someone said she used to be depressed, and her boyfriend used to give her tips on little things she could do to help herself start to climb out of depression, but she never did any of them, and she realised in the end that that was because she much preferred to think of herself as a helpless victim of other people's nasty behaviour than as someone who could actually do something about it, because if she started realising she had the power to change things, she'd start thinking she'd just been a feckless pathetic sad loser all the time she was just moping around feeling bad about her life but not doing anything to change things. ... I mean, I'm not saying I think maybe everyone who's depressed is like that; I mean, I don't suppose you are."

Tina giggled and said sarcastically, "gee, thanks for the encouragement!"

Then she said seriously, "Actually it's interesting, isn't it: You would have thought someone would be grateful for advice on how they could change. You just wouldn't expect them to actually Prefer to think of themselves as a helpless victim who couldn't do anything about their problems!"

Becky said, "No. It is interesting! It reminds me of what someone told a group of us at university once, about a man who'd lived in China for years, who was asked to advise a couple of companies who ran hotels on how they could make them more appealing to Western visitors.

"He said he did a lot of research and then advised them. But the first hotel owners rejected all his advice. He didn't think it was because it was no good, but he reckoned it was because he'd actually told them what to do, and in their culture, it was considered dishonourable for company owners to do things they'd been told to do, at least by foreigners or subordinates, because they were the ones who were expected to know best or something. He said it wouldn't have looked so bad even if they'd continued losing money as it would have done if they'd started making more money but it looked to people as if they'd only started doing that because they'd done what they were told to do by an outsider, because doing that would mean it was obvious that all the time before when they'd been losing money, it would have been because they'd been doing things that were less efficient. They preferred to carry on doing things not very well than to start doing them better, when that would make it obvious they must have been doing them not so well before."

Tina said, "That sounds weird! Why did they employ the man in the first place if it would be dishonourable for them to take his advice! It doesn't seem to make sense!"

Becky said, "No, it doesn't to me either really. But anyway, with the second hotel owners, he changed his tactics, and instead of telling them what to do, he actually passed on exactly the same advice, but he made it look as if it was them who were coming up with the ideas, by asking them questions that had obvious answers, like, 'Here are a range of ideas. Which do you think are the best ones?' And he'd subtly guide them to suggesting the ones he thought were best. So in the end they did what he thought was best. They had a celebration where they invited lots of people when they started using the ideas, and they got the glory for them, which is what they wanted.

"So maybe some other people who don't seem to want to change might decide they do after all if people ask them questions a bit like that, in the hope that they'll make them think and decide for themselves that certain improvements would be good for them, instead of giving them advice. Actually one treatment for alcoholism is motivational interviewing, where someone gets a person to think through for themselves all the ways their lives might improve if they stopped drinking, I think."

Tina said, "Did that recovering alcoholic who talked in your psychology class tell you about that?"

Becky said, "No. Well, I think he might have just mentioned it, but didn't say anything about it. I didn't think he said much of any worth at all, unfortunately!

"He said some things that just didn't make sense. I told you about one, didn't I. Another thing he said was that the reason religion is so common is because millions of years ago, pre-human whatsits who believed there were undetectable outside forces with them were more likely to survive, because, say, if a pre-human whatever-we-were-supposed-to-be-in-those-days - that's a name I just made up, by the way - I can't remember what he called us - but anyway, he said that if one of them heard a twig snap behind them, all those who thought, 'Oh no it might be a lion!' and immediately ran, would be more likely to survive if it really was one than those who didn't think it was anything to worry about.

"Well hang on, that might just possibly explain why the habit of jumping at loud noises got passed down the generations or something, although I suspect it's quite a bit more complicated than that; but just what relevance it was supposed to have to belief in God being passed down the generations, goodness knows, as if pre-people who heard a twig snap behind them might think it was a scary spirit lion and that was the reason to run, rather than thinking it might actually be a real one who might be about to eat them!

"In fact, it would make a lot more sense the opposite way round, if he'd said the whatsits that weren't religious were more likely to survive and pass their non-religious whatsit genes down to following generations, because religious whatsits that were calm when they heard a twig snap behind them because they had confidence that whatsit-God would protect them, or they felt blissed-out because they thought it might be whatsit-God walking with them, would be more likely to get eaten, ... apart from the fact that the man was actually trying to explain why there's so much religion in the world, so for him to say the non-religious whatsits would have been more likely to survive and pass down their non-religious whatsit genes would have defeated the whole object!"

Tina giggled and said, "Well unless you're remembering some things wrongly, the way you're describing it, it sounds as if that speaker was a bit of a nutter!"

Becky said, "Well, I don't know about that, but I did get the impression he wasn't very bright. Maybe it's because alcohol killed some of his brain cells. I mean, one thing he said was that alcohol was actually made illegal in America in the early 1930s or something, but he said the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous both drank during that time so that just proved that the policy didn't work. I mean really! The policy might not have done any good, but you can't just take two people's behaviour as proof that an entire government policy doesn't work! You know, I'd say a government would need a bit more evidence than that before flinging it out the window!"

Tina chuckled.

Becky carried on, "Mind you, I did get something out of the lecture that man gave us, even if it was only a curiosity to look on the Internet to find information about the alcohol treatments that some people claim work better than Alcoholics Anonymous - you know, the kind of thing we were told he was going to tell us but he hardly did at all. When I did look on the Internet, I read one or two articles about how nowadays, there are medications that can reduce cravings, and therapies that are more scientific than what Alcoholics Anonymous do, that are more effective at actually motivating people to want to give up drinking. One article said treating other problems alcoholics might have at the same time as their alcoholism, like depression and anxiety, can help them manage to give up the drink too."

Tina said sarcastically, "Gosh, who'd have thunk it, eh?"

Becky said, "Yeah I know; but the article was saying that traditional alcohol treatments don't do that. And it said there's a common belief that alcoholics will only change when their alcoholism gets so bad their life will be such a misery if they don't change that they won't be able to tolerate it, and that they just can't control their drinking, but that only a minority of alcoholics are really that bad.

"And one article said there are some very expensive rehabilitation clinics, but they have a very low success rate, and people tend to think that's because the people who go there just haven't got the will to stay sober after they leave or something, but actually the treatments themselves aren't nearly as good as they could be if they made use of the latest scientific findings to treat people. I think it's worth anyone who's interested looking up the latest scientific information about the best treatments for alcoholism on the Internet."

Tina said she thought that was interesting.

Tina was feeling far more cheerful by the end of the call than she had been at the beginning. They said goodbye, and Tina said she'd look forward to more of what Becky had to say on the psychology programmes on the radio.