I have a difficult time evaluating somebody else's concept of personal honor, much less how another person chooses to behave in regard to it. I can however, speak to my own. When I used drugs I lied about it. My rationalization was that the drugs should be legal. Thus, the immorality of lying was not mine but the system of laws that oppressed me.

I haven't indulged in that crap in approaching 30 years. I still think as I did then, that drug use is a personal decision on par with abortion and suicide. But as some writer or philosopher once said, a family is society's hostage to the future. I have intentionally stopped behaviors that might endanger my family -- getting busted for dope is exactly that kind of behavior. And since dope use is a choice, I choose not to indulge.

Having known a few people who had severe back pain (and having a stenosis between C-6 & C7 myself and a bottle of hydrocodone in my meds cabinet waiting for the pain), I fully understand how one could become habituated or dependent on drugs for pain relief if not for stimulation of the pleasure center.

Combine the chronic pain with the demand of a stressful job and a practically unlimited back account (and boundless ego!) and you have all of the elements necessary to get sidetracked, complete with rationalizations.

I'm not excusing Limbaugh. But I do understand how he got there.

B