As I sat down to write about soaring oil prices and the fast-disappearing petroleum resources, I regret to inform all of you that today oil hit yet another record high of $144 per barrel.

Ugh.

Bush and congress are focusing on drilling in Alaska, the Atlantic shelf, and possible suing OPEC for holding us all hostage to their robber-prices on the commodity. In other words, they are all focusing their energy, time, and effort on exactly the wrong thing.

The great oil days are over, friends. Striking it rich out there in the fields has died a slow, lingering death, and for some reason we all seem to be having trouble imagining a world that doesn't revolve around the slippery black gold. Otherwise why are we fighting so hard to resuscitate it after it has clearly gone to a better place?

Because we are all addicted to it. On an individual and a cultural level we are all addicted to oil. Like heroin to a drug addict, we will do anything for it: we will lie, steal, cheat, kill, sacrifice, and pay ridiculous and raping amounts to get our fixes. Now that our drug is scarce, we make daily choices in our lives around it, catering to it. One look at the media today will tell you that our drug is always, always on our minds. Wikipedia gives us the definition of addiction as, "a term used to describe a devotion, attachment, dedication, inclination, etc. Nowadays, however, the term addiction is used to describe a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences to the individual's health, mental state or social life."

Does that sound familiar?

Think about it: the search and addiction to oil is literally driving our country bankrupt, one discarded Hummer at a time. People are rearranging their lives to cope with the escalating cost of fueling their cars and heating their homes, and for some reason, instead of switching our focus and innovation to restructuring those aspects of daily life that use oil, we are spending time plotting how to continue the addiction.

America -and the world - let us stop this self destructive behavior! Let us break the cycle, kick the habit, and free ourselves from the tyranny of our merciless drug dealers who sit pretty on their billions while we all scramble to feed our children and heat our homes.

We are the country that invented the first car. We invented the telephone. We got to the moon! We can certainly get our best and brightest behind a project to find a renewable, sustainable, and hopefully eco-friendly replacement for our petro-heroin and save us all from our own selves.

So I urge all of you - write to your selectmen, contact your state reps, and raise your voices against further drilling. We need to do something different and we need to do it now.

Because - in case you didn't notice - most passionate addictions don't end well for the addict.