I can totally relate to your fear of flying experiences. I went through the same thing. I found that what was causing most of my anxiety was the thought of not being able to have any control of any events that might occur up there. Not being able to feel the ground underneath me, nor being able to see who was “driving” gave me a feeling of helplessness.
Prayer did help tremendously, and still does. I can handle mild turbulence, but when that thing starts jumping and shaking for more than 10 seconds, I immediately go into “Our Father” mode, and put my life in His hands. It it’s a long flight (more than 2 hours for me is long), I order a scotch on the rocks and pop a few benadryl. When I wake up on the other end, I thank the Lord for allowing me to live another day.
I also found that sitting in a window seat distracted me from fear, and I also enjoy seeing landscapes and trying to identify landmarks along the way. I’ve gotten pretty good at at! Of course, at night it’s a different story, but if the sky is clear, I can follow clusters of lights and identify some towns/cities along the way.
One drop will kill you in a matter of seconds!
That's me, too! Once on a Southwest flight I asked the stewardess for a Johnny Walker Black on the rocks. She gave me a dirty look and said, "You're going to have to tell me what that means, because I'm a flight attendant, not a bartender." I was so indignant I forgot to be nervous! The control factor is definitely, I think, what gets people so nervous, especially after reading accounts such as the recent crash near Buffalo, and the one in San Diego in 1978, where the flight crew were horsing around during a landing and not paying attention to what they were doing. Still, though, you can think of it as something like Russian Roulette, with a pistol that holds a million rounds. Not really much of a chance that anything disastrous is going to happen!