Navigating to top-level timeline

Hi all -- I was hoping I could define a global variable in my timeline, and have code I write in various packages find it. For example, I might define 'cwVerbose = true;' in Actions for frame 1 of my top-most timeline, while classes I define in external text files might check that value and trace a bunch of stuff if true. But I can't figure out a way for code to find the variable. I'm using a document class. If I'm in the context of a displayObject class I could navigate up through the display list to find the top-level SWF object; but if I'm not I seem to be out of luck.

I played around with the ApplicationDomain class for a few hours tonight but I haven't been able to find anything in it :-(

Any ideas? Maybe I should be using a completely different approach?

Thanks!
Bob