RIDING A TROPICAL HEAT WAVE

(This'll crack you up--you know who you are!)

MUCH A MORE DO ABOUT NOTHING
(Shakespeare's original title, before he
decided to remove the word "more"!!!)

Hurricane Ike, Sunday afternoon September 7, 2008...Ya never know where it is going, ya do not have the slightest clue how strong (what category) it'll be when it makes landfall. And ya have NO IDEA what damage it'll do, how many lives it'll affect, how many people it will KILL! The one factor known about a hurricane IS it's capabilities for destruction!

So like a hurricane was I, 'back-in-the-day'! I felt supernaturally full of strength, yet a good chilly wind would have me withered, incapable of decisive action, or intelligible word. After I had been reduced to Tropical Storm status (Sheeesh!), producing none but a mess of soggy, breezy, soaked days and nights, there was but one more rung down the ladder...DEPRESSION!

Depression: Noun, c. A lowering in amount, degree, or position. That was me, THAT WAS ME! Well, that is NOT me today. I have been sober since the night before my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, March 18, 1974. Since that time, "...these lips have not touched alcoholic spirits!" as they say -grin- ...but these lips have touched a lot of OTHER spirited things they might have should not -VERY BIG GRIN- OH! I mean, like the time I licked ice off the handle of the well pump, outside in 15 deg below zero F. Ouch! Or the time(s) I sipped muriatic acid out of a vat in the hayloft ...there were other lip moments-- well, you get the picture.

Then 'they' told me (always wondered who is 'they'?) to "..act out the symptoms of radiant happiness, and your depression will leave." Well, I tried that with little success. Hell, I didn't even know what 'they' were talking about--and didn't think 'they' knew, either.

Then, along came this Big Book, and it read: "There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover...." Well, THAT was me! And now I'm reading there is a way out of my chaotic situations. It's called Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, a program for recovery from a hopeless state of mind and body (and soul?), called alcoholism. I am here to say, It WORKS. It worked. I'm still here, that's how I know it works. And I'm HAPPY, that's how I know it works. And I'm FREE, that's how I know it works. And I am now riding--instead of in the eye of a hurricane--on a Tropical Heat Wave, of Love and Service to others. and of humble gratitude to God.

--Steve-E-roni