MY PEEPS

My Peeps I LOVE you
My Peeps I leave you

This time I'll not be back
It's time to try a new tack

Finally I've learned my lesson
Just cannot keep this obsession

Of the blogs to run my life
Of the blogs, to ruin my life

Yes, today I'm really trying
And yes, today I'm crying

No elation, only deflation
900 miles from Naples, a nation

Is suffering, in vain?
In suffering and pain

And (sigh)
They die

And the stenches
In those trenches

Remind me of my own death
That moment of final breath

My body into the ground to give
True motive that my soul might live

For ever and evermore in harmony
Forever and ever---Eternity

Join me please, for today
in SOBRIETY
in PEACE
in LOVE

There is NO way I can ever let you know my gratitude for letting me into the lives of some of you, my Lovely Peeps. I could live my LIFE at this computer, in this blogosphere. So thank you, thank you for so much spiritual guidance, enlightenment, and FUN--We are not a glum lot, right?

steveroni 1/16/10

MY EARLY "55"

BLISSFUL DENIAL

Nobody told me sir
So I did not know
That it is now winter
Where is the snow?

No one said to me
Come now...now go
Yet down to the sea
I followed river's flow

Of age I am not aware.
Life happens, speedily
So to live and love readily
I am guiltless....happily


LOVE, Peeps...and PEACE! 


If anybody wants to play, write a story in exactly 55 words, visit G-MAN (Mr Know-it-All) for more info, and to let him know ya DID it!

WHO IS IN CHARGE HERE ANYWAY???

When God is in charge--WATCH OUT! At a 7 AM meeting recently I was sitting next to a guy who was obviously a visitor. He had a foreign accent as if he was from North carolina, or even worse...Georgia--grin!  We talked a little before the meeting, and got along fine.


As he shared on the topic, he let all 84 of us know that he couldn't find the 24-Hour club in the darkness of early morning. He said a bike sped past his car, sporting a one-word sign on the back fender. It spelled the word SOBER! He decided to follow, on the chance the biker would be going to a meeting.


The photo above is my Suzuki scooter's rear fender--I'm the guy he followed. And here we were, sitting NEXT to each other in a very crowded room of sober alcoholics at a meeting. He didn't even know it was me who he followed. And where else at 7 AM would you find a bunch of women and men discussing how great it is to wake up withour puking, and without a severe hangover headache...and laughing about it all?


To tie this brief piece up neatly, there is a punch line: the bumper sticker, SOBER, was mailed out about a year ago, free of charge to any who requested it, by a fellow blogger from Houston, Texas.  Peeps, ya just NEVER KNOW! Right? (It is the third time this has happened!)

Hey Peeps, I wish you all could pray with me/for me today, and for a special intention. Thanks, to whoever can do that! 


Love, and PEACE!

goodbye christmas goodbye defects

GOODBYE

Yes, it is time, the day has arrived--Christmas tree has completed it's tour of duty for this season at our house. I came home from a meeting, and the great room where my computers live, is now again a room with loads of space. What a change has taken place!

It reminds me how I felt such a great change after taking the 4th and 5th Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. My thinking was, "Well, the hard part is over now." Oh YEAH??? Little did I realize that the steps 4 and 5 were merely defining for me the sources of my problems, and bringing them out where God, I, and a witness could see all the dirty laundry. I figured the remainder of the steps was just formality, learning how to "teach" others. WRONG!

The next two steps were to ask God to take away from me everything which stood between Him and me. Then 8 and 9 were for me to remove what stood between YOU and me, and ALL people. Finally I found I had to climb out of my pit of isolation, and join you Peeps, in living a life without booze, aimed at a new happiness, freedom, and JOY.

Then I learned how to become friends with that Power, that Great Entity, whatever made sense to me (I call His name, God), how to talk with, work with, love, and just BE with this new-found God of my understanding. Finally, I learned through experience, and counsel with others, how to carry this message of sober living to others. They had to need it, of course, but the only real requirement, was a desire to stop drinking. 

Held by that slim thread of desire, a great door leading to a whole new life opened to me. That is now my life of freedom, happiness, and joy for which I am EVER so thankful, grateful. It has become a life of joyful, fulfilling service to whoever asks, whoever is put in front of me wanting help. I now can show them where the help is which they seek, and how to acquire the gift, given me so freely, the gift of SOBER LIVING!

IN NO WAY did I begin this post with a dissertation on the Steps in my mind...it just seemed to flow out, so here it is. like it or not.

As the Christmas tree which had blocked my view of the rest of the house is now gone, so with my own view-blocking stuff. Much of it is gone, so I can see more clearly God's will for me.  That may not be what I or anyone might think...but when I am shown, I will be ME for HE!

Peeps, we have another day here...to

Stay SOBER

LIVE happily

LOVE tenderly

LET go

LINK to one another

LOOK for who wants our help

LISTEN to the "voice" within.....

I love you all--

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!

THREE GRACES SNOWY FIELD

a print by CAT VIBERT (CLICK)

This print by blogger-artist Catherine Vibert  (catvibe) reminded me of the farm where I grew up. (I've been asked as recently as today, "When are you gonna grow up?"--NO grin!) Cat lives in Ashville, North Carolina. In June 2009, PG and I stopped by to have coffee with Cat, and spent an enjoyable two hours, while a power-outing storm raged outside. And we got to know another Peep.

I am honored to be the owner of the print pictured above titled "Three Graces Snowy Field". My print is #1 of 500. This is the first time ever I have received #1 of anything. I love it! She sent some extra stuff also, addressed to "steveroni". Visit her galleries for a treat if you have a moment.

Tonight (Sunday) I had a happy happening: a meeting in the TSR chat room with a lovely blogger friend in Michigan. We used the topic GRATITUDE...and for about 15 minutes of the hour, we DID talk about gratitude --grin!

Blogging came along just in time to grant me another 20 or more years of happy, sober, and yes, JOYFUL living...in peace. However...and there's always a "however"...if this frigid weather--sans snow--continues much longer, I'll have to hibernate right here in front of the computer. Some say I already DO that--grin!

I mean, this coldness is hard on old bones, I'm just not used to it. This afternoon I saw in the bed of my pickup a lot of broken glass, like chards. I picked up a nice big pane...it slipped out of my gloved hand--ICE, friends! First time I've seen ice in Naples outside from refrigeration doings.

It is SO cold I stopped riding my scooter a week ago, first time I have not ridden at least once a day in nearly two years. And I miss it! By morning it is predicted to "feel like" 18F  (-8C) and that's Waaay too cold for having fun scooter riding.

I should not be ranting here about 18F temperatures, when for some that will be their HIGH for the day. So far, this blog seems like it's going nowhere, maybe time to set it out to fly...maybe a short joke to finish this blog--maybe finish ME--grin! This is the joke I told to about 175 Peeps at the cookie meeting last Thursday. (I'm the official joke-teller, an elected position, of course!)

OK. Judy and Sherry, two VERY old (90's), short, and extremely obese ladies, both never married, neither having ever experienced the "knowledge" of man--were shuffling arm-in-arm, waddling downtown, and decided to go into the cinema which had a movie showing with XXX markings.

Seated happily with their HUGE popcorn and soda combos, they were sitting in quiet  peacefulness, when Judy whispered to Sherry "Psssst, Sherry..oh my, Sherry, Oh my God, this man sitting next to me is , he's, how do I dare say it--he is PLAYING with himself!"

Sherry immediately decides aloud, "Dear, dear Judy, we shall simply have to move to another seat...", when Judy breaks in with, "Oh, but we can't, because well--Um-- he's...he's using my hands!"
__________________________________________________________________

Peeps, I hope nobody was offended...by my humor--or lack of it. But I DO wish everyone here for today to:

Be happy
Be hopeful
Be Grateful
Be sober
Be loving
Be at PEACE within...
I love you all!

HERMIT STORY: THE BEGINNING

THE HERMIT

 

 

1956

 I watched with intensity a Television show (documentary) in which David Brinkley explored the life of a hermit. He chartered a boat to carry him out in the SW Florida waters, to visit Rob Roy Ozmer, the "Hermit of the Ten Thousand Islands". I watched intently as Brinkley disembarked, and the hermit Rob Roy walked to meet him.

That day I had made up my mind that in order to be free, one must be a hermit. I talked about it to everyone, constantly, year after year, and daily. And so the thought lingered, then became implanted in my brain, to stay there until.....

1964

The time was now for me to go to visit Rob Roy. It was a more-than-cold December. From my home in Cincinnati, I took a week vacation (holiday, for you European Peeps!)
and flew to Miami Florida. As the plane circled low over the city's fringes, I looked down and my heart REALLY sunk--there was snow everywhere...you must know how I felt, well, like excrement. I had written David Brinkley at NBC(?) and he responded, urging me to take Bacardi Dark out to the hermitage (near Coon Key Island). But he'd written nothing about snow in South Florida. The "snow" I saw was nothing more than all the rooftops painted white, the color which deflects the daily sun heat (Sigh!)

In a bar (naturally!) in Everglades City I found an out-of-work crabber who would, for $15, run me out to the island and back for a visit. Well, it is easy to get lost in the Ten Thousand Islands (actually well over 12,000), and I felt "God" was with me, as, laden with no more than the rum, we arrived at Rob's island, waving the bottles in the air. And obviously, that was our 'ticket' for an audience with the hermit.

More and more, I could see myself living in this fashion, free as the birds..even free as the mosquitoes which were bird food!  Rob Roy Ozmer was as congenial a host as a genteel plantation manager in Georgia, FAR exceeding my expectations. Several memories:

1.  He told about a man he'd seen the summer before, attacked by hordes of mosquitoes entering into every
(that's EVERY!) orifice in his body. The man jumped into the Gulf of Mexico, and died of suffocation. (My "deadly mosquito" story.)

2.  I could hear bubbling from my seat on the dirt floor, which provoked the question to  Rob Roy. He was making carrot liquor in five-gallon vats placed strategically around his houseboat home, the old boat no longer fit to float.

3.  Rob Roy's younger wife lived in Everglades City--population about 247 at the time--he was age 65--and once a month he putt-putted (a small boat) into town, collected his Social Security check, bought supplies, said hello to "her", and back again home, before the mosquito population took over the Everglades.

4.  We spent the whole day drinking, eating bird of some genre (I did not ask!), and discussing the outside world as if it were a billion space-miles distant...as it was!

5.  I left  drunk, full stomach, and happy for a "day-in-life-of-Steve". Days of heavy drinking--for me--did not ALWAYS end in catastrophe...just almost always! We got out just before the invading insects came out from their hiding places of flora and fauna. Somehow, I still have the feeling that maybe WE were the invaders...

2010....TODAY!

Peeps, I DID shorten this story as much as possible, keeping some of the salient points. There follows ONE punch-line-story, which I simply MUST tell you--don't go away NOW.....

This post was mainly about an obsession culminating with a day in the year 1964. 

NOW is the year 2010. About 4 days ago, I was sitting outside our Alcoholics Anonymous meeting place, the 24-Hour Club in Naples, FL. Next to me was a girl, and we began to chat. I told her of my planned blog post (THIS one!), since she had mentioned that some 50-odd years ago she was BORN in Everglades City (the smallest of villages I have EVER encountered to this day.) When I mentioned Rob Roy Ozmer, she hit me on the arm, saying "You will not believe this but his WIFE was my grade-school TEACHER!"

Melly and I (not real name), both staying sober after hellish lives, by chance are sitting side-by-side, in the cold, drinking coffee FORTY-SIX YEARS after my encounter with the husband of her teacher. You tell ME what are the chances of this--almost spiritual--happening.  

Sorry about the length of this post, but I felt some might find it interesting, the beginning of an obsession which lasted for years after. Once or twice a year still, I get a strong urge to hunker down alone somewhere even if only on the open road, on my motor scooter. But to actually live the life of a hermit...never, NEVER again! I love Peeps TOO much! We all know many who live like hermits, though surrounded by hundreds of Peeps. I can be that kind of hermit any time I drift from my program, my way of life, Alcoholics Anonymous. Isolation is for me an attribute long ago removed.

I truly LOVE you, my Peeps
I really NEED all of you, my Peeps
I stay SOBER with you, my Peeps
I want to be HAPPY with you, Peeps
I want to live without ANXIETY--like you, Peeps
At least for TODAY--and maybe tomorrow?

HERMIT--PART III

LOOKS LIKE MY ISLAND BUT IT IS NOT

This story I posted on my other blog 

in June 2008
Here is Part III of III  

(Posted this for the Peeps who
are new here during the past year).

STEVE THE "HERMIT"
STAR DATE 1966
PART THREE, FINAL EPISODE

In order to keep away the mosquitos during my stay on 'my island', I had arranged to have the Marco Island spray plane fly the eight or so miles south, to spray me every day. It only cost two quarts of Bacardi Rum, for Martin, the pilot, to agree to this--(see, I even do my bartering with booze!).

Each day, about 8 AM, the old Air Force C-47 made several passes so low, as to raise beach sand everywhere. Martin--a pilot here from Cuba-- sprayed that wonderful stuff onto everything. I'd open my mouth to maybe catch some of it. A few months after, that Martin died in a fiery crash, driving that same aircraft. The Mackle Brothers, developers of Marco Island, paid lots of bucks for my comfort.

The above paragraph sets up this next bit, the SADDEST DAY OF MY WHOLE LIFE. I can cry even now, remembering the horror of it all. Any true, 'real' alcoholic might identify with me, and KNOW me, know my ache, my hurt, my anguish, by reading this short story:

Two of my friends, both pilots, flew their two small Cessna 270 planes down to entertain me with their aerobatics about three days before I was to vacate the island. I had run out of ALL alcohol (and cigarettes!), was still walking in pain, and figured they would magically, automatically 'know' my sorry predicament.

The two planes flew SO low, that I could see my wife and daughter in one of them--so then I was CERTAIN that my lack of supplies would be alleviated, since we always had a 'working telepathy'. I stood in one spot, waiting for the drop of my C.A.R.E. package...My wife was close to the window, I figured that within minutes I'd be OK again, with a liter of vodka in my hand--my world would then be O-KAY!



Fifteen long minutes later, when I finally thought maybe they were playing that 'waiting' game, they flew away--out of my life--forever? Who would know? I knew true HATRED that day! POOR ME--and I MEAN THAT, even now. (Ha! I just now peeled off a long-buried, long-hidden, powerful resentment. And I'll take care of it right away!)...........

My utterly total self-centeredness assumed that everyone was thinking always about me, ME. And that somehow they would 'deliver' me from my predicament. 

I did not even then realize how close to death I WAS, being such a daily heavy drinker suddenly cut off completely from my supply. This was NOT mental now, but physical. My craving knew no end, only progressed by the hour. I was consumed with desire, would have easily killed for a few tastes of liquor, some alcohol in my body.

SO began the Unhappiest day of my whole life--no booze, no smokes, and that equaled NO NOTHING. I did not pray, for fear that I would curse God Himself for this calamity. (They could have at LEAST dropped some Bandages -grin-) Now...think about this--HOW would these planes flying overhead--5 feet off the beach, drop bottles of booze? Doesn't glass break at 115 miles per hour? (Sigh!)

On one slow, painful 2-hour limp around the island I found a sand-buried Jack Daniels (Black Label!) bottle, and it was about half (empty, or full?). Immediately, I pulled off the cap and proceeded to guzzle--UGHHHHHHH! THHHHHPT! OMG, oh shit...someone had used it for their specimen, it was all piss. I washed my mouth out with salty sea water, and even drank a little of the brine. I can tell you that God was not taking care of ME that day. (Or maybe He WAS?)

I cried often during the remaining really cool sea-breeze nights, and sun-blistering days. The world as I knew it had ended. Friends and family had forsaken me, I blamed EVERYONE ELSE for my predicament. My mantra: WOE IS ME! REALLY! 

I was ready to DO it, but was chicken-shit to end my life, because I could then never drink again--dead! Also because --get this--my FEET hurt too much! I'm living today, because God allowed me to 'cavort' barefoot back-and-forth--unknowingly--through an under-water oyster bar, and spend the next eight days with bloody, infected feet!.

And yet, I spent the next EIGHT YEARS perfecting my drinking habit. I became a 'functioning' drunk. For that, I needed a daily, hefty amount of maintenance alcohol. God, since then, has allowed me to learn and use the Twelve Steps He gave us, and to stay sober since March 18, 1974. I never looked back as far as drinking again--for me. It just has not happened. Expressing my gratitude to God, and you AA people, and now you blog peeps, is what I live for today.

Oh yes, the fishing guide DID arrive as scheduled to pick me up. We enjoyed an EXTREMELY quiet ride back to civilization.

Steve E. (A Hermit--NOT!)

Oh, Peeps, TODAY
Let's Be THANKFUL
Let's be SOBER
Let's be HAPPY
Let's be at PEACE
Let's FORGIVE
Let's LOVE

Tomorrow, the story of how my obsession
to be a HERMIT began, in 1962...That
WILL be the final in this See-rees of posts.
Please join me, Friday night or Saturday.

ME THE FEARLESS HERMIT

 SEA WONDERS by MEAGO

 

 

 

This story I posted on my other blog in August 2008

Here is Part IIof III 

STEVE THE "HERMIT"
STAR DATE 1966
PART TWO

Guess this could be called a DROG, my word for "DRunk-Log"


The BEETLES sang it best:

"Yesterday.......
...all my troubles seemed so far away,
...as I returned from comatose;
...and I began to breathe a-gain."

As I slept the sleep known only by the drugged, my tent was blowing around--and there I lay, fairly oblivious to nature's godlike powerful forces all about. I was awakened from this deep, deep drunken stupor--into which I had poured myself--by terribly frightening (to me) noises of growling, crying, and hissing sounds VERY close by. 

When my eyes began to focus, I saw this MONSTER, this horribly ugly head, about the size of a football, mouth wide open, snorting, snarling, and...and, what? of all things...CRYING! I was lying there on the tent floor, looking into the gaping mouth of a--seemingly--giant sea turtle, a real live nesting-straining-and-egg-laying Loggerhead!

Ten days later I was told that she likely did her nesting every YEAR on the very spot I had carefully (Ha!) chosen to erect (Ha!) my tent.. (Sorry for the "Ha's", they express better than ever I could what went on out there). 
So, I did what ANY normal, sane human would do in this scary situation--reach beside me for my bottle of Early Times 86 proof! What else? After a few swigs from my bottle, I might better deal with these events. The turtle kept on huffing and puffing, as if I was not there. Finally, she left, dragging her hefty body over the few feet of remaining sandy beach, to water's edge.

That turtle must have been thinking..."I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky...." --SEA FEVER, by John Masefield

Again safe, hurting bad (in real pain, bottoms of my feet shredded and bloody, infections beginning), weary mentally and physically--called 'bone tired'--I "made a decision" to put some calories into my body, and so I opened a couple beers, and chased down each swallow of the Golden Brew with my favorite 'wonder drug' of the moment, vodka.

Please note that my answer to ANY question, ANY situation, ANY happening, ANY prayer event...was to become annihilated with my drug, alcohol. It was my answer for anything and everything. Alcohol had become my GOD. Drinking had become my way of life, the only life I would know--for eight more years.

This ten-day period of my life needs ONE MORE Blog to complete.--it just became much too lengthy to finish today. Hope you will be back Thursday, for the finale! Its Title:  

MY DEPRESSION:

THE SADDEST DAY OF MY LIFE

and it's not too lengthy -grin-

Peeps:

Let's Be Nice to ALL today.
Lets BE HAPPY (or act happy) today.

Let's STAY SOBER today.
Love,
Forgive,
Spread PEACE...

HERMIT PART I

 

CHANGING MYSELF?

This story I posted on my other blog in June 2008

Here is Part I of III 


 STEVE THE "HERMIT" I
STAR DATE 1966

The year 1966 is one which lives in my memory, mainly for the events here described. I had come to Florida two years before, to 'be a hermit'. For my vacation during the summer of '66, I determined to get a taste of the hermitage. So, for my two weeks in the sun and fun, I chose to get myself planted on a small spit of an island south of Marco Island--the objective, to 'play hermit' for a week or so...I think it was ten days.

I rented a tent, and all the equipment which could fit on a small boat, and hired a fellow to float me down to this 'sugar loaf' spit of sand in the Gulf of Mexico. And of course, it goes without saying that I loaded onto that little runabout several cases of beer, one case (12 quart bottles) of my favorite (the cheapest) vodka of the day and six quarts of Bourbon (to compensate for my bland vodka dietary choice). Ice, two dozen cans of tuna, one dozen boiled eggs, heck I don't know what else, it didn't matter. Ants got to the food before me, since I mostly drank the first couple days.

As soon as this man dropped me, and helped to unload my gear (don't break the glass!), he sped away, maybe glad to be rid of me--with the promise that in ten days he'd return. Well, at last alone, I was ecstatic!

This was HEAVEN! I ran around like a crazed child, alone on his private playground. Me, the hermit! My dream of thirty years had come true, at least in "trial" form. I cavorted (yes, cavorted) in the water, bare-footed, and bare-ass'd. I really thought maybe the water there was contaminated, because it had a certain foreboding red color, all around me was this red-tinted water. THEN it happened that reality set in. I had been running around like a crazy child with no shoes, on an old oyster bed, and the "red" was my own blood. Yep, my (by now!) VERY sore feet bottoms were shredded. Looking at my feet bottoms I was shocked to see all the cuts, some rather deep--and the blood, MY blood all in the water and on the beige sand. 44 years later, thoughts of this night's events make me cringe.

Now I became concerned...no doctor, no medicine, no First Aid kit...so first-things-first, I took a huge pull from a vodka bottle, and knew that I was going to soon be wasting some of the precious liquid on my FEET. If whoever reading this is an alcoholic, they will immediately know what absolute TRAUMA it was for me to pour vodka, AND Early Times (forgot to mention the Whiskey!) onto my feet. Oh! How then I cried. Not for the burning or painful feet, but OH! the wasted booze, Oh! Woe is me!

So, for the next days (daze!) I walked about wearing a tee shirt wrapped around each foot, using a driftwood cane for support. I did not know God at that time very well, I mean He and I were at odds, at least I was.

But, again, to that first night. On the radio--about dusk--it was announced that a Tropical Depression had formed over Everglades City, about 10 miles from where I sat, painfully nursing myself with the only anesthesia I knew, in the darkness of a warm, June night. Well, that storm came thundering full blast at my island, the water kept rising, I'd check it every half hour, and moved my tent several times that night, walking on two bloody stubs. I stayed very drunk, but could not avoid the dangerous situation which was before me. There was nowhere to go, no hills, and the water kept rising. In a drunken stupor I fell fast asleep.

You'd think my 'First-Night' story might end here. Wrong! Since this blog has become waaay out of length-bounds for a simple daily log reading, the "rest of this story" will be on tomorrow's posting, that's Wednesday night. It's much more interesting than today's, so don't miss it. I promise a good story!


PEACE.
LOVE.
SOBER.
TODAY.

A POEM BY STEVE E

VISIONS 
    OF...



A little child
In the wild
Is how I feel
Unreal

And all the years
And all the fears
So bold
So old

Are now far away
Hopefully to stay
So to leave me
Just to BE...me

Try to help another one
Whose own mother's son
Went about
Skipped out

Help him who so lame
For since I am the same
We might each buffer
To rid what we suffer

This which still smarts
In our minds, our hearts
Remnants of past
Just can not last

So I sleep on sod and
Joined with my God
I pray--OH!
Blessings bestow

Restore me to the Peace and Serenity
Please! I so miss that Amenity
Which I have tossed away
Yes...lost and astray

Pretend as one, a little kid
Mid beasts, fauna, bugs I hid
Until, in this forest I met a maid
Unaware...unafraid


PEEPS!
Peace,
Love,
Clean and Sober,
TODAY!

Graphic "BOY AND THE GHOST" CLICK Black Lady 999

DO IT TODAY

BIG BLUE DEC 31, 2009

ADDENDUM:  There will be tonight (Sunday) at 8 PM an open chat (members, that is--easy to sign on, go HERE!) and tonight the topic will (maybe) be "The New Year: Resolutions, goals, thoughts, anything new happening, and possibly a bit of frivolity. Please join us, there's usually only a few. At THE SECOND ROAD (TSR)...this IS a recovery-related chat room! You WILL be made to feel welcome!

HONESTY

Meeting topic this morning: HONESTY! First guy to share said he thought he "was pretty honest". I guessed that meant he is pretty dishonest also, or maybe he just thought he was pretty--grin!

Our Big book Alcoholics Anonymous tells us that I lied when even the truth would have sufficed. I immediately translated that to mean, "When the truth does not suffice...LIE!  And so I did. I continued to lie in many ways. If someone asked "How are you today?" I always answered, "FINE!" ...LIE! Nobody is in great spirits hour after hour, day after day (except me, of course --grin!).

Several of the steps (IF one works them!) are geared to the "cleaning up the wreckage of my past"...well, I've done that so much, I  now do that step more which is "clean up the wreckage of my PRESENT! because that is where all my problems occur today...that IS today! Now! 

(Room for more stuff)





__________________________________________________________________

FIVE MOST IMPORTANT WORDS
FOR THE YEAR 2010

Blogger Linda Socha (Click HERE) asked me earlier today to list my five most important words for 2010. Talk about "Say Wha'?"...I had to really ponder this one, for about thirty seconds...maybe fewer?  The FIVE words, for me:

GROWTH
CHANGE
ENTHUSIASM
LOVE
JOY

Linda is putting together a word collage--whatever that might be, of words important  to her friends in blogland. Thank you for including me in your survey, Linda!

Peeps, thank you ALL for being here, and those who comment (I LOVE you...),
and let us please stay sober today,
and be at Peace today
and LOVE today.

DANGER AHEAD--MAN THINKING

RAMBLIN' ROSE

Three of AA's Twelve Steps:

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Is it Saturday already? I wish that the rest of this year flies by so well as the first day.

I am having a traumatic reaction to a life-changing event having to do with Steps Four, Eight, and Nine, those steps which I have always hated and still DO (hate?)!

Enough for me to say simply, Peeps, that steveroni is in pain--no joking here! But this too shall pass. How well I should know, that neither highs nor lows last too long in God's changing world--thank GOD--grin! And, thanks to AA's Twelve Steps, Sobriety, Peace, Serenity, and even Happiness can coexist midst Ups and Downs, even with a sprinkling of insanity and chaos stirred in.

Many years ago I completed Steps 4, 8 and 9...and I've been "completing" them ever since. There are some defects of my character which return year after year--trans: "day-after-day". There are also some which were not disclosed--by me TO me--in the past, and then new ones always are showing up to remind me I am SO human, NMW (No Matter What!).

It is my desire to ask God to help me with the changes in my life which must take place for my sanity, my peaceful way of life, yet preserve that enthusiasm and lust for life which I so thoroughly enjoy...which IS me.

Fortunately I have a sponsor who has stood by me through thick and thin, who "understands" me--because we are NOT different from one another. Seems like my best therapy can be realized with one who has suffered, and recovered, from the same maladies.

And, in spite of all I say and do, crazily or otherwise, I AM getting better. There is NO WAY, to get up for so many meetings, to work the steps, to meet and greet Peeps new and old, and not somehow get better.

As long as I keep in mind that "Some of us have tried to hold onto our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely." And I do NOT want to go back to that living hell of active alcoholism. Ya know, sometimes I DO believe when I can stay sober for such a long time, I let it slip my mind, the deadliness of this disease. And it is just those OLD IDEAS which can open the flood gates onto the fields of sobriety, drowning any chance for staying sober with JOY, maybe for staying sober--PERIOD!

Well, it's about time for me to end this January 1st, the beginning of a year with promises galore for me, us, and YOU, all my special Peeps.

Love,

Peace,

JOY,

All for today, and today for ALL