TOO DUSTY DOWN HERE!

"Another one bites the dust..." Ughhhh!

BITE THE DUST? NOT ME!

RETURN...YEAH! Ya know what? I am so F'kn tired of reading that people miss me, etc., When the truth IS: I am missing YOU! If you'll let me back in, I want to blog some more. Is it Pride? Who cares? Maybe, that is not my gravest concern at the moment.

Whether it is humiliation (I'm experienced with humiliation--read the blog) or Humility, or EGO (I don't think so!) or simply wanting to stay in contact, because I NEED YOU PEEPS! This is part of my survival, nothing more. Whether ANYBODY reads, comments--good or bad--none of that matters any more to me. I need it, it's here, and I'm staying, NO MATTER WHAT!

If ya don't like that, well Fk...don't read it! Simple? This blog is about me...not you. If someone can be helped by staying sober with me today...have at it. Welcome, friend.

The shit in my brain is not too deep though, so NO DIVING! Let's get on with this crap. Just delete the blog prior to this one, OK? I'm fine, wife is fine. One more thing. Someone named LYN (I don't think I even 'know' her, but I will!) commented on my 'Last Blog' posting

..."another one bites the dust...".

THAT DID IT! I simply CAN NOT, WILL NOT, be "another one" who bit the dust. I hate dust, It makes me sneeze. Thank you Lyn...we usually never know what affect our words have on another--right? Well, you do now! Blessings for you, dear.

STEVE'S FIRST SPONSORS, PART TWO

That first sober summer was for me spent in escape, at first by sleeping, then by working. I was so run down physically, and was mentally an imbecilic and an Einstein during any ten-minute period.

Some inconsistency might be seen in a description of myself on the one hand my being nearly a vegetable, and on the other hand, playing violin and tending bar, with deftness and skill. I had developed a great tolerance for alcohol over a nearly thirty-year piece of my life.

But today I wish to relive the experience of my first attempt at being a meeting chairperson. Sometime in the fall, Betty B, a long-ago (1934) student nurse who had worked in Dr Bob's operating room, decided that her friend Steve E (me) should chair an AA meeting.

DIXON'S DIRTY DOZEN

Sober six months, and more wobbly than a brand new-born colt--I mean I could hardly walk without holding onto something--she gave me two weeks to "prepare".

I gathered together a meeting topic, all my assorted pamphlets, Big Book, 12 X 12, As Bill Sees It (then called "A Way of Life in AA"), AA Comes of Age, numerous articles, photos, and my very own yellow legal pad with enough written on it for TWENTY meetings!

I was armed, and ready, to teach these old guys and old girls all what I had learned in six months. I was age 41 at the time of all this. When I began the meeting I said, "Let's begin with the Serenity Prayer." Then I forgot how it started, and I said out loud, "Oh God!!!" and everybody said at once as one voice, "Grant me the serenity to accept.......etc." It was my moment of triumph. I knew God was with me. Was He?

Unknown to me, interspersed around the crowded room at the newly constructed 24-hour club, sat Twelve men, mostly older, all in suits and ties. (These were "Dixon's Dirty Dozen, a group of AA men who enjoyed traveling, and playing lots of golf and 'crashing' AA meetings.)

As I began to read something lengthy from one of my documents, I realized this was the "Finest Moment" of my "Finest Hour"...I had arrived, and my body language showed it. It was certainly the defining moment of my place in AA history.

One of the strangers in a suit stood, introduced himself as "Bill D, from Pittsburgh", and he began to talk. Since I was so full of patience and tolerance (and Bull Shit--grin!), I let him ramble on. Then, before I could say, "OK people, this is MY meeting....", another stood, then another. These alien creatures had invaded earth to harass me and my meeting. And there were Twelve of them...12 Steps? Was God playing a trick?

It was the second of only two times in my life when I was visibly shaken, crying like a pooped baby, yet had a huge SMILE on my face as if to say, "I planned this whole thing Ha-ha-ha!"

Well, ya know? I got through it, cried all the way home as I felt I had been made a laughing stock (years later I found out that was true) of the group of AAs in Naples FL "Naples Group", my home group today. This was not humility, this was humiliation.

But whatever, I passed several liquor stores that night on the way home--I even stopped in the bar where I worked on the other six nights a week, to see if I could get into any trouble. I did not drink, then...or now. I had never heard the words "No Matter What" but that's what I DID--"Not drink--No Matter What."

And that's what we'll all do together today...right?

Peace and Love
Steve E