Johnny: It is SO good to hear from you again; we hear from you far, far to seldom. Now do what The Program says: keep coming back. We need you! 

 

 

 

 

"Pretty?" We ain't gonna be a "faming site," are we? Rotten attempt at humor - rough, rough day with notification that three of my clients have died. Time to go to bed. All of you will hear from me tomorrow and, Contry, it really is damn, damn good to have you here! To all, good night and I love you.

The weekend's half gone, and I'm seriously thinking about calling work Monday morning with an alleged illness. And so it goes! Anyway, Contry, you and others who are at your stage in recovery are to be truly commended but can't be expected to understand right now why you are the humbling factor that those of us a little longer in The Program need. Congratulations on the nine months of 24 hours but, remember always, truly one day at a time. I'm not sure that you haven't worked the Third Step at least partially through; you couldn't have amassed nine months worth of 24 hours without turning something over to something you might not yet call a Higher Power. Whatever, don't make the mistake I did in my early days of recovery and bulldozed into that Fourth Step without fully taking the Third, without fully giving up the control I didn't know I still relished. Without that total surrender of the Third, the Fourth in going to turn out to be an immoral inventory instead of the moral one that is called for and which is required to progress through the subsequent eight Steps. Michael, dear buddy, where'd we be without you? Your contributions, experience and basic common sense through your words and the writings you post give some of us the pause to put whatever in their proper perspective. And Brandon, Fearless Leader, we're almost into May and your heavy-duty work schedule hopefully isn't so heavy-duty. We need more of you here, and you need more of us. Because of my own work schedule, what's happening to my sister and my advocacy in the criminal and correctional systems, I don't make my meetings as often as I want. This site is my lifeline so far. I need all of you to stay here and give all of us your "strength and hope." It's been a few years of 24 hours for me but, I learned (the hard way), I can't rest on my laurels and presume I'm "cured." It's still a miracle to me, though, that despite those 24 hours behind me, I continue to remember what a moment of "weakness," "temptation" or whatever else anyone wants to call it will take me. I don't have any desire to go through that again. Something someone said once sticks in my brain, and it's gospel: we all have another drunk in us, but all of us might not have another recovery. Words of wisdom!   

 

 

 

 

I know exactly what you mean, Johnny, but I'm no more than "minimally adequate" on these new-fangled gizmos called 'puters. I'll defer to Fearless Leader to handle this one.