Mello Ron

" QUOTES"
" If you have a sponsor then your OK,
if you have two sponsors your looking
for a way out." anon
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DAILY
A Letter From Bill W. on Depression
(Also see: The Next Frontier: Emotional Sobriety,
printed in the AA Grapevine, January 1958, which
is strikingly similar to this letter from Bill W. on Depression.)
The following excerpts from a letter of Bill W.’s was
quoted in the memoirs of Tom P., and early California
AA member. Tom did not use the name of the person
addressed-perhaps because he was still living.
what Bill W. wrote in 1958 to a close friend who shared his problem
with depression, describing how
Bill himself used St. Francis’s prayer as a steppingstone toward recovery:
Dear ……,
      I think that many oldsters who have put our
AA "booze cure" to severe but successful tests
still find they often lack emotional sobriety.
Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next
major development in AA … the development
of much more real maturity and balance
(which is to say, humility) in our relations
with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God.
      How to translate a right mental conviction into
a right emotional result and so into easy, happy,
and good living … well, that’s not only the neurotic’s
problem, it’s the problem of life itself for all of us who
have got to the point of real willingness to hew to
right principles in all our affairs.
      Even then, as we hew away, peace and joy may still
elude us. That’s the place so many of us AA oldsters
have come to. And it’s a hell of a spot, literally.
      Last autumn, depression, having no really rational
cause at all, almost took me to the cleaners. I began to
be scared that I was in for another long chronic spell.
Considering the grief I’ve had with depressions, it wasn’t a bright prospect.
      I kept asking myself, "Why can’t the Twelve Steps
work to release depression?" By the hour, I stared at
the St. Francis prayer … "It is better to comfort than to
be comforted." Here was the formula, all right, but why didn’t it work?
      Suddenly I realized what the matter was … My basic flaw
had always been dependence, almost absolute dependence
on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security,
and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist
dreams and specifications, I had fought for them.
And when defeat came so did my depression.
      There wasn’t a chance of making the outgoing love of St. Francis
a workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute
dependencies were cut away.
      Reinforced by what grace I could secure in prayer, I found
I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty
emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed upon
any set of circumstances whatsoever.
      Then only could I be free to love as Francis had. Emotional
and institutional satisfactions, I saw, were really the extra dividends
of having love, offering love, and expressing a love
appropriate to each relation of life.
      Plainly, I could not avail myself of God’s love until I was able to
offer it back to Him by loving others as He would have me.
And I couldn’t possibly do that as long as I was victimized by false dependencies.
      For my dependency meant demand … a demand for the
possession and control of the people and the conditions surrounding me.
      This seems to be the primary healing circuit, an outgoing love
of God’s creation and His people, by means of which we avail ourselves
of His love for us. It is most clear that the real current can’t flow until our
paralyzing dependencies are broken, and broken at depth.
Only then can we possibly have a glimmer of what adult love really is.
      If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small,
we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its
consequent demand. Let us, with God’s help, continually surrender
these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love;
we may then be able to gain emotional sobriety.
      Of course, I haven’t offered you a really new idea …
only a gimmick that has started to unhook several of my
own "hexes" at depth. Nowadays my brain no longer races
compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or depression.
I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine.
==============
AL-ANON (related)
I have spent many hours and days caught up
in the frenzy of trying too hard to solve a problem.
Before Al-Anon, I would try to force solutions
to coincide with the way I thought things should be.
What I’ve come to learn from listening to
long-timers in the rooms of Al-Anon is that
my Higher Power is worth my trust.
I’ve heard over and over again how the God
of our understanding knows the solution even
before we are aware of the challenge. With this
knowledge I made a daily decision to surrender.
“Let Go and Let God,” keep an open mind and
heart, and let go of my preconceived ideas of
what the answer should be.
My morning meditation and reading of Al-Anon
literature further reinforces this decision.
Sharings from other Al-Anon’s and Ala-Teen’s
remind me all I can do is make the most of today.
If I want peace and serenity, I need to trust my
recovery, the tools of the program, and be still
enough to allow my Higher Power’s plan to unfold. anon
=================
ABRAHAM
1. Get pleasure from anything you do

There are a lot of people who say
"I have to do this but I want to do that"
and "I have to do this but I want to do that".
And we want you to reach the place where
you say, and really mean it, "I can derive
pleasure from anything I am involved in.
I can feel good no matter what I’m doing".
Alaska Cruise 2008, CD 5
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Vernon Howard’s SECRETS OF LIFE
"Don’t label experiences as being painful. Withdraw the label and
you withdraw the pain."
        Psycho-Pictography, p. 184
===============
SEEDS FOR THE GARDEN OF YOUR MIND

Chicago traffic this morning
roars and beeps
like a cheap video game.
Freakishly, at Wells and Adams,
a speeding bicyclist’s paper sack
spills his stash of shiny bagels
all over Wells Street.
Heads turn.
Two dozen bagels kiss the street
at crazy angles,
then goofily twirl on empty centers
until gravity calms them down
in front of some cars at the light.
The bicyclist jerks his vehicle
over to the curb while hissing
inaudible words of concern.
Wells Street, now set like
a sudden breakfast table,
displays to the public
a tasty temptation
with not one taker.
Idling cars restrained
before the strewn bagels
by a red light
now turning green
begin to roll bagelward.
As if witnessing
a friend’s execution,
the bicyclist clutches
his empty sack and
glares with grim indignity
at the squashings.
Alan Harris
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HUMOR
‘Life isn’t about how to survive the storm,
but how to dance in the rain
ADVICE FROM A RETIRED HUSBAND
It is important for men to remember that, as women grow older,
it becomes harder for them to maintain the same quality of
housekeeping as when they were younger. When you notice
this, try not to yell at them. Some are oversensitive, and there’s
nothing worse than an oversensitive woman.
My name is Steve. Let me relate how I handled the
situation with my wife, Cathy. When I retired a few
years ago, it became necessary for Cathy to get a
full-time job, along with her part-time job, both for
extra income and for the health benefits that we needed.
Shortly after she started working, I noticed she was
beginning to show her age. I usually get home from
the golf club about the same time she gets home from work.
Although she knows how hungry I am, she almost
always says she has to rest for half an hour or so
before she starts dinner. I don’t yell at her. Instead,
I tell her to take her time and just wake me when
she gets dinner on the table. I generally have lunch
in the Men’s Grill at the club, so eating out is not a
reasonable solution. Anyway, I’m ready for some
home-cooked grub when I hit that door. She used
to do the dishes as soon as we finished eating.
But now it’s not unusual for them to sit on the
table for several hours after dinner.
I do what I can by diplomatically reminding her
several times each evening that they won’t clean
themselves. I know she really appreciates this,
as it does seem to motivate her to get them
done before she goes to bed.
Another symptom of aging is complaining, I think.
For example, she will say that it is difficult for her
to find time to pay the monthly bills during her
lunch hour. But, Boys, we take ‘em for better or worse,
so I just smile and offer encouragement. I tell her
to stretch it out over two, or even three days.
That way, she won’t have to rush so much. I also
remind her that missing lunch completely now
and then wouldn’t hurt her any (if you know what
I mean). I like to think tact is one of my strong points.
When doing simple jobs, she seems to think she
needs more rest periods. She had to take a break
when she was only half-finished mowing the yard..
I try not to make a scene. I’m a fair man. I tell her
to fix herself a nice, big, cold glass of freshly
squeezed lemonade and just sit for a while.
And, as long as she is making one for herself,
she may as well make one for me, too.
I know that I probably look like a saint in the
way I support Cathy. I’m not saying that showing
this much consideration is easy. Many men will
find it difficult. Some will find it impossible!
Nobody knows better than I do how frustrating
women get as they get older. However, Guys,
even if you just use a little more tact and less
criticism of your aging wife because of this article,
I will consider that writing it was well worthwhile.
After all, we are put on this earth to help each other.
Signed,
Steve
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Steve died suddenly on April 30th of a perforated rectum.
The police report says he was found with a Calloway
extra-long 50-inch Big Bertha Driver II golf club jammed
up his rear end, with barely 5 inches of grip showing,
and a sledge hammer lying nearby. His wife Cathy was
arrested and charged with murder. The all-woman jury
took only 10 minutes to find her Not Guilty, accepting
her defense that Steve, somehow without looking,
accidentally sat down on his golf club