[comp.text.tex] \label in \newenvironment

sommer@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU (12/13/90)

My problem is to be able to use a new counter to sequentially designate
items in my text (e.g., chemical structures) automatically BUT ALSO to be
able to re-use the structure number (automatically) when needed. 

In my preamble I can put
\newcounter{str}
\newcommand{\str}{\stepcounter{str}{\bf \thestr}}
to simply designate each new item in sequence.
E.g., compare compound \str \ to compound \str . 
(output = compare compound *1* to compound *2*.)

When I add
\newenvironment{strnum}{\str}{{}}
to the preamble, it should create an environment to put in the numbers with
enough space between the \begin{strnum} \label{steroid6} and \end{strnum}
for the optional label{steroid6} command. So how do I define a counter for
the environment so I can re-use the number associated with \ref{steroid6}
elsewhere in my text? I was sort of hoping it would be built into the LaTeX
newenvironment defs but it's not working as hoped. 

Note: \begin{strnum} and \end{strnum} does produce *3* in the output.
Everything compiles _without error_, but there is no *#* corresponding to
\ref{steroid6} in the output = "... associated with   elsewhere in my ..."
The space between "with" and "elsewhere" is very big, though.

My .aux file contains:
\relax
\newlabel{steroid1}{{}{1}}  % I guess the 1 is the page # for use with
			    % \pageref{steroid6}, but that the str # is {}
And, yes, I did latex twice before dvi'ing. 

I've been reading latex.tex, but I don't know enough TeX to know where to
start hacking. Thanks for suggestions ...