Happy New Year :) 22yrs tomorrow! And Cainer says you can cast positive resolutions in concrete tonight.

http://www.icq.com/img/friendship/static/card_16961_rs.swf
HAPPY NEW YEAR e card

Right. Yeah, another ! year on the sober block, as opposed to up some alcoholic creek without a paddle. Hehehe A creek I got to know ALL too well before I decided to take the advice of some friendly alcohol counselors and put the drinking on hold and go to aa meetings. Cool. Now all I need to do is maintain (what I consider to be) a respectably low fat percentage, then I will have !! everything! ...Just kidding.. But yeah its always work staying the weight you want to be. There are "no days off" with that one either! Shame! I have to undo the December excesses. Oh well.

More importantly. Cainer says your thoughts will become things that STICK this new year. Enabling you to cast a positive resolution in concrete. So to speak. Great!

Cainer said yesterday:
Tomorrow brings the awkward convergence of an earthly tradition and a cosmic apparition. Normally, New Year’s Eves come and go without too much fuss. We celebrate. We sing. We make our resolutions then we carry on. But what if some heavenly force were secretly listening in to our every vow, offering full celestial support in ensuring those promises were completely carried out? Tomorrow night, Saturn turns stationary. Such conditions favour those who wish to make a decision and ‘cast it in concrete’ so that it can never be changed. Be very careful not to make a ‘negative’ resolution.
And today he said:
It’s rare to have New Year with a stationary Saturn. Resolutions made under this cosmic climate will prove particularly powerful and unnervingly easy to keep!

Hehe I know what resolutions I want this year.
There are study ones, career ones, fat percentage ones, gym ones, and nearest and dearest ones. Loads! So I am getting busy formulating my desired destinations in my mind today to garner momentum and staying power from the freakishly rare unmoving hulk of Saturn. Cool.

So I hope you all have a peaceful new year and for those of you that are newer to sobriety, don't suffer to much from peer pressure that convinces you that you OUGHT to be doing ?? Something expensive overcrowded and unfunny, just because you feel imposed upon by ? nameless social conventions. Life is too !! short. Do whatever you fancy and don't feel guilty about it. If you don't want to stand for 40mins in a !! freezing queue to get in to some sort of 'exclusive' club only to find it full of lurching unintelligible alcohol sodden, or 'wired' people functioning only on the most reduced limbic brain state, well, you will be glad !! to hear that you ! don't ! have ! to! Thank god. Leave that 'luxury' to the active alcoholics, and THEY can pay 50 quid to stand in an overcrowded bar with slightly overweight red faced lurching individuals who have difficulty forming sentences. :) Trust me, you'll meet a MUCH nicer bunch in the gym. Or basically ! anywhere where the main form of entertainment is NOT being anesthetized, and out of control. Basically. Hehe

Right well you can tell how much I enjoy the company of active alcoholics on their home turf. Not much basically. They are bearable when they are sober but get repetitive and dull after a few so I make my excuses and leave when their social skills get clumsy which sadly can happen quite quickly. I manage to enjoy those sorts of occasions by just seeing what I can do for others while I'm there. Without being a doormat that is. As there are plenty of awkward ! social moment due to the disihibiting affects of alcohol, there are plenty of opportunities for service to change the subject quickly and gloss things over in a social sense.
There are loads of AA new years nights here if you like that kind of thing. They can be quite sweet. Like a wedding disco or something. A wide mix of people catching up with each other, throwing a few shapes, and not taking themselves too seriously.
Plus they have seriously great fireworks by the river and millennium wheel over here, and smaller displays all over. If you can bear the cold!

Or, you can enter the new year with 5 - 20 mins of meditation.
Ajahn Chah used to say, "If you want to change the world learn to make your mind still. To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders."

Brahmavihara Meditation (Boundless Equanimity, Love, Appreciative Joy and Compassion) - mp3, 20mins
http://tinyurl.com/brahmavihara
World Peace Meditation - mp3, 15mins
http://tinyurl.com/7enoj9
You can use any of these to enter the new year meditating...or simply sit in receptive silence.
As part of the meditation session it will be good to focus loving, peaceful thoughts to the troubled regions in our world today.
"Khanti paramam tapo titikha"
Patient endurance is the supreme austerity.
Wishing you an equanimous new year.

Right. Gym. Essays.
Have a good one, whatever you do :)

Andrew at The 4th Avenue Blues is precisely ONE YEAR sober today

Andrew at The 4th Avenue Blues is precisely ONE YEAR sober today.
I have been watching him deal with all manner of difficult circumstances and am terribly !!! happy to see that he has accomplished one years recovery a day at a time. I find him particularly generous hearted and totally without arrogance or unkindness, except unconsciously toward himself in the form of self doubt and deprecation.
What a lovely guy! He has come an ! astonishingly long way in the last 365 days and is an example to all of us, that presuppose our life circumstances mean we cannot get well using the programme of recovery.
His recovery inspires me and I am profoundly happy to see how differently he relates to his family and the world since he realized drinking was no longer working for him. His steady improvement is wildly impressive.

His kindness and generosity literally shine out of what he writes, but I know he cannot see these things anything like as clearly as others are able to see them in him. I look forward to the day when he is better able to see what a worthwhile, inspirational, kind and compassionate human being he truly is.
Ah bless. So go wish him happy aa anniversary if you feel so inclined. :)

Well !! done !! Andrew. Happy AA Anniversary!!!!!
There are PLENTY more of those anniversaries available to you, a day at a time. Virtual cake and streamers your way!
Keep coming back Friend. It gets better.

21 Today! (..Well 21yrs sober on the 1st of Jan)

Hey I ain't Cliffy, but I WILL have been sober for 21 !! years on the trot (a day at a time) on 1st of Jan 2008. In case these details are of interest to you)
Cool huh! Thank christ for bottled water and gym. That's all I can say!

But bless. I actually rather like Cliffy. He's an OK guy in my books.
Well I'm rather glad to have been without a drink or any other mind bending drug (illicit or prescribed) for all that time. It does you good, that's for sure.
I remember when I was new I used to think that was a really long time. I suppose it is. But when I was new it helped me a LOT to know that AA REALLY meant it when they said 'You need NEVER drink again', when they welcomed me into my home group all those years ago.
What I mean is, I took comfort from knowing that people COULD stay sober that long just by going to AA.
Amazing.

Not that it matters, but just in case you don't already know...

I have never been to rehab or psychiatric institutions. Just AA meetings.
I was REALLY mad. But AA worked for me. Mind you I found some pretty hard core big book recovery types in my home group. They had stories that would make your toes curl. And they had one it just using aa. Ah those were the days..

I have only ever done the steps (1-9) ONCE. With my sponsor from my old home group. Steps 10, 11, 12 are maintenence to keep one in 'FIT ! Spiritual condition'. (p84 i think)

I don't have a therapist. Nor do I envisage recruiting one at a later date.
I HAVE tried them in the past. The longest I had one was ? 2-3 years going once a week. I wasn't impressed. It was better than NOTHING. But I MUCH prefer, doing my 'own thing', meaning the kind of personal self awareness work that Eckhart Tolle describes in his book The power of now. I have no 'structure' as such, but I like to 'filter' whatever method I am using through (what I see as) the principles embodied in the basic text of AA. So I am kind of 'formless', but that sounds a bit naff. What I mean is I try not to be a slave to 'form', or structure basically.
BUT when it comes to taking people through the steps, I do NOT deviate from the method I was shown. Because it is the ONLY method I know WORKS. I only have EXPERIENCE of ONE method, so to deviate might ? Involve risking the other persons chances of long term sobriety. Who knows. Its just not worth the risk. So in THAT sense I am fairly repetitive.

I have not found it necessary to regularly attend any other 12 step fellowship in order to deal with or overcome other life problems. Coda, al anon etc etc. They are kind of nice to visit. Like once or twice. But I just use the AA 'vehicle' if you like.

I think the only time I have ever had mind bending drug in my system in the last 21 years is when I had a general anesthetic for 2 operations. Plus I think the injections dentists give you for root canal are 'mind altering' as such.
But I always ask for NON mind bending drugs for pain relief wherever possible.
NONE would be even better, but I am not up to the level of those people who have operations under hypnosis with NO general anesthetic at all!! I'm not sure I will EVER each that standard!

Nobody ever knows I am an 'old timer' unless I tell them how long I have been sober. Meaning sobriety has been VERY anti ageing. Thank GOD.

So yeah. AA 'works' basically.
That's what I'm trying to say.
Yeah I'm still a work in progress. Aren't we all?
Yes I still have mountains to climb. (usually mountains of text books for these essays that REFUSE to write themselves!)
But yeah, you know, there will ALWAYS be work do do.

I would say my main bit of work I am doing right now, is learning to have more FUN, and disidentify with 'victim-y' stories. Meaning not see my 'identity' as caught up in sad stories from the past. I've only just realized after listening to E Tolle audio books that there is STILL quite a significant identity caught up in the stories from the past. So that's what I am trying to drop at the moment. Its tricky, because you ending up building another identity, which I am trying to avoid. I don't want a NEW identity, I am trying to have NO 'idea' of who I am, and just BE. Easier said than done! But hey, the only instant thing in AA is the coffee! (But if you REALLY kept in in the day, you would not think of yourself as a product of a PAST, you would be TRULY in the day. In the HOUR, and the past would be something else ENTIRELY. So you see, it IS an AA principle after all that inspires this new goal...
See? The work is never done! It just changes. That's all.
Right I'm off you guys. Those essays need doing!