exalky.com

Hi, all rumours of my demise are false
I’m still here and still sober, but I’m not going to go on again about how I can’t beleive I haven’t posted anything for ages….
Truth is I have been totally immersed in the trials of life, and as I didn’t see much evidence that anyone is reading this, I’ve left it on the back burner – or should that be the way back burner!
Anyway, evidence not withstanding, it seems that I do indeed have a readership ( thats YOU Dave! ) so I suppose I’d better write something
I’ve been going through the mill a fair bit of late, mostly down to employment/money issues, but of course this then spills over into every other area of life and all the old excuses for getting smashed come jumping out at me – well they can jump and scream all they like, I’m having none of it – my sobriety and the second chance it has given me is way too important to compromise.
Last night I bumped into my first sponsor at a meeting I hadn’t been to in ages – he’d relapsed a couple of years ago and is now back in the fellowship, back in service and doing all the right things.
I had been letting meetings slip a bit lately, only going every few weeks, but after a good chat with my sponsor I am now back in regular attendance.
Anyway, I mentioned this to my old sponsor and his reply was right on the money -
“what’s the first thing you do when you want to stop drinking – come to meetings.”
“whats the first thing you do when you want to start drinking again – stop coming to meetings.”
Food for thought.
Be well
fluke

I know what you’re thinking. Surely I can use this law of attraction stuff to make some money, and you’d be right.
Maybe some of you are thinking you can use the law of attraction and EFT to “cure” your alcoholism, and again you’d be right.
All things are possible.
Whoah! hold on just a second there, you’d have to be pretty sure you could create money before you quit your job right?
So why risk something as valuable as your sobriety unless you are absolutely certain of success?
Stinkin’ Thinkin’ again I’m affraid-how would you test if you had cured your alcholism-by having a drink?
What does a cured alcoholic do-does he now drink like a gentleman?
The purpose of this blog is to offer ideas and means to spiritual progress to fellow alcoholics and addicts, not to purport some kind of quick fix alternative to AA.
Without AA I would either be drunk or dead and this blog would not exist.
If you’re new to recovery or still struggling, get to as many meetings as you can.
By the time you have become proficient enough in the law of attraction and EFT to really be able to use it to drink like a gentleman, I suspect the desire to do so will have long since passed.
But what about money?

Well, don’t quit your job just yet, but why not have a go at attracting some moolah! It won’t do you any harm. I’ll post some interesting stuff about the Law of Attraction and money in the near future…..

Be Well,

fluke

Hi again,

seems the time between my posts is averaging out at about once a month (note to self-post more!)

Summer needn’t be a testing time for recovering alcoholics/addicts. Sure there’s the never ending slew of barbecues and family gatherings where everyone else is getting quietly (or Loudly!) merry and sunburnt, but this dosen’t mean we have to suffer.

I’ve just come back from a wonderful long weekend at Disneyland Paris with my wife and daughter and my wife’s parents. While it would not be fair to say they spent the whole time drinking, they did consume a fair amount, especially in the evenings. At one point my father in law asked me, “dosen’t it make you crazy watching all of us drinking?”

My answer was truthful and simple. “No it dosen’t, maybe in the early days of my recovery I felt uncomfortable around other people drinking, but not anymore.”

I have learned a coping strategy for these kinds of situations, whether it be a visit to a pub for a special occasion or for dinner, or family gatherings or any situation where alcohol (or drugs for that matter) will be a feature.

The first and most important part of my strategy is “ALWAYS take your parachute”

What I mean by this is always prepare an exit for yourself before you set out. For example, if you’re going out to dinner with family or friends, offer to drive them, thus providing yourself with an excellent reason why you’re not drinking (assuming they don’t already know why ).

It’s a good idea to take your car anyway, as if you do feel uneasy, you can make a fairly quick escape and maybe return to pick them up later. In fact I have done just that quite a few times.

But what if you don’t drive or  have a car?

Parachutes of our kind come in all shapes and sizes-take your phone, or just the number of your sponsor or closest AA friend.

The second part of my strategy is this: If you feel uncomfortable – LEAVE.

If your family or friends don’t understand this and find it strange/rude/whatever, that is THEIR problem, not yours-your responsibility is do do whatever it takes to stay sober, you can explain to them if you want to, but it’s not a requirement.

We visit my wife’s parents for about two weeks at a time -usually a couple of times a year. They live in quite an isolated area so a lot of drinking goes on at their home and I have little chance of getting to a meeting while we are there.

On the rare occasions that I do feel uncomfortable around them drinking ( usually when they’ve been at it for a while), I can’t just pack up and leave, but I can go for a walk or even just go to a different room and read for half an hour or so. This usually does the trick, but if not, then a call to my sponsor or a close AA friend is the answer.

Friends and Family who know about your alcoholism may not understand it, but will usually be supportive and understand if you don’t want to attend a particular event. If they don’t, and give you a hard time about it, maybe it’s time to ask if they’re really such a good friend after all.

Anyway here’s a pic from my Disney visit – I can remind myself to stay sober Anywhere…

(oops! I’ll upload the pic later today…)

Be Well

Fluke ;-D

Hi again,

I know you’re gonna say you’ve heard it all before, but once again I must apologise for my lack of posts of late, but what with work and family commitments, and trying to start a new business I really have been sooo busy!

Anyway I’ve been doing loads of learning, not only for my new business but for my recovery….

My home group was involved in the running of a mini-convention a couple of weeks ago, and I was lucky enough to be of service making the tea and general helping out-we had some great speakers from both AA and Al-Anon, and a great day was had by all.

I made up a t-shirt to advertise exalky.com, but decided it was a bit cheesy (low self esteem) and kept my tracksuit top over it!

Anyway the reason I have been so reluctant about advertising exalky.com, is because of something I heard in the rooms from an old timer who I have the greatest respect for, “if it ain’t in the Big Book, it ain’t worth a shite!”.

Even though my head’s been screaming “LUDDITES!”, I really don’t want to cause any offence or harm so I keep quiet and rarely share about the law of attraction or my take on a higher power, in fact I’m not sure I’ve ever shared about this openly in a meeting..

I went to a great meeting this week and met up with some old friends I hadn’t seen for a while.The meeting usually has a speaker, but not this time. Instead, we read around the room from the Big Book, one of the stories, entitled “Acceptance was the answer”. Not having picked up the Big Book in a while , I had forgotten the story.

Can you imagine the  wonderful feeling I got when I heard the words toward the end of the reading;

“I can do the same thing with an AA meeting. The more I focus my mind on its defects-late start, long drunkalogs, cigarette smoke-the worse the meeting becomes. But when I try to see what I can add to the meeting, rather than what I can get out of it, and when I focus my mind on whats good about it, rater than what’s wrong with it, the meeting keeps getting better and better. When I focus on what’s good today, I have a good day, and when I focus on what’s bad, I have a bad day. If I focus on a problem, the problem increases; if I focus on the answer, the answer increases.”

Right there in the Big Book, The Law of Attraction in a nutshell!

Maybe the t-shirt wasn’t such a bad idea after all

Be well,

Fluke

Hi again,

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard the phrase “Keep it in the day” at meetings. It’s good advice not to project into the future or to wallow in the past, but how about taking it a step further, and try to “Keep it in the moment”. I first came across this idea in some Buddhist teaching or something similar, I can’t really remember (/blush), but just lately I have been reminded of it in yet another excellent book I have read, Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, in which he describes the concept as “Presence”. For me it has come to mean that if I can be completely conscious of what I am doing at any given moment, I will be free of the “washing machine head” that we all suffer from.
It is impossible for the ego (the washing machine) to exist “in the now”, it must exist either in the past or the future, spinning on as it does about what has happened or what might happen, but never what is happening.
Whenever I find myself wandering off into a daydream I try to bring myself back to the present moment by concentrating fully and only on what I am doing.

For example if I am doing the washing up, but I am thinking about the revenge I will take on that bastard who cut me up on the drive home, I am not consciously doing the washing up.

I am in fact doing myself harm by feeling resentment and attracting more to feel resentful for into my life.

So by concentrating my thoughts on the task at hand, I stop this uneccessary resentment in its tracks, do a quick step ten and maybe say a prayer for the “bastard” to have a pleasant day, and carry on with my own. 

Be Well

fluke