David - Continuous sobriety after chronic relapse, co parenting, HP, blended family Welcome to Odaat Chat, my name is Arlina and I’ll be your host. In case you didn’t know, ODAAT stands for “one day at a time”. If you haven’t yet, don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes so you don’t miss out on upcoming episodes. You might be wondering the purpose of the podcast, and what I can tell you is that besides wanting to clear up a lot of misconceptions about addiction and recovery, I also wanted to share the teachers, ideas and exercises that have helped me on my own journey over the last 22 years that fall outside the parameters of 12 step groups. I’d like to share a book recommendation: Creative Visualization, by Shakti Gawain. It’s a bit of a cult classic. It’s been around since 1979 and a lot of the ideas from the book were re-popularized by the movie “The Secret”. Visualization is a very powerful tool when it comes to making positive changes in your life. Vision boards and things like that all stem from what this book has been teaching for nearly 40 years. I tried one of the visualization meditations from the book called “the pink bubble technique”. The idea is that you hold in your mind, a goal that you would like to manifest, as if it has already happened, with as much positive feeling as you can. Imagine it in as much detail as you can, then surround it in a pink bubble. The last step is to imagine letting it go and seeing it drift away. Then you practice this meditation for several days or weeks. When I did this 14 years ago, I was hoping to buy a house in Silicon Valley, which is no small feat. I had a clear image of a modest beige house on street canopied by big trees.  I was really just hoping for something similar to what I grew up in. Suddenly, a house became available and I got a call at 8am from my relator. I saw the house that afternoon and purchased it, even before my husband came home from work. We were VERY excited to say the least. It wasn’t until I was looking at pictures to send to family, that I realized it was the very house I had imagined!! It was the kind of realization that gave me goose bumps. Now that I’m talking about it, maybe I’ll try it again for a few other things..lol. Anyway, it’s a super cool book, and you can find a link to it on my website at odaatchat.com In this episode I’ll be talking with David who talks about close calls, long term sobriety after long term relapses, and going through the whole thing mostly agnostic. He is living proof that you can get sober without a clearly defined HP. I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope you do as well. And with that, please enjoy this episode with David! Peace & Love, Arlina