The Alphamusic of John Levine

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ADDICTIONS/ LIFE CHALLENGES/
QUERRELS/

′A CARING BUT CARE-LESS LIFE′
Stewart Holmes Story
As Stewart′s story unfolds you′re reminded of the magic that resides in every life. He is a plain-speaking man whose intelligence and passion shines through a tale of amazing bravery.
Despite the worst predictions, he survived coma and paralysis and self-managed the recovery of all his faculties. Then he decided to jump the hurdle of and apply himself to a postgraduate degree in Conservation Science. It has taken him nine years to get there, but he has achieved his goal.
We are thrilled that Stewart credits John Levine′s alphamusic as a significant contributor to his academic success.
”It′s very interesting. I′ve not come across it before. The moment I switch this music on, I′m at peace. In re-hab they used music therapy, but I didn′t connect with it at all; it didn′t work for me at all. Now, I come in of an evening, I put John′s music on and its like a curtain coming down over all the bother. When I study, I find the music somehow helps me direct my energy, to focus.” As a youngster, Stewart left the English countryside to find work in London. He became a successful theatre set-builder, but never lost a deep attachment to the land. He studied conservation as an amateur, but university seemed too great a challenge: ”I was always afraid to get educated, afraid of what I might discover; things I didn′t want to know”.
Then the opportunity arose to join a documentary team filming indigenous farmers in northern Canada. It was a profoundly important journey. Stewart felt deep resonance with the traditional life of the farmers. The team returned to England and he immediately began planning a return to Canada. Stewart and a similarly inspired friend arranged to take a group of paying guests on an adventure holiday in the Canadian wilderness. Things fell into place with astonishing ease: clients, planning and funding lined up perfectly. An expedition like this needed sophisticated equipment, including a high-speed inflatable dinghy, of the sort used for sea rescue. On a test-run, with Stewart at the helm, the boat suddenly ran out of control and he was thrown head first at an embankment wall. Ten days later he emerged from coma completely paralyzed. Doctors said it was unlikely he would ever walk, talk, read or write.
Slowly he gathered his thoughts and made the decision to manage his own recovery: "I'm a great believer in the subconscious. For me the accident was a way of taking away all the layers. I looked at my situation and I said, 'This is you, now do something about it "
Though he is quite light about the process of rehabilitation, each step has been terribly hard won, still Stewart chooses to see it all as an opportunity:
"That accident saved my life," he explains,
"Up till then, I led a caring, but care-less life. I had plenty of money, plenty of adventure. At the back of my mind, I always worried about the environment, but I was afraid of going on with education, scared of what I might discover, things I didn't want to know. "
Nine years ago he decided to go to university and has now completed a Post-graduate degree in Conservation Science. He describes catching up to tertiary standard as starting school all over again.
Study is a hard grind for Stewart; not because he lacks the intellect, passion or big picture skills, but because he must coordinate his senses and apply them in a consistently focused way. He also suffered from dyslexia. This is where alphamusic has changed things for the better. Stewart talked to John Levine about his difficulties with concentration and focus. On John's recommendation, he took home a copy of Silence of Peace. Stewart says the instant he listened to alphamusic he knew it was different from the music therapy he had previously encountered: "In rehab programs they use music. It's supposed to help you because you get so stressed and angry trying to recuperate. They use the music to calm you down, but I never liked it. I didn't connect with their music at all. It didn't work for me. John's music is completely different. I put it on, it's like a curtain coming down over all the bother. Somehow it helps me focus, helps me direct my energy. I'm so amazed I've been passing 'Silence of Peace' to others at the university, as well as physical therapists. It's interesting to me to hear all the different responses." For Stewart there is no question that Silence of Peace helps. When alphamusic plays, he finds it is easier to focus, absorb and retain information more quickly. He finds it easier to formulate and describe his ideas. His big dyslexia problem turned out to be a minor one now with John′s music. Stewart recently came to visit and told John: "Where were you 15 years ago? I can only imagine how much faster things would have improved if I had had your music then!"

Message from one husband to another.
Tim Gale′s story
Salesman on the road.
Tim Gale is a youthful forty five year old salesman from Bishops Stortford. He is a very lively, funny and confident person, who can easily manage professional conversations and put potential clients at ease. ”When you are the salesman there are always targets. You have to hit them. I need to grow my business because I am self-employed. I have to create my own business opportunities. If I don′t sell anything I don′t earn anything,” explains Tim. Direct sales work has great highs and lows. During the highs, remuneration is very profitable, but there are not enough hours in the day to complete as much work as one would like to do, and during the lows, times can be lean as fickle market forces change situations and the working hours and effort to generate the same income need to be even greater.

Business that leaded to arguments
Tim′s business began to struggle, debts began to accumulate and he was having increasing arguments with his wife, Carol as he worked harder and longer to cover the same ground and achieve the same rewards for his family. Carol didn′t work and was kept busy raising their two growing children who, as they grew, demanded more attention. So as family breadwinner, the pressure to earn money was on Tim, and caring for children duties were left more and more to Carol - a recipe for additional stress and a reason for more household arguments based on work, pressure and financial turbulence. Tim is a good family man, liked to support local community and charitable activities and he had previously worked his way out of trouble, but since workload was partially the cause of his difficulties at that time, he needed a different strategy.
A reasonable solution
The first time he used this CD was after he had an argument with his wife. He went to his office, sat behind the desk and turned on the CD player. Within minutes he felt relaxed. ”I found that it helped me to slow down far more quickly. It enabled me to relax, calm my inner anger and begin to see things from a new perspective. You can′t make intelligent decisions when you are angry,” admits Tim. He says that whenever he listens to John′s music he physically feels rejuvenated, emotionally relaxed and calmed. ′Emerald Forest′ is a lively composition, more in tune with Tim′s energetic, enthusiastic approach to business sales and life in general, yet at the same time calming and relaxing.
Tim acknowledges that going to gym was also helpful for him, but unfortunately it didn′t give the same comfort as he received from the music and isn′t an immediately available option. ”Listening to music is a lot easier and more convenient, because it can be done anywhere and anytime you choose. It is more immediate. After a quarrel I could go straight to my home-office and turn on the music,” says Tim. He didn′t need to absent himself from the family home.
”Alphamusic helped me to calm down and consider decisions rather than making hasty ones,” claims Tim. In his more rationally minded state, surrounded by the sounds of Alphamusic, Tim made the decision to sell his less profitable carpet cleaning business and focus instead on selling finances.
Tim recommends John Levine′s music to people who have high stress levels. ”I think it is an excellent piece of music for that. It takes your thoughts away,” summarizes Tim.

DRUG ADDICTION
Only another addict could possibly understand the desperation of this disease. I find it difficult to paint an accurate picture to ′normal′ people (what we call non-addicts) about how it feels, as addiction is one contradiction after another. I was raging ball of emotion and the same time as empty as a vacuum. I hated myself, I thought I was the mud on your show and same time I thought I was better than you, more intelligent, a better person inside. I loved myself, I just presumed that nobody else ever would or could. The worst thing about it is the loneliness. Isolation breeds fear and by the end of my using I lived in constant fear of everything, particularly myself. I had no control. I was lost, worthless and hopeless.

During a counselling session at the very beginning of my recovery, when I was still shaking from withdrawals, my counsellor asked me, ”What do you want to get out of these sessions?” I thought about this for a minute and replied, ”Some peace of mind. I want everything to be easier. I want to be enough.”

It was recommended to me to try yoga or meditation, to try and calm my racing thoughts and improve my quality of sleep. Just about any addict, regardless of their drug of choice, has sleep difficulties when they first come into recovery. After having spent years controlling my sleep and how alert I was during the day with narcotics, I think my body has just plain forgot how to do it. I was practically catatonic for weeks on end, and then I′d be awake for four days straight with the addict monkey on my shoulder. From as far back as I can remember into my childhood, I′ve had this part of my psyche, the monkey on my shoulder, telling me that I′m not enough, that I′m insufficient and don′t deserve to be happy. I thought that maybe yoga or meditation would provide me with some quite time, a time when the monkey could be gagged and made to sit quietly in the corner.

First I tried yoga. I remember clearly being in a large hall with a group of other people that I didn′t know during this yoga class. From about five minutes into the session, I began to cry. I tried to cry as quietly as possible, hiding my face so that nobody could see. I felt like something was being released from me, something I needed to get out but I felt exposed and uncomfortable because I didn′t want these people to see my weakness. This continued for about forty minutes, be just about keeping the noise down whilst tears poured down my cheeks. To this day, I have no idea what I was crying about. All of a sudden, the dam really burst, and gulping in big gulps of air and grabbed my shoes and ran from the class, sobbing and humiliated. Yoga was a brilliant idea, but not practical for me. I already felt defenceless and allowing that to come out in a public setting was crippling. I spent the next week in bed. And so I tried meditation. Again, I went to a class because as with yoga, I had no idea what I was doing and needed guidance. It was an unmitigated disaster.

The first Alphamusic CD I ever listened to was ′Silence of Heart′. I lay on my bed, turned the volume up moderately loud and listened to the whole piece, from start to finish. I thought it was warm and uplifting at first, but nothing out of the ordinary. After about 20 minutes I began to feel a physical change. Don′t ask me to tell you what changed, because I haven′t got a clue! But my body felt different somehow. I had the one-hour professional version of the CD and by the time I got to end of it I felt safe and held. I thought this was great, really excellent stuff. And then it hit me. Like a ton of bricks. From about 20 minutes in, until the end, I hadn′t worried about a single thing. I hadn′t obsessed or craved. After I felt it change something in my body I was paying attention to how the music made me feel. I went for 40 minutes with the monkey silenced. I′ve heard people say that ′Silence of Heart′ is a release of emotion for them, but for me the crying came afterwards. When I realised that this could give me time off from myself, with down withdrawals and no come down I knew I′d found something incredible.

That same night (after listening to ′Silence of Heart′ again in the bath with some candles- hey! I′m an addict, I like extremes) I decided to try the ′Orange Grove Siesta′ to help me get to sleep. At this point in my recovery it usually took me about two, maybe two and a half hours from getting into be before I would fall asleep. It wasn′t that I wasn′t tired, but I could never seem to switch my brain off. It made me feel ill. When I′m over tired, my jaw tenses up really tight and gives me a headache in my temples and behind my eyes. So I put ′Orange Grove Siesta′ in my CD player, turned the volume down quite low and crawled into bed. I listened to the first few tracks thinking impatiently, ”Um, why aren′t I asleep yet? It′s been ten minutes already!”. The last thing I remember thinking that night, as the first digeridoo kicks in, was, ”This CD′s rubbish. It doesn′t work.” And then I woke up the next morning, after sleeping all the way through with no interruptions. After listening to the CD again I discovered that the digeridoo begins almost exactly 20 minutes into the CD. At this point I admitted defeat with this CD too. Twenty minutes is a dream compared with two hours.

Since discovering Alphamusic, I′ve collected the entire therapy collection. Alphamusic was the gateway for me into a new world. I still find meditation difficult, but bearable. But I love yoga! I wasn′t at a level where I could cope with them, Alphamusic eased me into it. I use Alphamusic in my yoga too, I prefer ′Silence of Voice′ and ′Silence of Balance′ for this. I don′t really have cravings anymore. I found that 10 minutes of ′Silence of Peace′ is a cure-all for cravings. The thought will still be there afterwards, that I had wanted to use, but the obsession is lifted by about 4-5 minutes. I came off anti-depressants not long after I found ′Silence of Heart′ after years of being on and off them. For the most part, I sleep well. I have bouts of insomnia, usually when I′m menstruating, that I successfully treat, usually with ′Amber′ or sometimes with ′Orange Grove Siesta′. Also, I love to make art. I prefer 3D art and have made some silver jewellery and ceramics, but I also paint at home. I love ′Silence of Voice′ and ′Silence of Light′ for getting that connection with myself that I need to focus on my art.

More than anything else, I see Alphamusic as a way of life. I have it on the background when I′m trying to read (′Silence of Peace′ and ′Silence of Spirit′ seem to work best for me on this front), when I′m doing the washing up (′Emerald Forest′) and when I go for a massage (′Silence of Heart′ or ′My Little Sea Shell′ are my favourites for traditional massage or aromatherapy, but ′Silence of Balance′ seems to really hit the spot for Shiatsu and Craniosacral Therapy in my opinion). I haven′t had a panic attack for over a year. I′ve had a lot of help getting clean and staying clean. I have a brilliant support network and an amazing family. But there came a time when then wasn′t anybody around to watch me, when I had to start learning how to cope by myself, and for this I would like to sincerely thank John Levine and his Alphamusic. I′ve been clean and sober for 2 years. I′m still learning and I suspect I always will be. Life isn′t perfect, but with my hand on my heart I can say that most of the time I′m OK. A lot of people helped save my life and it′s come as a bit of a shock, but I think it was worth saving. I′m enough.