Back in October ‘03 I was living a leisurely life in a comfortable house on a desirable property… lovely partner, nice kids, fruit trees… the easy life. Or so it seemed. Gnawing away on the inside was a persistent longing – a deep knowing that something wasn’t right. More so, the consistent consumption of alcohol and coffee was pointing the finger straight at that: why does one need all this stimulation and artificial relaxation if everything is so cool?
Around that time I decided to attend a weekend voice workshop with Chris James. Being a sometime musician myself, and having undergone vocal training, I thought Chris may be able to offer a different perspective on voice… no harm in having a look anyway. Back in those days the workshops had an introductory component on Friday evenings: at this session Chris suggested that those who drink might want to abstain for the weekend, and those who smoke could do likewise. I thought… why not? I had often (in the past) had a program of only drinking on weekends, to good effect. Sadly, those weekends would often get very long, sometimes starting on Thursday night and finishing on Monday night.
So I did… or more accurately, didn’t. Drink that is, for the weekend. That weekend has now ticked just over 10 years – you could call it a l-o-o-o-o-n-g weekend.
Now let me tell you, I was a pretty enthusiastic drinker, from a lineage of very dedicated tipplers… many, many generations long. Irish long. I was introduced to beer by my parents at the age of 5 or 6 – I didn’t like the taste at all, but it sure made me feel like a big man to join the adults at beer o’clock. And like the Irish (they were Irish, a lot of them), everyone drank, so you just joined in. I never knew any different, and never until I was in my twenties thought to try.
For a while there in the ‘psychedelic era’ we would abstain from the drink while expressing hypocritical contempt for ‘juice freaks’ (as we referred to the alcohol drinkers) – who we regarded as ‘violent yobbos’ – so we trashed ourselves with ‘recreational drugs’ instead. Later we graduated to using both at once, and that was horrible, but we weren’t deterred.
Anyway, by the time the workshop came up I was in my 50’s: I was solidly back on the plonk, and off the drugs. At the time of relinquishment I was probably getting through 1.5 cartons of Crown Lager per week, including what I dispensed to guests, plus several bottles of ‘good’ champagne and wine (oh, and the tequila)… and of course the odd one or three with lunch at restaurants etc… let’s say $120 – $130 per week. Serious money. Say $6000 – $6500 per year, and that without any serious entertaining. I told you I was enthusiastic.
My good wife had been telling me for years, decades even, that I ‘wasn’t there’ once I’d had a couple of ales. And as a musician (a bass player, where timing is everything) I had carefully experimented and noticed that by the second drink the precise edge would be lost from my playing.
Well… that was a long way of telling you that I was, quite simply, what used to be known colloquially as a ‘pisspot.’ Doesn’t sound so good, does it? Or look good when it is written down… but that was life, and I never knew any different. Anyway, there is an arithmetical point to this yarn, and it goes like this.
About a year after I tossed in the towel on my drinking career, I was perusing Chris James’ touring schedule one day when I noticed he was soon to be conducting a weekend voice workshop in my boyhood home town, far from here. I have a long time dear friend, also a musician, who lives near there and in days past had quite a ‘spiritual’ bent, so I phoned him and suggested he attend, thinking it may open him to a new direction, as it had for me.
Now this friend did have a bit of a reputation for having some difficulty extracting his wallet from his trousers. Consequently, eschewing the opportunity to enquire about the content of the workshop, or how it may have helped me, he led straight up with
“How much is it?”
“$330 for the weekend” I replied.
He spluttered “I’m not paying that kind of money for a weekend workshop!!!” And so he didn’t…
Three years later I was thinking about all that. Now, I don’t need a mathematician to calculate that my original investment of $330 had not only benefitted me in a multitude of ways (inner and outer) regarding my wellbeing, but was also yielding a saving of $6500/year, or 1969% annual return on the outlay. More than fair, I thought, so I rang my distant friend and told him just that, but he wasn’t impressed. So be it. You can lead a horse to water etc…
In the years since, I have participated in and enjoyed (and regularly been astounded by) many Universal Medicine healing workshops, as well as retreats, massage courses and relationship workshops; I have attended a multitude of discourses and developers’ groups, some of which have required a significant financial outlay, and some none at all. Just ticking up ten years now, that’s $65,000 minimum saved on alcohol – not even allowing for any increase in cost through the years – and I can safely say that my expenditure at Universal Medicine would be no more than one third of that… let’s say $25,000 max., leaving $40,000 profit. On an outlay of $330!
That’s over 12,000% nett profit and rising each year… now THAT’S a healthy return (pun relished). Not to mention the likely liver transplant, the loss of productivity, relationships laid waste by omission and commission, countless hangovers and endless wasted hours observing the rituals and talking utter drivel to anyone who would pretend to listen. The imposition of alcohol-afflicted people on society can barely be overstated.
However, I don’t dream for a moment that giving up drinking was the ultimate answer to my problems. The years have revealed that it was merely the first step to allowing the peeling back of the multitude of layers that I had plastered over my real self – like cheap, thick pancake makeup on a delicate and beautiful face. And only recently am I realising the connection between my addictions and an all-pervasive underlying depression that lay undiagnosed but incessantly active. But that’s another blog…
My heartfelt thanks to Chris James, Serge Benhayon and everyone at Universal Medicine (all my Brother Students) for standing firm in love as I turned this part of my life (lives!?) around: this has allowed me to once again revel in the magic and embody the joy that I once knew so well as a child, but had buried and long forgotten.
Is Universal Medicine value for money?? YOU BET IT IS!!!
PS. Now did I mention how much I used to spend on coffee and chocolate?…
By Andrew Baldwin, Retail Assistant, Byron Bay, Australia
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
I have heard this many many times with regards to alcohol and can’t really remember with me but can remember tasting wine that was like vinegar many times ‘I didn’t like the taste at all’ and his was definitely what I felt when I tried a cigarette. So why when we try something and don’t like it do we carry on doing it and before that why do we even try things that are actually poisonous to our body? You wouldn’t give alcohol, coffee or tea to a plant or put it in a smoky room so why do the same to ourselves? I haven’t drunk alcohol or smoked for at least 12 years and do not miss it one bit instead I love that my body feels clearer, feels more joy and more vital every year ✨
When we add it up like that it is crazy the amount of money we spend actually poisoning ourselves!!! 😳 I don’t drink alcohol anymore either … haven’t done for at least 13 years and never ever once have I looked back or missed it. And of course the more we love ourselves the lovelier our lives become ✨
It is crazy, the amount of money spent poisoning ourselves!
We cannot put a price on the joy of living our true soulful selves.
“Why does one need all this stimulation and artificial relaxation if everything is so cool?” – exactly. And why don’t we even ask that question?
Whatever is going on in life we can ‘stop it’ but the thing is, what is presented by Universal Medicine is that we get an opportunity to get under the layer upon layer of ill energy that has held us in these illusional steps, because we only bury our left behind issues deeper with replacement feel-good-makeup. In other-words Serge Benhayon introduces True healing and the opportunity to steadfastly maintain an amazing Soul-full-essence, free of many burdens that come from a life of drugs and alcohol, so thank you Andrew, I agree a long weekend that is turning into life-times of Love from a Soul-full existence.
There’s another blog to be written on your expenditure on chocolate and coffee! If I begin to calculate that I may get shocked myself – at least a bar of chocolate a day, and on many days there were binges of cakes, cereals, burgers and so on. THe uncontrollable lash out at least once a week (and the majority of weeks 2/3 times) on foods that I would just want to stuff myself with – the addiction to “funky coffee shops” just to get the instagram picture. Ahh so much money saved through investing in these precious workshops, group sessions and so on.
I am so glad to not be a chocoholic today as the smorgasbord is tantalising, but the Love of my Soul-full-essence far out weighs the love of chocolate and the health benefits are amazing.
It’s interesting how now-a-days it is a shock to not eat unhealthy stuff. That there has to be a medical reason apart from “it’s not good for me so I don’t want it”…
Radical foods condemn us to a life in purgatory when we get caught in a good diet but when we feel from our bodies, we eventually get to a True way of eating that is “good for me” and feel the “shock” because of the sugar withdrawal.
I love this blog! The money I have spent on Universal Medicine courses has been the best investment I have ever made – not just because of the savings of any money I would have spent on anything else but because through the courses I have grown back into myself with more inner contentment and natural ease than I have ever felt.
“a deep knowing that something wasn’t right.” When we are absolutely honest with ourselves everyone can feel that the way most of humanity is choosing to live is missing something vital. The Way of The Livingness offers a way to return to truth.
Andrew this is an incredible blog. I love your honesty and way of writing humorous, but true.
To admit to having addictions, I have found is the first step in being honest with oneself and the start of the healing process.
I agree. I love the way Andrew writes as well, very down to earth and funny.
A wise investment…clearly.
A great dissection of how we value ourselves and what we spend and how we spend it. As shared here, sometimes we do not consider the true cost of things especially if it’s a drip drip over time, and we rarely stop to calculate the long term cost, both monetarily and health-wise or other. And why not? I reckon it’s because it’s a comfortable fit, and often we do not know another way, it’s just what’s done around us and we often fall into that without question; until that is, we come across something which questions that, and then suddenly we have a choice, and we can choose something different.
‘Why does one need all this stimulation and artificial relaxation if everything is so cool?’. This is an interesting question Andrew that could well unravel many of our unresolved issues and hurts if we are willing to go there.
Living in connection or disconnection to our true essence is only ever a choice away in each moment.
The return you get from a workshop with Chris James or Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine really is priceless and yet you have done a great job of showing how much in real terms that can also mean!
I have been amazed at how my life has changed through attending Universal Medicine courses and the change of choices I have made. It is impossible to put a price on those changes, or how I feel and how my life now is, the bottom line is that Universal Medicine have never short changed me in anyway and have given me more than money could ever buy.
Money spent to support our evolution is always, ALWAYS going to pay dividends. Any money spent on escape or relief is money down the drain, spent on something that sells itself as great and beneficial, but is in fact harmful even on a subtle level.
I agree, money spent to support our evolution is money well spent, and Universal Medicine certainly supports us evolving.
I love that mathematical equation but more so what you gained when feeling more of yourself. What you came to here should be printed by newspapers.
I find the Universal Medicine courses absolutely priceless – there’s no price you can put on a presentation or course that completely changes your whole life – it’s that simple.
Ah! What an amazing article Andrew, we waste so much money on rubbish and yes – money spent on Universal Medicine is more than valuable!
The best investment you can ever make is to live who you truly are. After spending copious amounts of money on drinking, junk food, entertainment, books and spiritual jaunts I can say with authority that Universal Medicine is the greatest investment I have ever made with continual benefits that supports everyone.
It really is sobering when we bring ourselves to see how much investment we are making and ultimately on what and how it often does not add up. We could be rather careless when it comes to expending our life force.
Andrew Baldwin this is a deeply inspiring blog to read. I love the playfulness you write with. The calculations on how much you would have spent on alcohol over the years that you had stopped drinking whilst attending Chris James’ workshop and Universal Medicine presentations, the investment in yourself that started with $330 is the greatest return of profit any one could ever imagine – the return being the returning to be present with you and re-developing your inner relationship with God. Totally awesome. Thank you.
“That’s over 12,000% nett profit and rising each year… now THAT’S a healthy return (pun relished)”.
Choosing a ‘good life’ is choosing a limit to how much we want to evolve and what our lives will revolve around to try to mitigate the tension our decision has generated but named as markers of our seeming acquired freedom.
I wonder why wives can tell husbands Truth but usually it has to be heard somewhere else for it to be really true. The voice within a partnership or marriage of each other matters and are we appreciating each other without the prisons of ideals and beliefs?
Universal Medicine has enriched my life no end, but never from the slant of personal benefit – only ever for the benefit for all.
The outlay of the original cost of $330 for one course that changed your life cannot be value for money enough! The fact that you saved thousands by not consuming alcohol and probably saved your health at the same time, is proof enough that Universal Medicine is a great investment and worth its weight in gold.
One cannot put a price on the return of one’s Soul, for that is the true return for the investment.