dybehfar

Have no idea why. Definately coming out of the blue(sort of). I have to hang outdoor christmas decorations, normally I would be having a beer or 10 doing it. I hear it loud and clear and know that the AV is coming out in force. I have a "vertigo" situation going on. I have caught the AV telling me to jump in the car and run out and buy some beer quick before my wife gets back from shopping.

The thing is, I am not trying to argue with the Beast or AV, though I keep saying absolutely not in my head. I have 1 child home sick with the flu. I have a gigantically important meeting on Monday with executives from my company and another organization. To drink now would be a serious disaster. So I know I will not enable the Beast. So strange that it pops up when I have a full plate of activities and important tasks that must be completed without any mistakes.

I keep coming back here and reading the various sections. Can't seem to pull myself away from the computer.

Could use a sanity check here.

Thanks

RobbyRobot

Hi dybehfar,

Let's take a good look at your AV

As you can see, most of your post is pure AV. This explains why you feel the way you feel. If you want to discuss the how's and why's of me taking apart your AV, we can do that, no problemo. If you think I'm way out in left field, no problem either.

We can work thru this if you're wanting too...

Sorry for your troubles...

freshstart57

The short form list of Addictive Voice characteristics is really pretty short.

• Thoughts of drinking now or in the future
• Doubt in one's ability to stay sober
• Doubt in one's self

The ability to parse one's own thoughts for AV is a learned and essential skill, DoYouBelieve. Have at your post and see what you come up with.

dybehfar

Thank you. I went out and worked on the decorations. All is much better.

I need to think this through a bit and analyze it.

I would love to discuss the how and whys in your taking apart my posting and fleshing out the AV. Please. I would love that. I think I am having some difficulties doing it on my own.

I am happy for all input as I need this straightened out.

Thepatman

Good job making the difference between you and IT.

Similar last night, the seduction was bad and hard to resist. I kept doing things and repeating to myself the benefits that I have sober. AV voice eventually got quiet. Untill my neighbor I used to drink with showed up with a 24. I told him I don't drink anymore and I would prefer doing my things alone.

The look on his face was absolutly priceless. He seemed discouraged behing alone. Saw him this morning, he looked like death. Drank the hole 24. I was fresh and happy.

RobbyRobot

Okay debeyfar, so let's get started. Your opening post presents you as being distracted, dismayed, discouraged, and distraught by feelings of addiction ambivalence. This is determined by your telling your AV no while your AV tells you yes. Also, you speak about how it would be normal for you to drink beer while hanging the outdoor Christmas lights. You also speak about being in vertigo, and your AV suggests a few quick ones before your wife returns. You rightly have caught alot of this as AV. Have you also fully understood how the ambivalence of your addiction is a feeding ground for your Beast? This explains how you feel that things just go south out-of-the-blue: addiction ambivalence feeding your Beast, and your Beast barking AV on you hoping you'll trip up and succumb.

In all honesty, of course you would feel lousy under such circumstances. Your Beast is pushing you around. You're about a month and better of quit time in up to now, and although that is good, imo, you need to revisit how addiction ambivalence is still pulling you in all directions.

Saying "no" to your Beast is the same as arguing. Saying "yes" to your Beast is the same as agreeing. In fact, saying anything to your Beast will be an argument -- because, unless you're in agreement with your Beast, ie you agree you want to get drunk-- everything else is disagreement which in turn is being argumentative with your Beast.

So, stop talking to your Beast. Hear your Beast bark out it's AV. Recognise the AV. Feel the Beast. Talk to yourself. Yeah, talk to YOU. Not your Beast.

Don't so much ignore your Beast and AV. Acknowledge your Beast and AV. Ask yourself what your Beast and AV mean to YOU. Learn to separate YOU from THEM. Think on what all you're going through means to YOU. Come to an understanding of how YOU feel, and of what YOU'RE thinking.

Make use of being separated from your Beast and AV. You're still in early days with all this, and separation is the single greatest experience in the early days. Over and over again, until you have a kind of constant awareness of separation. When you've achieved a comfortable sustained distance between you and your Beast and AV, then you can begin more complicated experiences to trash your Beast, and quite down your AV.

Until then, its really best to keep working on essential separation exclusively. Don't be concerned about much else until your really comfortable being separated from your Beast and AV.

So that's enough to get a really great workout with early AVRT. Give me more to work with, and I'll give you more in return to keep going forward.

You can be relived from the frustrations, and the fears, and pains, and what-ever-else early on, so don't worry about when does it all get better, lol.

Trust me, when you achieve a proper balance of separation, you won't need anybody to explain much more to you. You'll be feeling awesome and good to go!

It's really all that easy...

Not quite there yet, though, so a good deal of work NOW in appreciating how you are becoming separated will always pay you back in spades now and forever more.

So, what do you think of my initial efforts, dybehfar?!

dybehfar

Great stuff. I am digesting the concepts you have laid upon me.

Addiction ambivalence. That is an interesting phrase. This may come from my inability to grasp the concept of never. I do think I am struggling with this. So this is providing the fertile ground for my AV / Beast. I agree with that. I am trying to live in the now, but can see how that is allowing me to have an addiction ambivalence.

I need to spend some more time rereading this. I will respond more later as we are running out this morning.

Thanks a million to everyone who has posted. It is really helping me understand this.

GerandTwine

Do You Believe Everything Happens For A Reason,

Your Beast is petrified you reported that to us because it's so obviously wrong. (It surely must have made a big effort to convince you it was true)
Of course you know the concept of never. All of us do, and so do all of our Beasts.

Your quote is equivalent to saying "... my inability to stay stopped."

The first move in AVRT is to acknowledge the ambivalence (BI-Valence) and divide the two ideas into YOU and IT. YOU have quit. IT wants more. With this division, the ambivalence becomes neutralized because IT is a quadriplegic, even though IT will always be there lying on the floor (ground, car seat) next to you, wherever you go, talking to you, reminding you of the old pleasure, the old routines, etc. But that's now all harmless, because IT is not you, and you do can refuse to let IT back in to try and gain control of your arms and legs.

AVRT is all about keeping that desire to drink separate from you.

I've copied the following quote from an earlier post of mine because I think it's concise.

The ambivalence starts with condition D(Addiction). That's when we transition into believing we would be better off quitting for good and that more drinking is simply wrong for us. In condition D(Addiction) more drinking is a moral problem, not just a tactical gamble as it was in condition C(Dependence).

Ambivalence creates the unstable nature of condition D. Ambivalence is also the natural state of someone "in recovery" who has not made a commitment to never drink again. There is an ongoing debate of whether or not to drink some more that is often supported by learned powerlessness and disease beliefs.

GerandTwine

Quinnleigh

Thank you for this post. Addiction ambivalence appears in this thread and also in Applecakes one today, and it is the place where I come undone too. Any doubting of the decision, even the tiniest hairline crack, and the beast slips through.

So thank you for highlighting it. The issues of the day seem to be Addiction Ambivalence and how to cope with feelings.

GerandTwine

The doubting IS the Beast. Quickly listen to what it says (the AV), but do not answer or act upon it any more than possibly saying with deliberate calmness "F*#@ You!" Then back onto what YOU were thinking and doing.

The Beast cannot "slip through" anywhere without YOU very deliberately opening up that crack in full consciousness and watching it come through and then YOU listening to and obeying what IT says.

DarkDays

Some great post above thanks !

FeelingGreat

do not answer or act upon it any more than possibly saying with deliberate calmness "F*#@ You!" Then back onto what YOU were thinking and doing.

I haven't followed AVRT in my recovery, but I recognise that my habit of slow conscious deep breathing when I hear the AV (cravings) is accomplishing the same thing. I don't think I've ever got to the end of my 5 breaths because my mind wanders off on a different path and AV shuts up.

dybehfar

Thanks guys. I think I am getting it.

Sorry I didn't respond sooner. I was preparing for executive meetings all day Sunday, and presenting all day today. It went absolutely perfectly! I have never had so many compliments. I truely believe I couldn't have pulled it off while drinking.

No beast activity. I was invited out to dinner where I am sure drinking would be happening. I declined. I did not decline due to any thoughts of drinking, but rather out of exhaustion and I wanted to go home to the family.

This may have opened doors for me. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Whether or not it is a higher power, karma, etc is inconsequential to me. I am just so happy to not be drinking.

dybehfar

I did start thinking about "IT" and "I" as separate. It is kind of an outer body experience in that I can visualize "IT" as being separate from me sitting along side as a helpless entity.

Hopefully that is healthy. As long as I don't start talking to it out loud.

Toss

Thank you dybehfar for this thread - and to all the others who have gone in depth to explain. I have never identified more closely with any thought process more than with AVRT. I have reread this thread several times and will again.

Toss

GerandTwine

Can you see how this reasoning is AV?

dybehfar

@Gerandtwine Yes, I can see it now. I did not recognize it as such at the time. When I wrote this it was hours after the invitation, once I got home and was reflecting and sharing. Is this still AV?

Wow...this AV is really pervasive in my thoughts and is deeper than I thought.

How long did it take you (and RobbyRobot, FreshStart, and everyone else) to peel back the onion and have the level of understanding that you have with regard to AV?

It makes more and more sense everyday. I think of myself as a reasonably itelligent person, but with out this site and everyone's help, I am not sure I would be able to have fully understood the AV. It seems really simple, but there also seems to be facets that are much more subtle. I was never a very introspective person with regard to my thoughts. I was more of a happy go lucky kind of guy and go with the flow. Maybe that is why I am a bit different and am struggling more with the AV as I really have to evaluate my thoughts on a deeper level.

Whew...Thanks again.

RobbyRobot

I think you nailed it. Being more with the flow would create less eddies and swirls in your thinking process, less points of interest to focus your awareness. Great analogy, dybehfar.

I would suggest though that you perhaps not talk of AV being a struggle for you. I suggest you would do better to speak of evaluating your own thoughts as being where the struggle is actually occuring, if we are to follow thru with the going with the flow analogy.

Let all struggles with AV be those of your Beast. Don't let your Beast off the hook with those AV struggles. With AVRT, we simply recognise the AV, and we move on with our thinking. We don't struggle with our AV. We can of course struggle with our own thoughts. Life is like that sometimes as we make our way.

Interesting, eh?!!

About when did I reach this level of understanding, I would suggest it's not really about 'when' its more about 'who'

As I recognised more and more AV, as I then progressed with my ongoing separation of my Beast/AV and myself, I naturally accomplished a much deeper and appreciative understanding of me, myself, and I.

I became a person with much more presence. More in the moment kinda guy. And this process just keeps on giving back. After decades of practice, I'm much more the 'who' I'm wanting to be, and much less am I dragging myself around thru the day, you know? As for my Beast, there are light-years of separation between me and that filthy animal, hahaha.

So, it's about the quality of life of the non-drinker new person, and not so much the quantity of the time to peel back that miserable onion.

You're right on track, dybehfar. Play out your learning experiences with your AV. There's always something more to learn, about both your Beast/AV and yourself, and the resultant experiences you'll enjoy from those efforts will always enrich and deepen your entire and total life journey.

Great questions, and great personal insight, dybehfar. Very enjoyable talking with you.

Cleopatra1

hi robby,, just a quickie,, when i said in another thread that i was fine and feeling that ive cracked this,, you were a little contradictory to what youve just posted to dybehfr,,,
i know i am in "early days",, but that does not matter at all does it?
if i feel ive cracked it,, then i have,,, yet you just stated its not about the time but the quality,, which i totally agree and beleive in,,, 100% , so ,, surely if i feel the way i do after such a short time,, that my life is of an enormously great quality,, then im done?
i re read all your posts and i love reading them,, you are such a kind man,, always taking great time out to help,, and guide us,, but also sometimes you do confuse me!!!!
see,, told u i was a dumbass,,,lol
im not having a dig,, just asking for some clarification,,, and this is a very quickly written post,, so when i get back from the shops , i may re read it and realise ive been a goon,,,lol
lv all,,, x cleo xxxxxx

tabasco

You can't lie to yourself can you? You know the truth. Denial in treatment circles assumes you are lying to yourself. However, in this instance denial is because it is the truth. If you're done, you're done. 100%.

Are you 100% done?

What takes time is getting ready to quit for ever. Quitting for ever happens in an instant, the very moment you 100% mean it, and you will not change your mind, ever.

Of course your AV might say it very soon, and for ever is a long time. My big plan is only for 50 years which seems to settle the beast a little.