Algorithm

So, basically, you want to be able to keep drinking whenever you want, without getting into any trouble from your drinking?

All problem drinkers have this desire (to keep drinking and stay out of trouble), but the thing is, those who are not problem drinkers don't usually have to spend much thought or effort on staying out of trouble.

There is an obvious solution, and it doesn't require any meetings. I think you already know what that solution is, but it's probably scary to seriously think about that solution, no?

Why do you think that is?

graced333

Hi - my question is - what is in a drink that you want?

ChaseReaper230

I have thought that way for a long time. My mind kept (and keeps) telling me "there has to be another way to keep drinking and stay in control." It's a constant battle, even a war at times.

Today I am 4 days sober. I love getting drunk. "If only there was a way to keep drinking AND be happy without all the negative repercussions from getting drunk."

I have to quit lying to myself and replace "AND" with "OR". I can't have BOTH. Keep drinking OR be happy and in control of my life.

It's a game I cannot win. "Sometimes the only way to win the game is not to play the game at all."

Stay strong and stay focused PiratePrentice!

PiratePrentice

You guys are all completely right, I know. I apologize. When I posted, I had just had a bad experience in the newcomers forum earlier with some staunch religious types, and I thought the secular board would be a bit different. I won't try to defend myself at the moment, as I have chosen to drink tonight. But there probably is no defense. All of you are completely right. I misread the OP's first post and changed my viewpoints to something else completely. I was just trying fit in. I thought maybe there were two worlds- AA 12 Steps and secular. I was wrong. I'm sorry.

I know what secular means, and I fit into that category, but when I posted, I saw it in stark contrast to the AA religious folk I was talking to, and I thought I could reword my feelings and have them be accepted. But I was wrong.

I am taking everything everyone has said since my post seriously. I need to quit drinking permanently. Agreeing with the first post of this thread, though, I can stop drinking by simply not drinking. As you said, it doesn't require any meetings. It's just a matter of not drinking. And I am capable of that.

Sorry for being so full of myself.

Algorithm

You can end this battle, and fairly quickly, ChaseReaper.

I don't think you're lying to yourself. You're being quite honest, actually. I can't imagine who wouldn't want to do something that they love without any negative repercussions.

You've already made good progress in realizing that it's either one or the other, though. All you need to do now is to decide which is more important.

Mklove

The idea I was in control, not a higher being empowered me, that's why I chose Smart.

shockozulu

One of my main reasons for going the SMART route as well. I do believe in a higher power but it has nothing to do with my drinking. That is my choice to drink or not. My HP doesn't want me to drink obviously but it is up to me to stop. SMART is a tool for me to be able to enrich my life, not just by quitting my addictions but also achieving balance in my life that I didn't have when in the midst of that giant chemical hole.

CelticZebra

Learning to achieve balance in life and constantly filling our emotional/mental toolboxes with useful and relevant stuff for our personal well-being as well as a good support network are all essential to recovering from addiction IMO.
We can learn to be happy as we can learn to be kinder to ourselves and find a way through our journey with less drama and learn to relax into being ourselves.
As Irvine Welsh said "choose life"

Driving my wagon of hope through beautiful views on my road to myself

Mklove

[QUOTE=CelticZebra;6148823]Learning to achieve balance in life and constantly filling our emotional/mental toolboxes with useful and relevant stuff for our personal well-being as well as a good support network are all essential to recovering from addiction IMO.


Balance, always striving for balance. That goal keeps me from sinking toward despair rather than meeting hopeful goals.

GerandTwine

Pirate Prentice,

I agree with you that the OP of this thread can give the impression that moderate drinking is an acceptable option

First I want to say I admire Jazzfish for making a pledge of permanent abstinence, even though it is expressed here as almost an afterthought in a state of fatigue in October of '15.

In the same post Jazzfish mentions the lack of interest in AVRT following reading "RR: The New Cure."

I think it's important to understand that this thread is not about using AVRT. The Big Plan term is used in April '15, but only in relation to not succeeding at it and saying it morphed into the Big Decision, which again doesn't make sense in AVRT terms. So, this is clearly not an AVRT working thread. But it is about a pledge of permanent abstinence having been made and working.

In June of '15, it is useful to know that Jazzfish initiated another thread that successfully separated making a pledge of permanent abstinence from needing to use AVRT. Here's the link to that thread: http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-point-av.html

Nevertheless, AVRT can be applied to all dialogue and actions related to ending addiction, so...

Back to the enigmatic parts of the OP. In AVRT, deciding "I will Never drink again." IS epic. Yes, it is "simple" and "does not require lots of your time." but I believe it IS truly epic to a formerly addicted person to make such a pledge. It was very epic for me. My AV tells me it is not epic. I also think neuroscience will support that such a pledge can "rewire" thoughts regarding future use of alcohol/drugs; no small feat.

"Quitting is as permanent as you decide it is." is pure Addictive Voice talking to me.
"Quitting is entirely based on the behaviors you choose." is also pure Addictive Voice talking to me.
I understand how in a very limited scope of meaning the above two sentences could be construed as benign to AVRT, but in my mind that takes a lot of stretching the concepts, thus their being enigmatic to me.

And finally, it is not me, but my Beast that is "disappointed by the fact that all that is required to quit is to never, ever pick up another drink." Me? I've been delighted about that for decades.

GT

Dee74

That was the bottom line for me too Chase Reaper...I could be the person I wanted to be, or I could drink...but not both.

I chose...and I'm eternally thankful for that choice

D

MesaMan

.
Once I'd rewired myself into the Reality that I didn't want to drink, there wasn't some big conundrum to forcibly choose between.

Choosing requires an 'A' or 'B' fork in the Road decision. I made one of them go away forever by realizing it was never again an Option.
.

jazzfish

No, I don't. Not once.

The parts must be interpreted within the context that they were written, which is a conclusion based on a decades long search to cobbled together all the parts that would make sobriety work. I was coming to this from a point of immense complexity and moving into a state of simplicity. It the decision and result epic? Sure. Is all the stuff around it that is required to make it work epic. Not in mind.

Given that the AV doesn't actually exist as a separate entity, I believe those two statement are entirely consistent with a Big Plan. Although, I admit that I have no interest playing games of semantics to ensure I sound consistent with it. From my understanding, the Big Plan is a permanent plan that is implemented based on the actions you choose.

Again, context is important here. I was disappointed that all the other things I tried were actually not needed and about all the time I spent trying them.

jazzfish

I recently made some comments about needing to deal with other dimensions of addiction, particularly trauma. I had just started seeing a therapist and this was an issue that was coming up, and at the time seemed right. Shortly after I posted those comments, I started to see red flags with this therapist. She was ignoring the issue I had come to her with and was steering me toward her specialties: trauma and EMDR.

I read about EMDR and was skeptical, but decided to give it a try. As a well-known review goes: "what works isn't new, and what's new doesn't work." She then recommended a book. The author of this book is a known quack who tries to turn people into perpetual victims before dropping religion on them. Ultimately, the only things that got dropped were her and the victim ideas. I am going back to my original ideas here.

soberlicious

I'm sorry you had to deal with that, Jazz. I've had some pretty kooky therapists in my past and it's scary that these people are dealing with very vulnerable people. One of the best things I've learned to do in my life is trust my intuition. It was hard because of how I grew up...people smiling and forging ahead as if nothing was wrong, despite abusive conditions. I always ignored those feelings because I was just so mixed up about reality. I'm glad you're trusting your gut. I hope you can find a good therapist. They are out there, but unfortunately it takes kissing a few frogs if you know what I mean.

Fusion

Jazzfish, I'm so glad your research uncovered what the therapist recommended, was in fact promoted by a quack. You may have saved yourself potential damage, I have read some horror stories. I do hope your original ideas prove fruitful and healing.

I haven't consulted a therapist....but had an experience where a 'sponsor' read my fourth step and accused me of lying, that I wasn't being honest and was withholding defects. When I advised that it was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, she went ballistic and said (and wrote to me) ' you can't have lived all those years without committing more wrongs, it's impossible. Where are your sexual misconducts? You have none it's impossible. You must have suffered some abuse as a child etc.'

I replied that I was fortunate to have been raised by loving parents and went on to marry my teenage-hood sweetheart, with no infidelity. She said 'you're not telling the truth and not being humble and must get down on your knees and pray to god for his forgiveness and then write another fourth step'. It was quackery, without the purported qualifications, personified. We are individuals.

Those were the days, madness. I parted with her 'service' and found another, sane, sponsor, who accepted my truth. She has since left and it just so happens her new husband is a neuro-scientist.

soberlicious

That's interesting Tatsy, about rewriting traumatic events like a computer file. It sounds logical to me because it's not the actual traumatic event that is continually reoccurring, but rather the memory of that trauma that's causing the suffering. I'm so glad you've found something that is working well for you.

Along those same lines, I've read some interesting stuff on how children do something similar to what you've described. It seems that children often create scenarios in their minds when dealing with traumatic events they've experienced, whereby they become superheroes with superpowers and they change the outcome of the event as they replay it in their minds. They've controlled in their mind the out-of-control situation that hurt them.

Fusion

Sorry, Soberlicious, I edited out the over-writing PTSD type memories by re-populating the memory files with comedic, innocent, non-threatening type characters, such as teletubbies, Sesame Street characters. I worried that I was advancing 'therapist type' advice, after the bad experience of Jazzfish.

But I'm glad you responded. How it works for me is: instead of avoiding the memory and being traumatised, I recall the memory and over-write it with a completely different, pleasant, non-threatening scenario. It's been amazing, literally, when I recall those memories (alcohol related, sadly) the new memory file is the over-written version and after a while, I can't replay the old, intrusive one, when I attempt to, I see the new memory file.

I reckon we Homo sapiens are pretty remarkable and have amazing capacities. I'm testament to that, stopping drinking, forever, under my own steam, by using AVRT, which I suppose, essentially rewires (or rewrites) my brain.

Your information regarding children's natural ability to replay traumatic scenes is really interesting. Perhaps as adults, we become stilted and too conformist and are reluctant to investigate or utilise that which falls outside of the accepted, unlike children and their inherent capacities?

Fusion

Ugh, just want to clarify, I no longer subscribe to (double first alphabet letter) nor does the (lovely) second sponsor. We both saw the light. I'm now a self-recovered person via AVRT. Sorry, just wanted to make that point clear. I am enlightened.

soberlicious

I often wonder this too. More often though, I wonder about how we are built and how an identical traumatizing event is dealt with in so many ways by different people. I know that many people feel that addiction is almost always a manifestation of having experienced a traumatic event or series of events, yet I know of countless people who have experienced the same and not gone on to be addicted. I also know people who report a happy childhood, no notable trauma, good parenting ,etc who have been addicted. How to explain that? That's why those theories have never set right with me.