Old 01-23-2012, 11:05 AM
  # 358 (permalink)  
Terminally Unique
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Join Date: Jun 2011
Location:   « USA »                       Recovered with AVRT  (Rational Recovery)  ___________
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Originally Posted by Peta View Post
My Beast will most likely be saying "hey we're in a vineyard for goodness sake, everyone's drinking, you're on holiday, you can sleep in tomorrow"

I will be saying "yes but I dont drink - having a drink would be as foreign as having a cigarette to me because I dont smoke either"
The I/It split is the key. If you have truly decided that you will never drink again, for better or worse, then who cares what that disembodied voice in your head says? It can't do a darn thing, least of all pour a drink down your throat. The Beast can only make you struggle if you leave the option to drink again on the table, and there is a possibility of drinking again. The Big Plan of AVRT ends the inner debate — "should I or shouldn't I" — and forces this I/It split.

AVRT allows you to then partition off any thinking that draws you toward drinking through the use of pronouns in your thoughts. For example, you may decide, "I do not want to drink, but IT, my Beast, certainly does." Then, any time you get the thought, "I want to drink," you can quickly transpose this to, "IT — my Beast, my body — wants to drink. Too bad for IT." Never address your Beast, since that leads to debating and "white knuckling." Always stay in your right mind, in the "I," as in, "I will never drink/use again," and do not converse with desire.
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