Originally Posted by
pentuate 
My understanding is that he put it together from working with people who quit on their own. It wasn't any one thing he was taught.
Quite obviously, it wasn't any 'one thing', since he pieced it together from the input of thousands of people who recovered. I have the
Journal of Rational Recovery, which documents the development of AVRT, and you can literally see it taking form over the years. The JRR includes a lot of letters that were sent in with insights that were later incorporated into the body of knowledge now called AVRT.
Originally Posted by
pentuate Methadone is a drug. AVRT is a method to quit addictions (I read in some forum that in some early talk he suggested its use for resolving being gay) that involves the convincing for the use of a technique or strategy that includes some psychological shifts and ideas. They are a little bit different I think.
I have read his writings on homosexuality, and some of the discussions on the subject that went on in the original RR BBS forum. Admittedly, some of it did make me bristle, but that is immaterial. AVRT does not prescribe what is wrong for others, only what is wrong for yourself, and only by your own judgement, not anyone else's. If you think that getting drunk, or being gay, is perfectly right for you, then that is that. For example, I could quite easily use AVRT to wall off the part of my thinking that is directed towards members of the same sex, but I see nothing wrong with it, so I don't.