One of the prime functions of the Addictive Voice is to deny the moral dimension of self-intoxication. See this post for reference:
This can be heard loud and clear when people say "addiction is not a moral issue!" Since the Addictive Voice itself will necessarily subvert morality, and try to convince the addicted person that there is nothing wrong with getting high, nothing wrong at all, so long as nobody gets hurt, and even then, only after all the facts are in, AVRT says "Yes, it is indeed a moral issue!" In AVRT, the act of using, in and of itself, is wrong, in the moral sense. Since using is wrong, the AV, which supports using, can be thought of as an immoral proposition. One of the questions raised in
The Art of AVRT is this:
"just how wrong is it?"
People sometimes ask me how I can know that I will never drink again, and I tell them that it is wrong for me to do so. Now, this does not mean that I believe it is wrong for others to drink, and unless they are harming others by drinking, I actually don't. As for myself, however, I am very clear in my own thinking about it being 100% wrong. I know this because I have done it before, and can speak from experience. Recall that the Big Plan has five words ("I will never drink
again"). That 'again' word is key, and implies that I have come to this conclusion myself, on account of my own experience, not anyone else's experience, nor anyone else's moral code.
Knowing that drinking is 100% wrong for me not only makes AV recognition effortless, but it also allows me to be perfectly confident that I won't ever drink again. How can I know this? Because I have concluded that drinking (or using) are, for me, the most immoral acts of all, worse than murder. That might seem a little extreme, but I know, for example, that if someone put a gun to my head and told me to kill someone else, I would tell them to go ahead and shoot me. OTOH, if I were drunk, and someone put a gun to my head and told me to do that, I might certainly consider it, and depending on just how drunk I was, I can't be certain that I wouldn't actually do it.
The key insight is that alcohol (or drugs) disable my moral judgment, which makes drinking, in and of itself, immoral. It also makes drinking
more immoral than all of the consequences that might arise
from drinking. Putting drinking at the top of the list of immoral things that I know I will never do is what allows me to maintain perfect confidence that I won't ever do it. To be sure, doing this does require a certain level of introspection, and a reorganization of one's priorities, but it is an extremely powerful insight. I am, in fact, incapable of not recognizing the AV, or of voluntarily drinking. On that note, here are two questions to consider:
- Given your own past experience with drinking, is it right or wrong for you to drink?
- If it is wrong for you to drink, just how wrong is it?
PS: "Drinking" and "using" are synonymous.