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Old 09-20-2012, 10:59 AM
  # 42 (permalink)  
Dalek
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Originally Posted by Jakkolantern View Post
I'm just going to walk away from this conversation because its clear I have a very different opinion/outlook/philosophy than others here.
That is absolutely your prerogative, but you have to bear in mind that AVRT is not a philosophy on life, nor is it even based on any philosophy or school of psychology, save perhaps self-reliance. It is simply a tool contrived for the singular purpose of defeating addiction, mirrored after what people who recover from addiction all on their own generally do.

Since the whole point of AVRT is self-recovery, RR is not a new recovery home, even for skeptics who don't like the 12-Step approach. If you want to discuss AVRT, which is very precise, then you can probably benefit from the input of others. You should know that those others might be as deeply religious as you are a skeptic, however, because AVRT is not really concerned with that kind of thing.

OTOH, if you want a new recovery home, where you can get together with others who think just like you do and discuss secularism or deep skepticism, then you would probably be better off joining one of the secular recovery clubs, or starting your own thread in the secular forum, because AVRT simply isn't it.

Originally Posted by Jakkolantern View Post
But seriously, arguing over the who does the work in "it works" is pedantic and unhelpful.
It does matter for the purposes of AVRT, because the central message of AVRT is that you are on your own, and that there is nothing to treat or cure. This "works" mentality, as if there were a treatment for addiction, doesn't really jive with AVRT, and there is usually AV embedded in such statements. Let me to illustrate what I mean.

Originally Posted by Jakkolantern
But that doesn't concern me as long as it works.
What is this "as long as it works" stuff? Are you saying it might not work, and that you might get drunk again?

Embedded in that statement is the possibility that it won't "work", which means you might drink, and which is therefore, by definition, AV, since it suggests possible future drinking. Here is a potential, but probably typical AV narrative in the background:

AV: "Yes, this AVRT stuff is neat, but only if it works. We'll see how it goes. If it doesn't work and I drink again, I can always try something else. As they say, whatever works, right? In the meantime, while I am shopping for something that works, I can just keep drinking. Yes, that's the ticket."
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