Hi Vinyl,
I'm supportative of anything from the various schools of Zen. I appreciate the inherent "senselessness" of Zen. I understand how Zen is experientially beyond words, and ideas, and "self." Zen is a spiritual mediatative "now" experience directly with myself that can be re-affirming and strengthening as I become more aware of well, my awareness of being present and having presence moment to moment and within a single moment. I have faced the dragon in the cave and often found myself alone. Alone is a good outcome, as we know.
Having said that, let's be clear I'm no student of Zen. I'm simply aware of Zen as a worthy and difficult path in coming f2f with myself.
AVRT is also interesting for me. I enjoy how I can also find myself alone with myself by adhering to my Big Plan and have 100% confidence in myself to become dis-entangled from my addictive self. With my addictive self on the
other side of my awareness, I'm free to enhance those boundaries with a sureness of knowing I'll now not ever drink again and I'll never change my mind about my not drinking. This has worked for me past 31 years now. It will always work the same for me. I have zero fear of ever drinking again. My Beast still has a barking voice, and still has it's abnormal animal desires, but it suffers alone. We are separated now. And forever more. I am me and my Beast is not me even though it is of me. My AV is the voice of my Beast even though it's voice is simply a harvested collection of my own thoughts twisted into guided weapons of rhetorical devices and persuasions against me, myself, and I.
My enduring indifference to my Beast's desires and boring insistent voice is my best action in answer to my Beat's existence.
I choose for my Beast to exist. I choose to have awareness of my AV. These things of creation are of course of my own making. As well, there is scientific fact of the physical lower mid-brain of all humans - our animal brain if you will. The lair of my Beast, no less. This is where my survival drives originate - air, water, food, shelter, sex, companions, and for me additionally this would include an unhealthy unnatural appetite for alcoholic drinking.
My Beast wants its desire for alcohol be satisfied only by my drinking and nothing else will satisfy. So my Beast wants to use me, because it itself cannot of course drink, and since I refuse, my Beast is of course against me in its ignorance and arrogance it does it's thing to survive.
I am not against my Beast though. We are not enemies. I can make better choices than to fight. I can easily render my Beast harmless and ineffectual in spite of all it's wailings and thrashings about. I am separated from my mid-brain on many personal and realistic levels of experience and so then of course I'm separated from my Beast as well. This simple ideal separation is sufficient. I'm free to chose to not drink now and in the now and forevermore.
AA is off topic for discussion in this forum, I still feel it important to be transparent with you Vinyl of my experiences. Indeed, I'm a recovered alcoholc drug addict as well. I have within me the arrested illness of alcoholism, as defined and detailed by Alcoholics Anonymous. My alcoholism is presently unempowered. My dead alcoholic mind is found in the bowels of my alcoholism illness. My alcoholc mind is in a coma and has been for almost my entire sobriety. It took a bit of time, three months, for me to complete the AA program and change out my alcoholic mind for what I have today: sobriety ensured by my living a continous spiritual life. Again, this too brings me to being alone with myself.
I can't go much deeper with my experiences, as this forum has distinct boundaries, and I respect those boundaries. I have other posts in other forums which detail my unspoken of here experiences with quitting drinking and staying quit.
I also practice Gestalt therapy, an entirely experiential therapy, and have for decades now. It really is my cup of freedom in understanding the me that I was, and that I am, and that I will become.
So...
I present as one with many hats. I have chosen to be as I am. It works for me in ways that have completely enriched my life many times over and over again. I hope you can come to an understanding that I champion and encourage all those who seek their own answer to their own questions when it comes to quitting drinking today and always.
If you're still interested in having a direct discussion, with me, in this thread, I'm open to your shares and experiences. There will be no winners or losers from such a discussion. We may all have something to learn from our disagreements, lol. If perhaps otherwise, if you prefer to shake hands and we move on, I'm likewise good for doing that too.
Either way, I feel we respect each other enough to choose wisely for ourselves. We've all been there, and we're all going somewhere.
Robby