Originally Posted by Termnally Unique
Since some terminology is different in the AVRT paradigm, I probably should have defined some terms so everyone is on the same footing.
Addiction:Addiction is chemical use or dependence that exists against one's own better judgment, and persists in spite of efforts to control or eliminate the use of the substance. Addiction exists only in a state of ambivalence, in which one strongly wants to continue drinking alcohol or using other drugs, but also wants to quit or at least reduce the painful consequences.
Addictive Voice:- Any thinking, mental image, or feeling that supports, or even suggests, your future use of alcohol or drugs.
- An expression of the appetite for pleasure induced by alcohol or drugs, or the Beast.
- The desire to get high, to drink or use drugs.
- Addictive desire. Often used synonymously with "Addictive Voice," but more accurately, the appetite or desire for substance-induced pleasure.
- The Addictive Voice is to the Beast what a bark is to a dog.
A transcending personal commitment to unconditional, permanent abstinence. The reasons for making a Big Plan can vary between individuals.
Recovery:Secure, permanent abstinence. Nothing else.
Okay debeyfar, so let's get started. Your opening post presents you as being distracted, dismayed, discouraged, and distraught by feelings of addiction ambivalence. This is determined by your telling your AV no while your AV tells you yes. Also, you speak about how it would be normal for you to drink beer while hanging the outdoor Christmas lights. You also speak about being in vertigo, and your AV suggests a few quick ones before your wife returns. You rightly have caught alot of this as AV. Have you also fully understood how the ambivalence of your addiction is a feeding ground for your Beast? This explains how you feel that things just go south out-of-the-blue: addiction ambivalence feeding your Beast, and your Beast barking AV on you hoping you'll trip up and succumb.
In all honesty, of course you would feel lousy under such circumstances. Your Beast is pushing you around. You're about a month and better of quit time in up to now, and although that is good, imo, you need to revisit how addiction ambivalence is still pulling you in all directions.
Saying "no" to your Beast is the same as arguing. Saying "yes" to your Beast is the same as agreeing. In fact, saying anything to your Beast will be an argument -- because, unless you're in agreement with your Beast, ie you agree you want to get drunk-- everything else is disagreement which in turn is being argumentative with your Beast.
So, stop talking to your Beast. Hear your Beast bark out it's AV. Recognise the AV. Feel the Beast. Talk to yourself. Yeah, talk to YOU. Not your Beast.
Don't so much ignore your Beast and AV. Acknowledge your Beast and AV. Ask yourself what your Beast and AV mean to YOU. Learn to separate YOU from THEM. Think on what all you're going through means to YOU. Come to an understanding of how YOU feel, and of what YOU'RE thinking.
Make use of being separated from your Beast and AV. You're still in early days with all this, and separation is the single greatest experience in the early days. Over and over again, until you have a kind of constant awareness of separation. When you've achieved a comfortable sustained distance between you and your Beast and AV, then you can begin more complicated experiences to trash your Beast, and quite down your AV.
Until then, its really best to keep working on essential separation exclusively. Don't be concerned about much else until your really comfortable being separated from your Beast and AV.
So that's enough to get a really great workout with early AVRT. Give me more to work with, and I'll give you more in return to keep going forward.
You can be relived from the frustrations, and the fears, and pains, and what-ever-else early on, so don't worry about when does it all get better, lol.
Trust me, when you achieve a proper balance of separation, you won't need anybody to explain much more to you. You'll be feeling awesome and good to go!
It's really all that easy...
Not quite there yet, though, so a good deal of work NOW in appreciating how you are becoming separated will always pay you back in spades now and forever more.
So, what do you think of my initial efforts, dybehfar?!