Hi guys,
I've been re-reading through this thread every day to clarify and try to understand more fully the nuances people have discussed but I'm afraid alot of the differences have gone over my head. Nevertheless it's been really productive for me and hey, I'm still sober! for what it's worth here's where I'm at with AVRT.
AVRT is a dissociation technique whereby the addicted person can learn to recognise and separate the desire to drink with the healthy desire to not drink. Healthy in this case meaning physically beneficial as opposed to the primitive brain's 'healthy' desire to continue a behaviour that results in pleasure. So far I think I've understood that correctly.
My confusion arises when it comes to the Big Plan. This is something I still have trouble grasping. It seems like you can only know your BP was truly a BP retrospectively, maybe on your death bed or something! It's the notion of only making it once that creates this problem in my understanding. RobR - your advice to look upon it as a tool seems like a possible way to approach it. But even then I don't get why it can only be made once? OK, I get that if you make a BP and then drink again (which I did last year) then it wasn't a real BP. How do you square that sequence of events with making a subsequent BP?? Just admit it wasn't a real BP to begin with? Seems like a cop out to me. You could go on ad infinitum with BPs and justify relapses with that excuse.
AVRT appeals to me because a. I'm not religious b. I like things to make sense logically c. I believe in self-efficacy and d. I like immediate results!! The thought of a lifetime of meetings and resentment around alcohol seems like a poor trade-off for forgoing something that has been such a huge part of my life. Doesn't sound like freedom to me. With AVRT the power is returned to the addict, it's my choice to not drink. No one is imposing this on me. Suddenly I sense the possibility of freedom!
To me the risk of returning to alcohol will come when I start to lose concentration on what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. For me personally mindfulness comes into play here, I will have to remind myself from time to time. It's like anything in life I guess, sometimes you gotta force yourself to do the healthy thing. After I finish on SR in a while I will go for a run. Sure I'd prefer to crash on the couch and watch a movie, but after my run I will be glad I did that rather than the other! Overall a part of me believes quitting alcohol or any other addiction is about facing up to my responsibilities as an adult. Life cannot be one long party.
I feel happy. I am still hearing my AV every couple of days but so far so good. I'm going on vacation in a week and I think the reason it's been relatively easy thus far is because in the back of my mind there is the Beast biding its time.
It's hard not to get fixated on the terms/semantics of the language of AVRT, I think this has been the crux of my issue with the BP. I studied philosophy in college so maybe it's me! So I've decided to take the pragmatists' point of view and, a la RobR, cherry pick what works!!
Thanks everyone.