Originally Posted by
BillyWeaver 
Originally Posted by Fandy
and it's a simple effective method....just don't drink...that is all there is to it for me also.
it's a beverage, rather nasty tasting at this point.....i took a sip of what used to be my favorite white wine this past summer and it reminded me of the nail salon smells. icky, no thanks.
it's not really spiritual, i'm not a different person in my life (except i have more $$, am thinner, healthier physiclly and have brain cells that work).
And not letting alcohol control your life?
Seems so easy when you put it that way. "Just dont drink" Have you told other alocholics this? Seems like a legit way to assist those who want to take back control of their lives.
Who needs forums, AA, AVRT, Smart etc when all you have to do is "not drink"
Words of wisdom
Since BW mentioned AVRT self-recovery (stuck in between two programs that make quitting a group project), I thought I'd chime in.
First, from an AVRT point of view, I think BW's post is correct in calling into question the simplicity of "just don't drink" or "not drink" as an adequate decision to any given drinking opportunity. The element of time is not dealt with, which requires the person to repeatedly make the decision to "not drink" every time the opportunity arises. The element of time must be included somewhere in the plan about future drinking to take full advantage of having a human neocortex which has the capacity to beat the problem once and for all time. "NEVER" is the word that takes that full advantage.
I think Fandy's post reveals that "...just don't drink..." has some conditions attached when one sentence later we read "...i took a sip of what used to be my favorite white wine...". If, before last summer, Fandy had decided "I will never drink again," then that sip would not have been possible. The Big Plan of AVRT removes the ability to even consider a decision to drink.
With a Big Plan, I no longer have to decide "just don't drink" each time the opportunity arises; it's already been done. Smelling a drink and sipping a drink are at opposite ends of the universe in my playbook.
BW also mentions "forums" in the "Who needs..." question. And since Fandy has averaged 12 posts per day for the past three years, my question is "Does your not drinking include "stay involved with SR" along with "just don't drink"? Or are you truly managing with "just don't drink" and posting on SR for other reasons?
About there being so many posts here about AVRT? I chalk that up to the immense entrenchment of the institutionalized Addictive Voice in our society at large, which of course gets expressed in many ways here on SR; and each and every time the AV pops up, a pristine AVRT perspective requires a full disclosure of how that AV supports the future use of alcohol. The AV can be devious, but the RT is laser-focused.
I'll begin to conclude with an impossible request - Please, right now, do NOT think of drinking alcohol. This is why it doesn't make sense to me to have to keep making the same decision "to just not drink" every time the opportunity to drink comes up; because as an adult human being, it would be a piece of cake for me to make ANY TIME an opportunity to drink.
I believe everyone here is perfectly capable of making a once in a lifetime decision "I will never drink again", at which time every imaginable opportunity to drink quickly morphs into an external suggestion that is easily recognized as alien. "Oh, yeah, I decided that one long ago."