Originally Posted by
Newatthis34 
... I've decided that stuff like the Big Plan, and Beast don't cut it for me, (although of course I know that they are metaphors for urges and intentions and not literal) these words cannot take root in my mind in any meaningful way. ...
I understand how the Big Plan -
I will never drink again. - can be used
1- rhetorically, (I've done that many, many times.)
2- as a false pledge stated to others (I did that a number of times before I finally quit for good), and
3- as a personal pledge made to oneself and possibly shared with others. (I've done that once.)(It can't be done more than once.)
But I do not understand how the Big Plan can be construed as "not literal" and a "metaphor for intention".