OK, so I have to jump back in. I'm not going to label this by-the-book AVRT; just going to describe my experience.
So nobody can tell me I'm wrong, ha! 
I quit drinking "forever" several times. And believe what you want, but I know what I felt; I meant it every time. I didn't know about AVRT, and didn't say it in exactly the right words, so I'm not sure it qualifies as the Big Plan. It was a plan, tho, and the plan was to never drink again. Call it what you want I guess.
So my plans were isolated acts. I made a plan, and I was done with that. Execution, of course, is where the rubber meets the road. After my last plan, I learned about AVRT, and I would say it was the ongoing use of AV recognition that helped me move comfortably, solidly, and I believe permanently into sobriety.
Do I still use AVRT on an ongoing basis, more than two years after my last drink? I think so. Sort of. I think it's so ingrained that it's almost subconscious. It's like playing a G chord on my uke; I don't consciously think to myself "this is how to make a G chord." It's as though after enough conscious effort, my fingers eventually learned what to do on their own. What was once a very deliberate act has become instinctive.
An example: I was at a bar for a few hours this week, surrounded by booze, and I don't remember ever thinking about those drinks or the fact that I can't/won't/don't want to drink any. It's like if someone has a sandwich with mayo near me. (I think I've made my stance on mayo clear these past few weeks—yuck!) But I don't really pay any attention to mayonnaise that happens to be in my presence, or have to remind myself that I don't like it.
Once in a while a thought of drinking will enter my conscious mind. But it feels so irrational and absurd, that I instantly recoil from it. One of my other SR friends—not an AVRT or AA user, for whatever that's worth—compared it to standing on a very high ledge. For a split second, one might think, "What if I jumped?" I know I've had that happen to me before, and because I've never actually been suicidal, the thought feels completely alien to me. I don't have to talk myself out of jumping, because I soooooo do not want to jump.
So am I still
using AVRT? I'd have to say I am, it's just so ingrained at this point, that my mind knows what to do on an subconscious level, just like when I'm playing a familiar chord on my uke, or looking over a big scary ledge.