Many Thanks
I could sincerely 'Like' about every Post on this Thread. Many thanks to the OP.
I could write a Book while typing at ~80 WPM, but I'll try to contain myself. NOT! I Detoxed myself at Home. A few months later, I found and joined SR. A few months thereafter, thanks to soberlicious and others I dearly appreciate, I got around to checking out AVRT concepts. Loved it, since it synchronized well with my World View. I have to disengage periodically from the otherwise-helpful SR in order to 'keep my Eye on the Recovery Prize'. I'm 61. I sobered up at 60 after 42 years of Drinking. I don't have time to waste arguing the obvious. You can just quit.
1. When I read, as I did here last week, all-knowing lines like 'Willpower alone will never work' [to sober up] I write off temporarily what else that Person has to say. Without regrets. A wry Physics Pal has forever joked with me about the innate non-truth of any such black-and-white, 100.dot.zero percent 'truisms'. Such declarations are in the same League as Political POVs like 'ALL Liberals think thus-and-so'. Oh really? That first requires meeting all Liberals. This might take a while. From this naive premise re: Willpower, I suppose we can go on to make observations about ALL Italians or ALL Minorities of a certain type. Or, more to the point, all AA Participants are thus-and-so. Rubbish. The actual statement is more accurately put as 'Willpower alone will never work for me'. My Life is not now some Grand AV Struggle. I'm not going to make it appear more than it is for the sake of drama.
2. To a depth that's difficult to communicate, I reject the 'Fallen Angel' Model of Man endemic to many conventional Religions. As a subset of that, I reject the notion that only surrendering to some Cloud Spook can keep me from drinking. Um, no. Ironically, the Mind that conceives of a God in any manifestation is - ta da - Man [Human]-based. I am not powerless. Spare me. I will not argue this point. If that closes me off to Alt POVs I'm supposed to go to Meetings and torture myself sitting through while listening to such assertions, I'm done. That entire Model reminds me of when Women were supposed to be frail Creatures too emotional to vote, and would faint at the least little perturbation in Life.
To the contrary, me, myself and I alone summoned strength internal to me and stopped getting hammered long enough to de-Fog my innate Human power. It's been a straight-line Path from there with some not-Earth-shattering bumps. Frankly, I never tried very hard or very often to Sober up before. It simply wasn't important to me. Now, it is. I don't have innumerable Relapses under my Belt. I certainly don't take issue with those that do. Hopefully, they hit their critical point to sober up as I did. That's an individual a point as I can imagine. Why second guess the relative 'ease' of me - and others - reaching that tipping point to forever 'Firewall' Drinking? It's not as if I'm lying about it.
3. In the ongoing ~2,500 Post Thread about the 'Success Rate Of AA', it appears that one essential Statistical truth is generally overlooked. If only one UFO were ever recovered and analyzed, then UFOs exist. Period. Substantiation doesn't require that hundreds are recovered. In a like manner, if only one Person recovers via AVRT, it can no longer be dismissed as 'not viable'. AVRT doesn't become viable only when it works >51% of the time. This AA Thread had that feel to it. It reminded me of the ancient 'Ford vs. Chevy' Truck pissing contests that Testosterone-laden Guys got into in High School.
4. In some cases, the very heavy-handed Stepper Dogma being shilled tries to frame and control/define the discussion. Those who know their Boundaries and refuse to tolerate 'excess' BS are labeled as 'Resentful'. I would suggest instead that 'experienced' or 'not Weasel-like' replaces the word 'Resentfull'. This-or-that Step is invoked as some 10th Commandment and used to frame an entire Post or POV. I stop that presumptuousness in it's tracks. That Parlor Trick speaks only of the limited POV of the Critic. There's a lot of pretty marginal Amateur Psychology floating around. I don't feel 'bad' for seeing that for what it is, and calling it out. Otherwise, such invasive Forum Behavior carries on and, IMO, impedes true Recovery.
I am of the Genetic Predisposition to get good and high. I'm not a 'Normie'. I'm also not of the size or weight to ever be a Horse Jockey. Those are two equivalent, Guilt-free statements of fact. Just as erecting a Firewall against drinking again significantly eases the Mental burden, accepting my Genetic nature eases the burden. Elephants can be seen getting hammered on fermented Fruit in some YouTube Clips. So, what, do Elephants therefore have Character Flaws? Getting high, or at least drinking Wine, can be seen in Cave 'Paintings'. We're part of a long tradition.
My HP is Comedian Henny Youngman. He says it all to me about the binary choice of quitting drinking forever...
Patient, while lifting his Arm: 'Doctor, Doctor, it hurts when I do that'.
Doctor: 'OK, so don't do that'.
Thanks in large part to AVRT, now I don't do that. I agree that Recovery is lifelong, as is Addict_ism [being an Addict]. I'm growing weary of defending my Methods. We were married in a Buddhist Church. I've hit a nice 'Zen' on not struggling. So, I check out from SR more frequently, and am more serene for it.