Originally Posted by FT

Samseb, you asked: Those are really good questions and not so easy to answer. They caused me to think about the difference between the experience and the experiencer. One of my favorite reads is Eckhart Tolle, especially A New Earth. He has a way of drawing from the best of Buddhism, Christianity, and other religions and philosophies to discuss the concept of self, and particularly the ego. In part of his book, he talks about consciousness, which cannot be seen, smelled, tasted, or touched, and yet it is the core of self. He talks about how every experience has three possible ingredients: sense perceptions, thoughts or mental images, and emotions -- and who is the experiencer? You are. And who are you? Consciousness. Experiences -- i.e., sense perceptions, thoughts, mental images, or emotions -- intrude upon our consciousness, and we all have a filtering process that goes on to help us be aware of what needs attention and what does not. For lack of a better analogy, it is that filtering process that needs adjusting when you quit drinking or taking drugs. "Beast noise" is simply ANY sense perception, thought, mental image, or emotion that would culminate in using drugs or alcohol. "Beast noise" can come disguised as many other things that appear legitimate on their surface. That's where the "refuse to acknowledge" comes from. After awhile, you're on to the disguises the Beast can take to convince you there just might be legitimate reasons to use drugs or alcohol. Recently, a little bit of "Beast noise" came my way disguised as "me." The voice of "moderation" actually sounded pretty reasonable for a minute, too. You just get better at recognizing Beast noise over time, and mostly it just really does not need any acknowledgment. If it persists, I get a little more aggressive about refusing to acknowledge it. Hey, it ain't gonna work.