Originally Posted by
jazzfish 
What happened after the last time I drank. I had been doing really well and had put a lot of thought into why I wasn’t getting sober. I decided to declutter and make it simple. I got rid of traditional conventional knowledge and methods. I adopted a simple approach. It was working and I was confident. But then I drank - the why is less important than what happened next.
At first, I felt defeated and frustrated and hopeless. I immediately started to think I had made a mistake and I should go back to trying the traditional path to sobriety, despite the fact that it had never worked for me. I was in panic mode. I kept drinking, a few here and a few there. I was worried it would be a long time until I got traction again. I kept thinking and researching, trying to find “the answer”.
Somewhere in that process, I read some early posts by Terminally Unique about how to know when you have really made you Big Plan. I started to realize that I had never made my Big Plan. (Actually, I was told this here, but I didn't quite understand it.) I had said the words, but I hadn’t made it. I read that when I really make my Big Plan, that my AV would be squirming and screaming like mad. It wasn’t that I had to screw up my face and say the Big Plan with great determination; it was that I recognized that it was over when I made it. Sobriety was mine for the taking. That was when the second thing happened. I felt a calm and I knew it was over as soon as I wanted it to be.
The AV is screaming and I am calm…and interesting place to be, but that duality allowed me to realize with 100% certainty that the AV would never control my actions. I could win against every time, easily. That doesn’t mean it would go silent immediately, but I could always recognize it and send it packing.
I really began to see the subtlety of the AV and recognize when it (always call it “it”) started talking to me. When I made my Big Plan, my AV didn’t scream “NO! Go drink!!” instead it quietly suggested, “why don’t you try a year instead?” or “What about that networking meeting in June?” This is where AVRT really helped. I needed to shut the AV down at that point, not an hour or 10 minutes later – right that instant. “Nope, it is forever and it starts now. It is mine if I want it.” And the AV would go quiet. And I felt good, calm.
The day I realized this and made my Big Plan, I wrote the following in my journal, “I am done. I am sober. I am recovered. 100%”
Hi JF,
I have highlighted in red some of your post that leads me to what I say next.
This is from the RR website:
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IMPORTANT: If you have been drinking or using, sign off and return here during a day when you have been abstinent. You cannot learn AVRT while under the influence, even slightly so. Make a safe plan for detox.
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You make it sound like you could have been under the influence of alcohol at the time of making a Big Plan. This does not mean that making a Big Plan did not take place, but YOU were not actually fully present anywhere in the universe at that time if there was any alcohol in your system. It can be done, but it's usually when something very bad happens with serious bad consequences that carry over well into the future after the hangover and flushing of alcohol from the bloodstream and those people then fully recommit to permanent abstinence when they are fully themselves.
So, in any case, you ARE reporting it HERE on SR for all to witness, so, I will not doubt that you have made a Big Plan and are now fully clear of alcohol and are fully committed to that Big Plan.
CONGRATULATIONS !!!
Nevertheless, I believe it IS the Addictive Voice that backs you off by simply repeating a rhetorical phrase "It's mine if I want it." instead of declaring very deliberately "I will NEVER drink again, and I will go through the rest of my life and eventually die many years from now WITHOUT EVER AGAIN experiencing even the teentsy tiniest effect of alcohol in my body."
GT