Originally Posted by
MikeM 
The original idea came from CBT. I've had a lot of that and part of it is exposure therapy. Part of that is exposing yourself to the things that you fear. That is not done in a vacuum though, there's steps before and after it. And you do it in gradual steps to desensitize yourself to the stimulus.
I imagined that this might be the case.
The thing with "exposure therapy" or "systematic desensitization" is that we don't expose ourselves to things that we both fear and crave. It's also done with the supervision and participation of a trained professional, so as not to move too quickly and not to get bogged down with a sense of failure that often comes with moving too slowly.
The idea of exposing myself to experiences that typically are associated with drinking as a plan for recovery doesn't pass the smell test. If you're going to stop doing this because of a consensus against it (which is compliance), rather than due to it being a conviction on your part, then you'll open yourself up to feelings of resentment.
Each time I place myself at risk by being in situations that are associated with my drinking, I reinforce (consciously or otherwise) that behavior, leading me to continue doing the same thing. It's also possible that I could then convince myself that getting sober is "easy," since each time I expose myself to alcohol in an unnatural setting (i.e., with the presence of a supervisor), all goes well. It's easy to see how and where that might go.
Negative reinforcement means getting a reward of sorts by taking something away, as in aspirin taking away a headache or stopping the local bully from go after other children. Positive reinforcement means adding something to the situation in order to make things better. Both of these play a part in getting sober, with the latter focusing on positive action in order to live well in sobriety.
Punishment (which my undergraduate students uniformly confuse with negative reinforcement) is having an undesirable outcome based on what we do. This usually leads us to stop doing whatever we were doing. Usually. Though they were both obvious and extremely painful, the undesirable outcomes of my drinking didn't immediately move me to remove alcohol from my life.
If you want to get healthy, be healthy. If you want to do good, be good. If you want to get sober, be sober.