Hi Jess,
It's not hard to understand the meaninglessness of "normal drinker" when one becomes familiar with the statistical facts about drinking in the USA. Check out this web blog article and study the graph at the bottom of the article.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-record-rates/
The ninth percentile of drinkers looks sort of like what I thought I would gradually settle into as my "experimenting" with binge drinking proved totally untenable at the end of my twenties. Well, I just couldn't do it. After two drinks "I" was no longer present in the universe. After two drinks, "I"had become a personality with a completely different idea of what to do with the rest of the day or evening and it always included having some more to drink.
Rational Recovery developed Addictive Voice Recognition Technique after I quit drinking, and I used AVRT to cement my permanent abstinence solidly in place because I had been spinning my wheels for years in the Recovery Group Movment's mentality that sobriety was a one-day-at-a-time proposition. I intuitively knew that to be false, but simply got caught up in the socio-politico-correctness of the recovery mythologies of the 1980's.
It was important for me to understand the transition Rational Recovery made over twenty years ago between its original affiliation with Rational Emotive Theory (RET) and it's present fully developed focus on Addictive Voice Recognition Technique.
The term Rational took on a new meaning for me in the context of AVRT. It's original meaning of disputing irrational beliefs was no longer useful. As you discovered, Jess, it feels a quite rational to decide to see if it's possible to fit into the ninth percentile of drinkers in the USA, after two years of abstinence. If you had made the Big Plan of AVRT, you would have realized that disputing whether a belief is rational or not is NOT what Rational means in Rational Recovery, and you might not have had more to drink.
To come to the point, for me, Rational in Rational Recovery means that it was finally time to take Irrationality to a whole new level. The Beast is a real entity within me that has the cunning "rationality" of an animal eternally dedicated to staying alive by regaining the pleasure of alcoholic inebriation. That form of rational is absent from the human-only rational of RET. I had to counter the Beast rationality of "drink at any cost" with a similar form of eternal, unchangeable, iron-clad plan that would FOREVER BEAT THE BEAST.
By the way, the Beast of RR is NOT the desire to drink more AFTER alcohol is already in the bloodstream. The Beast vanishes completely after it has got you to drink anything, because at that point IT IS YOU and there is no distinguishing difference.
So, to me, Rational Recovery means know the Beast is humanly Irrational. Understand and use AVRT and it will become CLEAR that I MUST create a HUMANLY IRRATIONAL PLAN to conquer the BEAST. And THAT, of course, IS THE BIG PLAN. A plan that is irrational to RET, but perfectly rational to permanently ending addiction.
As time passes, PhDs, Phormer Drunks who have made The Big Plan, realize and accept in a deeply fundamental and stubborn way, that NOTHING can happen that will cause them to drink again.
At two years, I was just beginning to have my drinking dreams taper off. I attribute a lot of my battling the Beast in my first years abstinent to my immersion in the recovery group movement pre-AVRT. The RGM IS a haven and playground for the Beast. I wanted to end my recovery just like I did my addiction. RR is a direct route out.
For many years, now, I have no recollection of what the physical sensation of being under the influence of alcohol is like. I have zero anxiety about drinking situations. So, why not consider testing out drinking again? Well, with me that's not even a valid question. It doesn't even matter why I quit. I believe anyone can "forget to do evil".
GT
PS. I'm sorry you gave up the last year of your daughter at home with you. And I hope your best friend relationship with your brother is while not drinking. AVRT describes well the comingling of Beasts. If you choose, you have a long, exciting life ahead of you.