soberlicious

Well, I quit in my early 20's and remained happily abstinent for 10 years, no meetings or program of any kind. I decided I didn't have a problem after 10 years because who can easily go 10 years and actually have a real problem? LOL I didn't know about AVRT then, but I did know all about "alcoholism" so I decided I wasn't a "real alcoholic". So long story short, I drank daily for 7 years until I was involuntarily placed in the psych ward for a suicide attempt. So to answer your question, no the first time around I had no concept of separation.

In the psych ward I quit, the same way I had the first time, by vowing never to drink again and was successful. After that, I began to study Buddhism. The idea of seeing cravings as "outside of me" is the beginning of learning that I could separate and not act on thoughts/desires/cravings. This is what was different from the first time I quit. A few years after quitting, I learned about AVRT and the discussions here on it. When I joined here, I was like "Ohhhh, this is so similar to what I've been studying." It was pointed out to me by a member here that AVRT is based on self-recovery, just the way I had quit both times, but I see that there was a huge missing piece and that was the separation component. When I experienced what I now know as a vertigo Beast attack after 10 years of abstinence, I was defenseless because I did not know how to separate. The beast and I were one and the same in my mind. So, I say I am not an "AVRT person" lol but I actually am. I just came to the technique the way so many did before me, which is what Trimpey based his work on...the self-recovered. The nice thing is, it is so much easier and more concise and right there to read in his book and on these threads, so people can self-recover quickly. I'm grateful for learning about it here on SR, even though I had already been a non-drinker for about 4 years when I did. It served to tweak my understanding so that a reversal would never be possible again.