Originally Posted by
Greenwood618 
What I am attempting to portray is that the concept is not a contrivance, an illustration designed to exaggerate the circumstance as an exercise of emphasis.
I hear you, I just don't agree. That's not my experience, anyway. For those who experience the Beast as a real phenomenon, it is not a metaphor. For those who do not, and instead, created the idea of a Beast to separate rational thinking from irrational cravings and the twisted messages we tell ourselves about those cravings, it is a metaphor.
Part of what I'm picking up is misunderstandings with debate between some who seem to be kind of "purists" about AVRT (those who know it well and adhere to it wholeheartedly), and those like myself who are not entirely convinced. I make associations about mindfulness, CBT (which is not exactly the same as Ellis's REBT), RR, SMART, AA, etc. I'm not saying RR is CBT, I'm just saying all of these approaches overlap, and elements of CBT seem to tie them together.
CBT:
Activating event or thought (could be the Beast - or not)
Behavior resulting from A
Consequence of the behavior
One could say that recognizing the Beast is essentially questioning one's thoughts (which are events) in order to choose a different behavior. That is very much CBT thinking. REBT adds emotion to the mix, and for good reason, I think. Thoughts lead to emotions which lead to behaviors which lead to consequences... Reality Therapy, to add another example, is less linear and focuses on the interplay between acting, thinking, feeling, and physiology..
And there are subtle differences between drives, urges, cravings, compulsions, rational choices, etc... These are not metaphors, but calling any of them a Beast seems to be, which Greenwood already pointed out.