Originally Posted by
AlericB 
... It's just something in the RR: TNC book that
either I don't get or can't agree with.
I'll quote parts of the section entitled "How to Get Out of Your Big Plan" on pages 209-210 to summarise the issue...
Originally Posted by Jack Trimpey, RR:TNC, pgs 209-110
"I do not know how to cancel a Big Plan because such a counterplan is a plan to drink. I have worked on this puzzle using myself as an experimental subject, but each time I think about developing a plan to reverse my Big Plan, I recognize my own Addictive Voice and cannot proceed. Would it be as simple as just grabbing a drink and tossing it down? Even if I could get myself to do that, I doubt I could do it again, and the thought of drinking again is repugnant. If you have made a Big Plan, try getting out of it, and discover the meaning of the word never."
This says to me that once you have made a Big Plan you are somehow reprogrammed to never be able to drink again even if, for whatever reason, you may choose to...
Trimpey is simply applying the machinery of AVRT to his plan to renege on his Big Plan, and correctly identifying it as Addictive Voice, as the Beast talking to him. It is Trimpey's Beast that wants him to renege on the Big Plan, and AVRT allows him to recognize that, so he is unable to proceed.
Originally Posted by Jack Trimpey, RR:TNC, pgs 209-110
It goes to the heart of what I have been trying to say about freedom and the word "never". Surely AVRT is contingent on actually putting it into practice and we will always have the freedom to abandon the practice, or plan, if we so wish?
Yes, AVRT is a tool, and it must be put to use. Trimpey says as much in
RR: The New Cure, on page 84.
Originally Posted by Jack Trimpey, RR:TNC, Pg. 84
...Whether or not others care about you, love you, support you, or encourage you to succeed, you will be tested, and you will either pass or fail. The test will be in the form of real life experience when your Addictive Voice acts up. If you recognize it, you will pass, and if you fail to recognize it, you will drink or use...
The freedom to abandon the Big Plan, to violate a previous covenant, certainly exists, in that one is capable of physically swallowing alcohol, but that does not mean that such an idea is not the Addictive Voice itself. It is the Beast barking, and AVRT will necessarily identify it as such.
Originally Posted by
AlericB Well, I need to understand something before I have confidence in it. Dismissing any criticism of a book as AV doesn't work for me I'm afraid.
The Beast is an instinctive, counterfit survival drive arising from the limbic system. The Beast is a drive to drink/use as if life depended on it, accompanied by justifications (the AV) drawn from the personality of its host. The Beast has no identity of its own, but takes on any appearance it must. This includes a deity which grants conditional reprieves from addiction, since the Beast can then retain full control of the drinking schedule, and it talks in our heads with a commanding, authoritative voice, much like the G-d of the Bible does.
The birth of the Beast causes a comprehensive inversion of one's orientation in life, grounded in the denial of the moral dimension of intoxication -- Original Denial. "Anything that feels that good can’t be wrong, or even bad at all” says the Beast, and other truths are inverted to fit the Beast's new addictive mandate, and the cardinal rule of addiction. "Never say never", says the Beast. The result is a knawing sense that further self-intoxication is necessary, for reasons that, without the Structural Model, are not intuitively apparent.
Much like a sexual awakening at the onset of puberty, the birth of the Beast gives rise to a comprehensive style of thinking (the AV) centered around the addictive mandate, which is subjectively experienced as the self (as "me"). At times of crisis induced by addiction, the original self, also wanting to surive, may decide to forsake the addictive mandate. In addiction, there are two survival mentalities competing with each other ("I" and "IT"), but unrecognized as such, the Beast eventually reorganizes itself, and the forlorn addict experiences a reversal of intent. This cycle can go on for years, until the definitive awakening.
When you doubt AVRT, you are only doubting yourself. AVRT is a depiction of your own free will, essentially the addict's missing moral conscience as it applies to the use of alcohol and other drugs. AVRT corrects the central moral inversion that sustains addiction, which we call Original Denial, by willfully violating the Beast's cardinal rule of addiction with the Big Plan, and by identifying the Addictive Voice as an immoral proposition, which is attributed to an ego-alien entity other than self.
As has already been noted, the Big Plan is a freely chosen decision to remove the Option of ever choosing to drink/use again, by adopting a new, abstinent mandate. Any contradiction of that new, self-imposed mandate is Addictive Voice -- the Beast barking away.