Would you agree though that the common experience is that AV lessens over time when you quit drinking? It's very hard to explain that if you say that it is the single act of making the BP alone that is responsible for keeping you abstinent. If that were the case then you would expect the AV to immediately drop to its lowest level as soon as the BP is made and not follow, typically, the extinction curve that Tatsy mentioned.
Isn't it more plausible that it is the continuing application of the technique of separation from AV - any thought or feeling that is counter to your BP - that explains why AV lessens over time, at least in everyone's account I have ever read anywhere on SR, whether they are following AVRT or not?
It's true that AVRT does not depend on which physical mechanism, whether neuroplasticity or something else entirely, is at play here, though from the little I know neuroplasticity seems to be the prime candidate. And it's true that AVRT would still 'work' even if AV didn't lessen over time it's the technique of making a BP and ever afterwards recognising and separating from AV of and whenever it arises, and so it's not dependant on whether the AV is rare or frequent, weak or strong, or growing or diminishing.
Perhaps its me but I just don't understand this insistence that it is the BP alone that is needed. It doesn't match up with most people's experience and, if that were the case, why does AVRT have a technique at all?