You need to choose between alcohol and your life ... so what is it going to be?
One of the things I love about AVRT—and the more time that goes by, the more I appreciate this—is the clear line it helps me to draw. Alcohol or your life; does it get any starker than that? I'm either a drinker, or I'm not. There's no middle ground, no fuzzy edges. A thought either supports drinking, or it doesn't. It either comes from my addiction, or it comes from me. Right or wrong. Black or white. Gray areas are just another form of AV.
I am disturbingly good at rationalizing; always have been. But AVRT doesn't leave me any wiggle room, no way to rationalize or excuse drinking. And that's awesome, because I spent years rationalizing drinking—whether to drink, when to drink, how much to drink, when to stop, whether to start again... It was exhausting trying to live in the gray areas.
I will never drink again. That word, "never," used to intimidate me. Of course now I realize that was nothing more than AV.
Never, when applied to drinking, is the most comforting word I know.
