Hey TU, I just wanted to jump in on this great discussion. As you already know I am pretty active on the friends and family side of the house. I have been reading through all 4 of these threads.
I went searching for something on AVRT the other day as I was noticing that I was finding it easier and easier to fill time with drinking now that my wife and I are separated. So I figured this would simply be a good time to just quit. If I allow myself to drink more or less I always seem to drink more rather than less.
I went to the AVRT web site, did the 28 bullets and the big plan. This is very similar to the approach I used for myself when I quit tobacco 15 years ago so I know it works.
Now to get to my real point.
I am a secular Buddhist in that I don’t see Buddhism as a religion but more of a philosophy with some good tools for living sanely, another point that moved me to just quit with the drinking as I have been much more active in my practice lately and find that I really enjoy living a sane lifestyle.
In my view of Buddhism the Beast is also known as the delusional stream of consciousness or the monkey mind and the tools that are used for dealing with that are meditation and mindfulness. The whole AVRT process dovetails very nicely with mindfulness where I pay attention to my thoughts but avoid attaching any desire to them. Desire/Thirst/Dhukka is the source of suffering. No matter what you feed the monkey it always wants more or the next thing or something else. It is never satisfied. So the best way to deal with it is to detach. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?
To me the AVRT process can extend to more than just addictive drugs and have a positive impact on your life by teaching you how to recognize impulsive thoughts, where they come from and detach from them.
So, thanks for starting these threads and you will probably see a lot more of me hanging out around here throwing a Buddhist/Taoist slant on the whole thing.
Your friend,