I'd like to note that one of the key differences between AVRT and other recovery paradigms is that in AVRT, addictive desire (your Beast) is not the cause of your addiction. The Beast simply exists as an impotent entity, and cannot get what it wants without first convincing you to get it via the Addictive Voice.
Therefore, the focus is on the Addictive Voice, and not on mitigating desire via self-improvement projects like other approaches. With AVRT, you stop trying to get rid of the desire and abstain in spite of desire. Each time you deprive the Beast of what it wants, it will get a little weaker, coming ever closer to starvation.
With AVRT, you never have a desire to drink/use, because addictive desire is not you, but the Beast. In AVRT, the phrase "I have no desire to drink" is meaningless, and "I have a desire to drink" implies that the Beast has taken control of the first-person pronoun "I," and you therefore have a potential problem. As long as you recognize addictive desire as separate from you, as ego-alien, however, you are safe from it.
Desire cannot hurt you.