Originally Posted by
AVRT 
I'll just note that the book is self-contained. While RR offers other materials, such as video instruction for those who prefer to learn by watching TV instead of reading, you can learn AVRT from the book alone. I myself have other materials, notably past issues of the Journal of Rational Recovery, but that is not strictly necessary.
There were some questions on this thread about AVRT and other issues, or causes of addiction; this excerpt should clarify how AVRT differs from traditional treatment in that respect.
Originally Posted by Rational Recovery: The New Cure for Substance Addiction, Pages 42-43
WHAT AVRT IS NOT
AVRT is not a form of addiction treatment; it is an attractive alternative to addiction treatment. Rational Recovery is unlike any other recovery book because it gives addicted people clear, direct instructions that if followed will result in lifetime abstinence. Addiction treatment is an indirect approach that assumes that your drinking or drug use is a symptom of some hidden cause. The treatment intends to correct or remove the cause following which you inexplicably become sober.
AVRT is not therapy or counseling, but it makes those services possible, if you need them. Whatever problems you have are your own, and AVRT makes no attempt to make you a happier, better-adjusted, more successful, or more self-accepting person. Those are your responsibilities, also. The outcome of AVRT, however, is nearly always improvement in all areas of life. After all, one is burdened by the yoke of addiction...
AVRT is not a design for living nor a plan for self-improvement; it is a method to achieve secure abstinence and that is all it is.
Terminal: I found this reply of yours useful and provocative. AVRT is, then, a way to stop drinking, nothing more. But once the drinking has stopped a person may have to deal with mental health issues, such as depression, bi-polar etc. The way to do that is to seek the help of a qualified psychiatrist or counselor. But entirely aside from mental health issues, I submit that there are likely to be what may be broadly called maturity issues, resulting from the likelihood that, during the years of addiction, a person may have been too preoccupied with drinking to focus on the important questions of "Who am I; what do I really want? How can I be happy?" etc. Here there are many paths. Some turn to Buddhism; others to what might be called an enlightened and open minded agnosticism, some to some more conventional religion. There are likely to be many paths. Each person must find his/hers for a quest.
So what I am suggesting is that success with AVRT is only the beginning. It shuts off the drinking so the real business of maturing, for many years interrupted, can resume.
W.