Originally Posted by
daredevil 
I did a cost-benefit analysis yesterday, and I realized that hijacking my life for 30 minutes of ‘enjoyment’ (after the first 3-4 ounces of liquor, I don’t even enjoy it) and tempting fate with the silliness of sporadic drinking has no place in my life. It doesn’t align with any value of mine, so I’m putting a permanent end to the silliness.
That said, I can envision someone saying, ‘if drinking sporadically ever does align with your values, will you drink again?’ Is your value system a contingency upon which abstinence depends?
Or, in the alternative, if the cost-benefit equation ever indicates that that 30-minute reprieve is worth possibly hijacking your life and tempting fate, is that a contingency upon which abstinence depends?
Both would be good questions.
I am putting a permanent end to the silliness, with contingencies.
Congratulations, daredevil.
Regarding alcohol/drug use, your value system could evolve in two directions.
One, to lead you to accept the sort of irrational finality of a pledge without contingencies and make it, because it is so liberating to the rest of your life.
The other, to lead you to a decision to try moderate, occasional, or very infrequent drinking again. (Would you actually plan to just get silly drunk again?)
AVRT aside, taking the very ancient, useful, and silently popular pledge of UNCONTINGENT permanent abstinence is a very personal and profound event. Even Rational Recovery makes a point of this in “The New Cure for Substance Addiction”.
Whether you make the uncontingent pledge sooner or later, from that time on your evolving value system would have no future influence upon getting you to drink some more.
I’ve lived many years with a non contingent pledge of permanent abstinence, and it has never had an influence upon my value system. Why? Because it is about NOT DOING such a minuscule, tiny, super-specific behavior - swallowing ethanol. Of course, I see evidence of ethanol/drug consumption in society and I have an interest in the history of that consumption. My point is, having taken the non-contingent pledge is very, very UNCONNECTED with the rest of my life.
I think people who take contingent pledges as you have done today, and are not dependent upon the Recovery Group Movement, often sooner or later come to recognize this UNCONNECTEDNESS and simply and unremarkably take away all contingencies from their pledge and get on with life. That’s how I made my Big Plan for smoking.