hi Aellyce, I've been thinking a lot about your question from a couple days ago ... regarding whether it works to just 'use willpower' a when craving hits, or does one need to do other things? Honestly it's hard for me to answer, because I only know what worked for me, and I have changed my approach over time. When I quit, I knew I needed a plan of action to deal with my 'witching hour' (right after work when I would start drinking wine). The only method I had heard of was AA, so I used that -- there was a meeting near me that met every day at 6 pm, and I went nearly every day for the first few months. I also read the books, got a sponsor, worked the steps, took on service commitments, etc -- did almost everything that was suggested. Although I had a few cravings, I had some tools that worked (eat a snack, call someone, take a walk, play the tape, etc). After ~16 months sober, I started looking around at other approaches here on SR. I adopted AVRT at that point, which has been my main approach since then, which works in a different way as you know. When I made that choice, I read everything I could about AVRT - -all the long threads pinned at the top of the AVRT forum, the books, etc. I immersed myself in it and asked questions here on SR.
The SR community is proof that there are many ways to get sober. If I look for the commonalities among those who have successfully quit, it seems to me (just my impression and opinion) that most of those who successfully quit have some kind of plan. They have some kind of framework through which they understand their addiction and how they're going to deal with cravings. Whatever that framework is, they fully embrace it. It can be custom made - some people combine different tools and approaches. But whatever it is, they use it very actively and make whatever changes they have to make for it to work.