Originally Posted by
Aellyce 
The part of the book that I personally relate to the most is what he calls Fading Affect Bias (FAB) - pretty much the same thing that others call Euphoric Recall. And how that plays a role in the pattern of a binge drinker like myself. I really feel that's the only part of the complex I still have a lot of problems with and where I repeatedly fail... it's so powerful for me. I can pretty easily handle the negative mood states, post-drinking transient spike in anxiety/depression, never even had the motivation much to "treat" those with drinking again, never been the self-medicating type of alcoholic much, never drink "at" events or others' judgment etc. But a few days or weeks later, when my brain and mind gets into that FAB state, it's extremely challenging.
I was just finishing up the last pages of the book this afternoon, where he started referring to dealing with FAB. I'm not that good with acronyms, even when reading common text messages and get totally lost. What is he talking about? Usually, in a situation like that you can figure it out from context, but there wasn't any that told me anything about what the heck FAB was, so I fumbled for minutes scanning for where he must have introduced this thing, and finally found it. I was so happy to have learned that one thing, that I can't even remember how he explained how to deal with it. So I'll have to reread that part.
But FAB is like the AV. Every alcoholic in recovery is familiar what what those things are, even if they don't have a names for them. But euphoric recall (that's more meaningful than Fading Affect Bias, and it doesn't make is sound so complicated and technical), affected me deeply at least before I decided to never drink again. After that, FAB was possibly the most frightening thing I worried about in recovery, because I knew from past experience how easy it was to drink from it, and I did have one near miss, which I was ready for, but it still scared the be-jabbers out of me. FAB was definitely the most likely trap that would end my recovery. It is so very subtle and seductive, and before I accepted never drinking again, I fell for it over and over, as in "every evening."
Originally Posted by
Aellyce The morality argument... yep. Sadly, I encountered it not only from old literature like RR but was also exposed to it in medical communities and directly myself relatively recently even here on SR. It sometimes even comes from long-recovered addicts. It doesn't really faze me personally (other than sometimes making a sarcastic comeback to it) as I believe the modern science... but does make me think like "what?!... hello? have you heard of 21st century explanations to how addiction works?". I think any effort to eradicate that perception and judgment is progressive to also loosen the addiction stigma or sense of failure in recovery further, which is definitely a major cause for people shying away from seeking help or even being honest.
It is ingrained into society and invades most recovery programs to one degree or another, even when the program formally rejects it. Society just can't seem to separate alcoholism from character flaws.