HuskyPup

Thanks for this post, it really resonates. I have found it very helpful to consider the benefits of individual approaches to recovery, and how these can be buttressed by group participation, therapy, diet, exercise and a greater spiritual awareness. The more I have pondered these things, the less baggage I am carrying around, the less I am trying to fir square pegs into round holes, so to speak.

Ah, a day off, and sober, still Doing some major rearranging/cleaning/preparing to paint a section of the floor, here. Feels good.

Zencat

I see so much of this that before I became incensed with a hostility to retaliate. Your words help me to see other ways to respond to a widely held falsehood that begs rebuffing.

IMO over-intellectualization or simply intellectualization is the perversion of knowledge. Intellectualization and denial seem to be most profound for those that have a higher to moderate intelligence. I see these two defense mechanisms combined as a skillful attempt to diffuse any counter augment that one is in an ill condition. The denial without a skillful augment seems to hold no smooth hypocrisy because its just silly.

As for knowledge and intelligence as a hindrance to recovery...not! Knowing with understanding ofwhat to do has been, for me, a discovery process in large. I can see if I was bone headed simple minded that I would need a recovery nursemaid to feed me the program milk of my recovery choice. Instead of that vivid example of learning, I made a deliberate attempt to know first hand what was required of me and what I need to do in order to proceed. What I used is my intelligence to find out what it took to get well.

soberlicious

bingo.

As others have posted, I too keep it very simple in regard to alcohol. I don't drink it. ever. It does not get any simpler than that. In regard to the rest of my life, I love to read, question, assimilate new ideas, evolve...my ideas don't always stay the same. So, I can "keep it simple"...but not be a simpleton in the process

I see now that some use the term intellecualize as that of a defense mechanism, as opposed to "using your noggin when dealing with situations in life." Like I said before...semantics is all fun and games til someone puts an eye out LOL

PaperDolls

The over-intellecualize deal resonates with me. I used to think I knew too much about alcoholism to become one. I used to think my way out of good decisions and into wrong ones. Sometimes my thinking is so delusional, I often don't see reality for what it is. Even today. I call my sponsor often to run thing past her. Not because I'm not smart but sometimes I make dumb decisions.

HuskyPup

I think that's a great point. There's a big difference between examining things with intellectual rigor, and using that as a means to rationalize something. A rationalization to drink can happen with or without 'intellectualizing' the matter; it is no more prone to happen just because one is of a thoughtful nature. I have found that being clear-headed, probing and intellectually searching has given me more and more motivation NOT to drink, and has been a huge asset. In the past, yes, I had also rationalized, but generally in a depressed, hung-over state, in which being 'intellectual' was not really possible.

Boleo

My thoughts exactly. My problem is not that I think too much or that my best thinking got me drunk. My problem is that I suffer from a single dose of delusional thinking because I am human and suffer from an additional dose of delusional thinking because I am an alcoholic.

If I don't stay on top of this double-dose of delusional thinking using self-appraisal, prayer and meditation - my delusional thinking will tell me I can drink again because I am smarter than the average alcoholic.

My individual mind will lead me to mostly bad decisions. My universal mind mind will lead me to mostly good decisions. Buddha called them monkey mind and original mind.

Terminally Unique

Isn't drinking, by its very nature, profoundly anti-intellectual? I mean, if I sit down and list all of the things I did that are anti-intellectual, pickling my brain with whiskey every day is pretty high on the list. Perhaps some intellectualizing post-drinking isn't so bad...

Stang

I like that! Never will win an arguement with the son of a bitch!

onlythetruth

Yep! This reminds me of the realization I had instantly on the first morning of my sobriety--if I ever try to argue with alcohol, it will win, every time.

But what I really meant was the AV.

Mark75

Interesting

To you good people using AVRT, is that what it is about ?? ... not arguing with the AV, because you will lose, that the AV is stronger... Is this analogous to surrender in AA?

Terminally Unique

Very perceptive, Mark. Although I don't like the connotation of the word "surrender," there are some parallels, and I have pondered this myself. With AVRT, you effectively stop fighting addictive desire, which is called the Beast. There is an idea perpetuated by never-addicted psychologists that addiction is an irrational belief, and that it can therefore be disputed away. You can see this in advice to "play the tape through," for example, where you try to see the bad stuff that will happen if you drink, so you can then realize how irrational an idea it is.

The problem, though, is that once your brain has been warped by the alcohol, addictive desire (the Beast), which expresses itself via the Addictive Voice, becomes immutable, and therefore indisputable. It simply exists, and may never go away. Disputing the AV away will grant you a temporary reprieve, but it will inevitably come back, and there is no guarantee that you can keep the game up forever.

Many are quite familiar with being unable to recall all the bad stuff that happened in the past as a result of drinking. You tend to "forget" why you quit in the first place, but you can still recall the good feelings alcohol once produced. It has been said that self-knowledge often fails against addiction, and this is why; you forget the knowledge just when you most need it! This phenomenon is so commonplace in addicted people that your basic text even has a reference to it on page 24.

To answer your question, though, the art of AVRT does indeed lie in never arguing or debating with the Addictive Voice. To do so invites anxiety ("white knuckling") and the possibility of failure if you are unable to recall the downside to drinking. There is a common mistaken belief that AVRT is about "willpower" and an endless struggle against the inevitable, but it isn't. With AVRT, you stop struggling against addictive desire. Instead, you accept it, and then you dissociate from it.

Is that surrender? I don't know. Perhaps. :-)

Mark75

Thanx.

If we listen long enough, with open minds, we will find much common ground here, amongst those in recovery. In some ways, my experience, especially early on, was very much like you describe. "Never arguing or debating" ... yep.

HuskyPup

...And also to The Wizzard of Oz!



For me, it means resigning myself to the fact that I can not drink alcohol...or that I can not do so without very ugly consequences. So there is some sense of surrender, in that I have to give something up.

Boleo

Neither do I. I prefer the word Detachment. It is a spiritual principle at least 2,500 years old (maybe a lot older). It has been taught in Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Tantra and Zen.

The fact that it works in both 12 step recovery and AVRT recover does not surprise me in the least. It is probably older than mankind or the the earth itself.

Mark75

Thanx for that Boleo!

I agree, detachment in this sense, and many others, in which I have already come to believe, is entirely consistent with AA and apparently AVRT.... And, well, I think I will just leave at that since we are not in the 12 step section.

Though perhaps I don't always act like it, I come to SR with the goal to engage in meaningful discussion and exchange of ideas, which may be of some use to others, or maybe not ... This was very illuminating, this last discussion on detachment, versus surrender, or not engaging the AV, whatever.

Awesome.

Terminally Unique

I realize that this is heresy in both 12-Step and AVRT circles, but the subjective experience of what is termed a spiritual awakening and what occurs when AVRT is engaged - the sense of calm after an urge - are eerily similar. While I rarely admit it, I have actually gone through all of the steps, and I could walk others through the process. It may sound strange, but my orientation as pertains to AA resides with the solution-based crowd.

AVRT is essentially a dissociative technique, and I suppose that "detachment" would be the layman's term for it. I have often had to field comments about how AVRT doesn't work for "real alcoholics," but this is not true. I often feel compelled to go on the defense when people say this, but then I remember that my experience on both sides, so to speak, is probably not too common.

Mark75

I don't want to argue about "real alcoholics" and I don't think you do either... but, I wonder about this ... I believe that "real alcoholic" is a qualitative term... ie, not how far down one has gone, but the nature of the individual's relationship with drinking... why do they drink? ... not quantitative ... ie how much one has lost, lost job, failed marriage, homeless, health, mental faculties, etc..

If I use the quantitative to describe a real alcoholic, it seems to me that a lot more needs to be done than just detachment from the AV, there needs a rebuilding of the body, spirit and life, almost de novo.

A real alcoholic, qualitatively defined, who still has their life basically intact, well, detaching may be all they need to stabilize and then go on to rebuild themselves within the framework of their already intact life. So yea, I think AVRT may work in those situations.

My own experience is that detachment (surrender) worked very well, ie step two and three, at first... but I was still miserable. I benefited greatly from moving on through the steps and development of a spiritual solution to my own alcoholism.

Well, there I go, intellectualizing again... LOLOLOL

Charon

WHAT???????? Either you live in a tiny isolated town with only one or two meetings available or you have a very closed mind.

I went to a lot of different meetings and I didn't find any two alike. The dynamics of the group flavor the meeting. Other than the bushwah (ritual) at the beginning and the ending "prayer" every meeting is different - even sequential meetings with the same group over time.

I do NOT go to "Big Book" nor "Step" meetings. Simply can't deal with the dogma. I stick with discussion and speaker meetings. I go to meetings solely for the fellowship, being with people who understand what I'm going through/went through, hearing what they went through, what problems they are having, and the suggestions for how to deal with them. It also makes me think about the topic even if I don't share. I certainly don't go for the dogma. It works for some - definitely not for me.

If the discussion or speaker gets too far into the dogma or "god" stuff, I simply quietly leave. When I share I speak honestly. I've found meetings where that is appreciated by trying out a lot of them. Those are the meetings I go to - and I go to one every day and have more than one to choose from daily at different times. So every meeting is the same one - not my experience.

When I chair a meeting I end the meeting with the serenity "prayer" replacing "god" with "great spirit". Anyone doesn't like it can stuff it. I have to listen when they say "god". When the meeting ends in "The Lord's Prayer" I simply remain silent and say in my head.

Terminally Unique

Please don't use Orwellian Step-talk to try and bring me down a peg, Charon. I know the real meaning of the lingo. Try praying for me instead. Let go and let great spirit, as you called it...

bellakeller

LOL. Sometimes when I read your posts AVRT, I hear the screaming "MEOW" sound of an angry kitty.