RobbyRobot

It is all about choice, has been my experience. Choice is not the end of the journey but simply the begining. Like some others are saying I too would choose to quit drinking and would eventually be drunk yet again. This does not mean that choice failed me, it means my understanding of the power of choice failed me. I failed me. My alcoholism, as defined by AA, failed me. My alcoholic thinking failed me. The power of choice did not failure me.

My last drunk was three decades ago. I can say so because I choose to never get drunk again because I did not want to die drunk no matter what I was required to do to keep from getting drunk I would absolutely do. So what I had decided was in effect keeping abstinent from alcohol forever.

I failed at quitting alcoholic drinking because I empowered those choices from within my alcoholic mind. At the time I was not aware of 'alcoholic minded thinking'. Why would I be? I made no distinctions of what I was thinking. I was already working on realizing that I was very likely insane. That seemed to be enough on my plate at the time.

The huge misunderstanding with all that was my thinking that without alcoholic drinking my thinking would clear up. The joke was on me. My alcoholic thinking continued with or without alcohol. And that is a key issue to come to terms with when understanding why choosing to stop alcoholic drinking fails. My alcoholic mind simply deluded me into having a break between drinks while I mistakenly believed I was quiiting for good.

I am always amazed at how many alcoholics claim to have failed at stopping drinking because their power of choice failed. No. The power of choice in **quiiting drinking** failed them, not the power of choice. Their alcoholic mind of course decided to drink again obviously. Yes, they were deluded into thinking that such choices could be made with an alcoholic mind. Of course those choices would always fail. Distinction makes all the difference. Those who think to call this applied awareness mere semantics betray their foolish and ignorant beginnings in their own sobriety, imo. No problemo.

InsertNameHere

HAHA TU, thanks for "having my back", but I honestly don't mind it gives me something to read and think about if nothing else. Got me thinking about whether it is a choice or drive/compulsion anyway. I am just getting to convincing myself of the its not a disease and I can make the choice concept.

INH

InsertNameHere

Question on this, you say that those decisions can't be made with an "alcoholic mind" so how did you get rid of/change your "alcoholic mind"?

If a person can't make the decision to stop during a time that they are drinking, then how can someone ever change?

I am not trying to argue I am asking honestly.

INH

RobbyRobot

Awesome question.

I decided to quit drinking with my alcoholic mind and as explained I was deluded that I quit for good. Of course that delusion gave me a break between drinks. I did my detox coming off my last drink and before my next drink. I accepted that why would this time be any different? I surrendered to that acceptance and in that heartfelt honest complete *unconditional surrender* I discovered the presence of my alcoholic mind. Yeah, just like that my alcoholic mind *slowly* began to be percieved through the alcoholic fog. As I continued my detox I sought out the essence of my alcoholic mind. It ended up like I was watching my life up on the big silver screen, you know?

The next big aha! moment was my realization that i was watching my alcoholic mind with my sober mind, or true mind, or non-alcoholic mind, etc etc. WOW. THAT DID IT!

I now had the power of choice to choose how I wanted to be responsible to my original decision to stop drinking and getting drunk forever. Obviously I made my choice from my position of sanity and not alcoholism.

Did that help explain?

Thanks.

KAMRIZ

For me there's no getting rid of the alcoholic mind, it's just a matter of recognizing it for what it is. It's insane and doesn't give a chit about consequences, it just wants it's booze.

My "right" mind or sometimes I call it my "Higher Power" is also in there, it's the part of my mind who wants peace, the part that is intuitive, the part that is sane.

When my alkie mind gets all worked up I just have to stop and get quiet and figure out which mind is talking....when I figure out it's my alkie it's easier to brush it off because I know it's not really me.

I hope that makes sense!

Nirvana1

IMO if everyone could just choose to quit drinking for good when they wanted, there wouldn't be sober recovery, AA, or an epidemic of alcoholics. Everyone initially chooses to quit but the hard part is doing the work in staying quit.

InsertNameHere

This part I didn't quite understand, you did your detox comming off of your last drink and before your next? Do you mean that your Detox was just temporary as in you returned to drinking?

Okay I think I got this part. During your detox you slowly started to percieve the part of you that drank/wanted to drink and once you were aware that it existed and was rulling your actions you were able to observe it more and more, and eventually were able to,... what, subdue? ignore? take control from? evicerate? it.

Let me see if I got it. So you made the decision to quit drinking while the "alcoholic mind" was the donimant part of you or was at least calling the shots for you. Therefore any choice made during that time was temporary and a not really made, you weren't really choosing to quit drinking you were choosing to stop drinking for a while then eventually pick it back up again.

It was during one of these times that you recognized/realized that your alcoholic mind was there and had you by the short and curlys. Once you became aware of that you were able to reflect on your life and note when and where your alcoholic mind had made these decisions for you. therefore more and more you were able to recognize it and slowly push it and its thoughts aside.

When you had gotten sober a while and recognized the thinking and mentality that kept you drinking you were able to develop different patters of thought and actions that you are calling your "sober" brain and were able to remake the decision to stop drinking this time without the "alcohol mind" changing that decision from quit to quit for now but start again later.

So what I think your point is, that I have to one get sober, two analize my thinking and feelings once sober and figure out how to identify the part of me that wants to drink again. Then reaffirm my choice once I am sober and have that part of me identified.

The only part where I am hazy is how do you recognize that part of yourself as something else. It is the same problem that I have with AVRT so far (just starting) telling myself that I do not want a drink it "the beast" (I was calling mine Tom last night) wants a drink. I don't see much of a distinction, but as you said you couldn't whilst in the thrawls of withdrawl and had to get sober to do so first.

Did I get it right? and thank you for the insite.

Terminally Unique

The parallels between your description here and how AVRT-based recovery is actually experienced are remarkable.

Terminally Unique

This will become more clear as you read the book and do the exercises, and you'll gain some extra insight from the AVRT thread. Right now, though, you first need to get to the point where you wake up one morning not hung over. Preferably, you also stay sober that whole day. BTW, don't call it "Tom" or any other 'nice' pet names. It doesn't do it justice. The Beast is a ruthless, perverted SOB that will drive you into the ground -- literally.

InsertNameHere

Agreed, at least from what I understand of AVRT so far. Swap out "alcoholic mind" with "the beast" and its pretty close.

INH

T5hlP5

One idea that has worked for me was to "forget to drink". It is also called "losing your agenda". I suffer a lot from the same dilemma whenever I start negotiating with the idea of getting wasted, bongoed, ripped, in-the-zone, or whatever you want to call it. Think of all the cool things you could be doing if you weren't getting hammered.

InsertNameHere

This "conversation" today has been both informative and uplifting for me hence the reason I was posting so much. I am going to go get a little excersize and I will be back in a couple of hours. I am not going home because even though I don't think I will drink tonight if I did I don't want to chance it. So I will be back later to respond and ponder this some more.

Thanks everyone for your comments and thoughts it has helped me feel better this afternoon.

INH

RobbyRobot

Having made my decision to quit from within my alcoholic mind, same as always, I was of course headed for that next drink. When I entered detox I was still intoxicated and going through my stages of DT's as the alcohol wore off. I never drank again. My last drink was before that detox.

I surrendered to the existence of my alcoholic mind. I accepted unconditionally of its power of my alcoholic drinking. It called the shots on my drinking. I surrendered that I was powerless to stop my drinking from within my alcoholic mind. ie I could not use my experiences with alcoholism to stop my alcoholism. I was powerless within my alcoholism.

As explained in my earlier post, I began too see through the fog of my alcoholic thinking with my un-alcoholic mind, which had come into my awareness from the action of surrender, okay? Once I realized the distinction I could then see the folly of my alcoholic mind making a decision to quit drinking. I therefore remade the decision to quit drinking from my sane healthy mind which was just becoming more clarified as my detox continued. As the process went forward the distinctions between my alcoholic mind and my sober natural mind became crystal clear.

Yes. As you understand the above, yeah, you got it.

Yeah, it is all in the action of surrender that the process is started to begin to become aware of the distinctions. The surrender is unconditional that my alcoholic mind had me by the short hairs and i was doomed to drink and I could see no way out. Ever. Period. Kaput. Nada. Powerless.

That total surrender allowed for the impossible to be looked at: ie that I was not in my right mind that if I wanted to quit why would I give up and drink again and again. As I accepted that I was 'crazy' I had another aha! moment that I *knew* I was 'crazy' with alcoholism --because-- I *knew that* from a place of sanity.

Since I could experience both 'states of mind' while in detox and still in surrender, therefore I must be able to choose between both or either states.

So yeah, I chose wisely. As my detox continued I became stronger in my sober mind and weaker in my alcoholic mind. As I moved into my rehab and continued with my AA program the process intensified: more sobriety less alcoholism. Eventualy I graduated my rehab and my AA program was completed. I was now recovered from alcoholism. My alcoholism was so weak that it went into a coma and alseep it remains. Arrested. I still have the alcoholic mind within my alcoholism, but its power is null. My problem of alcoholic drinking has been removed.

In keeping with the AA program I live an awakened spiritual life. I continue daily with Steps 10, 11, 12. I am free of alcoholic drinking and drunkenness these past 30 years. It all began with me making choices though, absolutely and unconditonally, I made the right choices. And here I am.

RobbyRobot

Thanks, TU. I deeply appreciate your informed astute observations. I haven't as yet finished RR:TNC. My last reading left off in the chapter "Let's Shatter The Illusions" like 10 days or so ago. I look forward to finishing this remarkable writing by Jack Trimpey. Inspirational.

My entire purpose to learn AVRT is to have a better objective rational understanding of my own subjective personal understanding. Looks like I made the correct choice with a decision to follow up with AVRT.

Awesome.

RobbyRobot

Absolutely. Worth repeating. AA works.

Rob S

Terminally Unique

I have a deep suspicion that those of us who actually beat this thing ultimately do so along similar lines, despite differences in semantics. Not many people can describe the subjective experience of recovery as you have done in this thread, however. I have met a couple of people in AA that have said very similar things to me, but most of the time it's usually "don't ask us how it works, it just does, and you have to experience it yourself to understand."

Sapling

That's good enough for me...

Terminally Unique

That's certainly fine, but as you can see from INH's inquiries, though, it may not be good enough for others. People have different temperaments, and accordingly, view the world through different lenses, so to speak.

RobbyRobot

Yes. Absolutely. AA can be enough. Totally. When one wants more answers then AA has questions however, one has to seek beyond AA. I have questions within questions, lol. What am i gonna do, eh?!

Rock on, Sapling!

vichloe

I enjoyed this discussion/debate today. I have come to the conclusion everyone finds sobriety in their own way. There is no right/wrong or strong/weak way. I appreciate we could discuss this topic without getting our "hackles" up or panties in a wad. We remained quite civil and I learned new ways people think/struggle.

I will always support another sobriety, no matter how they found it.