Sohard

I drank 4 glasses of wine last night after almost 5 months sober. I got great job news. I wanted to "celebrate", which was messed up since the only reason I got the new job was bc I'd been not drinking and instead pulling my life together. I'm scared and disappointed. I thought I'd made my Big Plan. Now what?

Canadian Koala

It's back to a fresh start!



Have a new plan and most important : don't drink just for today.

You can make it happen!

Stay with us on SR

daveglass1

Just stop and get back on board the bus that says "Winner" - wave to the loser bus as you drive on in the opposite direction. Oh - and by the way - you're driving !
Dave 🤠

dwtbd

Sounds like you celebrated some good news with some wine.

I think a lot of people see RR/AVRT as a method , as a system to implement in order to bring about a 'quit'.

I see comments all the time " I thought I made a BP and yet I've had more drinks" , it seems as if they are surprised or disappointed that AVRT didn't 'work' . As if they believe that following the 'instructions' of AVRT and by stating a BP and using all the vernacular is what brings the 'quit' about or makes it 'stick'.

I don't think it works that way. It 'works' when a decision is made to abstain, a BP is Made to never again consume x,y, or z . From that point on any thought of future use of x,y, or z is recognized and attributed as coming from the desire for x,y, or z and then dismissed as being counter to the plan to abstain.

Stating a plan, literally just enunciating verbiage, doesn't bring some special magic with it that keeps future consumption at bay.

RR/AVRT 's utility is in showing 'what quitting looks like'.

When you ( the general you, not singling out the OP) decide to quit, decide that you will never again change your mind about not using/consuming x,y, or z , AVRT describes what residual desire will look and feel like and how that desire will influence our thoughts.

Addiction or continued use isn't a function of the desire it is a function of indulging IT.

"I've said a million times I'd quit and then I used again " Does this mean that saying you quit doesn't work , or that you didn't mean what you said?

AVRT and a BP don't facilitate quitting , It( they) are what it looks like.

biminiblue

Sohard, you've been working up to this for a while. Your plan seemed like it was never anything other than a hope or a maybe.

A plan means a decision, a commitment, and follow-through.

CRRHCC

Now what? So what? I assume you stopped at four because you wanted to. You valued sobriety more than continuing. You may not be abstinent but you can still live a sober life.
Don't shame yourself, live and learn. Experience is the teacher that gives the test first and the lesson last. :-)

Algorithm

Your Beast doesn't care at all about your new job, your life, or anything else, for that matter. It only cares about staying alive, by convincing you to feed it that precious survival stuff that it craves and needs. To your Beast, alcohol is food, water, and oxygen -- rolled up into one convenient package.

Good. You are rightfully afraid of where you might be headed if you don't get a grip very soon. That is you, in your right mind.

Whatever you do, don't let your Beast use this as an opportunity to 'prove' that you are incompetent to abstain, by suggesting that you 'failed' to stay sober. If it has not done so already, it will probably try that card soon enough.

We don't do relapses, failure, or incompetence with AVRT. The Beast is a quadriplegic, and you are always in control. You may have failed to recognize your Addictive Voice, and carried out its dictates, but at the end of the day, you actually succeeded at drinking.

You are an educator by trade, no? You've apparently secured a new job, which you consider a good thing, by finding something more constructive to do than getting drunk all the time. Do you now want to screw that up, by placating and feeding that sociopath within?

You've tried chemical warfare on the Beast, by trying to neuter it with Naltrexone, in the hope that you might be one of the lucky ones who can drink moderately without getting into big trouble. Your Beast apparently wasn't deterred by chemical castration, however, and that experiment led to you driving drunk in a blackout.

What would happen to your career if you were to get charged with a DUI? If you were to kill or maim some poor bystander while driving drunk? What would your students, and your present and future potential employers, think about your judgement, credibility, and competence?

Your Beast will tell you that you can be like others who drink without problems, and borrow from statistics that show that some people do pull it off. You, however, are keenly aware that you do not, in fact, drink like most people, who do so without putting themselves and others in danger.

The Beast's house of cards is built upon the foundation that AVRT calls Original Denial -- the idea that there is nothing wrong with drinking, in and of itself. This may be true for those whose drinking doesn't lead to big problems, but not so true for those with a proven history of bad judgment while under the influence.

Given your own past experience with alcohol, and your well-founded fear of where you might be headed if you continue to drink alcohol, is it right or wrong for you, in the moral sense, to ever drink again?

By the way, have you read through the main AVRT discussion threads? AVRT is education, not treatment. You must learn, just as your students do, and then administer your own cure.

GerandTwine

Hi Sohard,

The next four sentences I’m going to write are actually your own from several days ago, and I’m using them because they seem to me to fit this circumstance.

This is the permanent abstinence based sub-forum. So, you’re posting on the right place when you “wonder” why you drank again while at the same time you state you were consciously pledged “I will never drink again.”

It is impossible to drink alcohol and at the same time know that you will never drink alcohol again.

So, the question arises, when did you “know” “I will never drink again” was a lie, and who was being lied to?

Well, putting alcohol in your mouth and swallowing it is not like scratching an itch. It is one of the MOST deliberate and thought out actions that the human mind and body can possibly engage in.

So, what were you telling yourself about your pledge at the moments before drinking?

Were you thinking about the time at which you made the pledge? If you HAD made the pledge you MUST have been thinking about it, in which case you would not have drank. You might have smelled the wine and poured it out and turned the glass upside down (see my avatar for a visual).

But you drank, so you must NOT have made the Big Plan pledge.

The next question is, when did you “know” that you had not made the pledge. That you must have, “ in fact(?)”, lied to yourself. Was it at the moment you made the pledge, the moment you drank, or at some moment in between?

This brings up another question. Is it possible to lie to yourself about NEVER AGAIN doing such a deliberate and thought out action that requires huge complexities of voluntary motor function (the type that takes millions of dollars of robotics expenditures to replicate in a machine)?

My answer to the second question is that you cannot lie to yourself. I’ve tried many times and can’t do it. (Try doing it right now and see if it works.)

My answer to the first question comes from simple deduction. You never pledged to permanent abstinence and you knew it all along.

Another simple truth arises - You can make the pledge “I will never drink again.” only ONCE in your lifetime.

And you can do it in the next five minutes.

fini

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...ml#post3985538 (moving the ????????)

sohard, if i did this right, the link will take you to a thread i started about these questions.
if i understand your question marks correctly, i "get" why you put them there, and am sorry you're in the spot where they came up for you.
i see people who drink again and are following 12-step or AVRT as ultimatelybeing told the same, or at least vey similar, things: if you drink again, you didn't do the program right. or: you didn't really make a BP, no matter what you thought.
i find it all very circular.
not trying to use your situation as a jumping off point for rehashing this old thread, but think you might find it interesting and it might give more diverse input in response to your question marks.
wondering, too, where you are at and how you see yourself proceeding from here on?

Algorithm

You may count me as one such person.

I do view AVRT as a technique that must be learned. I also believe that it can bring about an awareness of the Addictive Voice, and eventually, a deep suspicion of the mentality that has been sustaining the addiction for so long.

That exposure and awareness can bring about the necessary insight for the motivation to finally do what needs to be done in order to recover from addiction.

I would say that AVRT contradicts entirely the idea that anything can 'work' on the addiction. One of the premises of AVRT is that there is no help for you, anywhere, beyond your own G-d given, or nature-given, capacity for self-restraint. You are on your own.

Of course. AVRT was synthesized from the experience of the self-recovered population, most of which figured it out on their own, through trial and error, without ever hearing about AVRT or Rational Recovery.

Agreed. In AVRT, the Beast (the desire) is not the cause of the addiction. The focus is not on neutering or removing the Beast, which evolved from the same necessary survival mechanisms that have kept us on this planet for millennia.

Its progenitors are what keep us alive, and if the Beast dies, those essential survival mechanisms would have to be disrupted, and its host may die as well.

I understand what you are saying, fini, and even agree with you to some extent. The difference, as previously noted, is that unlike other paradigms, AVRT presumes that nothing 'works' on the desire to use, to make it go away. It is not even the focus.

Through the lens of AVRT, the desire for the absence of addictive desire in order to abstain conceals a plan to use in the presence of that desire. It is Addictive Voice.

Wholesome

Sohard,

I drank after thinking I had made a BP, in fact I made several BP's before making my final one. What I can say is that with those first few there was a part of me that was not done with drinking and thought that I needed to be rewarded in some way for quitting, and when that didn't happen I figured I wasn't getting a fair deal, and drank. I had stipulations attached. Everything was supposed to get better and when it didn't, I made a decision to scrap my plan and get loaded. It was very purposeful and deliberate - it definitely didn't just happen.

I also tried to use AVRT for some time as a way to control my drinking. I figured that I could recognize my AV and only submit to it under certain circumstances. Looking back on it it seems nuts to me, but that's what I did.

I think there was also a lot of unrecognized AV going on with me back then. I felt edgy and keyed up all the time, restless and anxious, there was also a lot of anhedonia, none of which got recognized as AV. It wasn't until I drank and had all those feelings disappear instantly that I realized it was AV the whole time. It wasn't only that I wasn't recognizing those feelings as AV, but I was also engaging in that inner debate - I was white knuckling it - I was respecting those thoughts and allowing them room in my mind to drive me to distraction.

Live and learn though right? Don't give up. Don't let your AV use this against you. Really think about what happened in your mind before you decided to drink so that your AV doesn't get the upper hand again. AVRT is a mental filter to shut those thoughts down before they can take root and grow. Starve IT until it withers away.

fini

The difference, as previously noted, is that unlike other paradigms, AVRT presumes that nothing 'works' on the desire to use, to make it go away. It is not even the focus.
the lessening of moments of desire is common with time, and a relief.
but certainly an absence of those moments/times of desire can't be the basis for ongoing abstinence or sobriety, no matter the paradigm.

awuh1

Thanks fini. That thread is a classic.

Sohard

Okay. I've read some great advice here. Thank you so much. I'm back on the saddle and not getting off again. Ever. I'm ashamed of myself. As Algorithm mentioned, it's just morally wrong for me to drink. No question about it. I'm not going to ever do it again and I won't change my mind.Thank you.

dwtbd

Congratulations, I'd suggest taking on the mantle of quat as opposed to quitting, ie give your self permission to assume 100% confidence in your ability to be done , for good.

Learn AVRT, reread RR:TNC and all the threads , great guides in learning how to live comfortably with residual desire.

Being ashamed of what we have done in the past is one thing, attributing that shame to our current selves ( the 'myself' as it exists this second and all future seconds) is at the very least counterproductive . "Myself" Now includes the self that Quit and ongoing shame only serves the AV .

Sohard

Thank you for your advice. It always speaks to me. "Mantle of quat". Should I know that term, or is that something you came up with? I don't recall it from the RR-book..

dwtbd

I used the term, made it up, in a post to highlight the idea that quitting can/does happen in the seconds it takes to decide you’ve had enough, you’re done , never again.
The idea that recovery is an event and not a process. Quitting connotes an on going endeavor and implies employing a system or method or practice that will lead to a future state of ‘quitness’. At least that is the impression I have of the main thrust of recoveryism and why speaking of quitting and its ‘present -tense-ness’ is like catnip for the AV.
Quat is meant to connote a final state , in the present Quitting was everything we did that also included more drinks.
Don’t pass go, don’t collect two hundreds , no need ,just jump into Quat

Sohard

Okay, I'm successfully three days not-drinking, which is a good start. I've reread the RR book, taken again the crash course, and read through all the threads and many debates on various posts. I've made a Big Plan.

This needs to work. There is no reason it can't. I quit smoking years and years ago, which was hell, and I don't consider myself a smoke-aholic, or whatever the term would be. I'm just a non-smoker now. Why can't it be the same for drinking?? What is the difference? A drug is a drug is a drug. The only difference between nicotine and alcohol, it would appear to me, is that one is now widely accepted in society and the other has become less so. But why should my thoughts about quitting one or the other be different? They shouldn't. I just want to be alcohol free, not chained by it and a label for life.

The only difference between nicotine and alcohol I can see is that I despised everything about cigarettes at the end: the cost, the way it affected my breathing, the smell, the judgements from people, the feigning, etc. With alcohol, I despised countless moments and many repercussions, but I did enjoy zoning out in a drunken fog. But, having read The Naked Mind multiple times and studied the RR book, I understand that I had basically trained my mind to supposedly enjoy the results of drinking alcohol. So, I just need to re-train it not to. In the meantime, I have to flat-out ignore the beast which is trying is trying to stop that retraining.

Just needed to write this out to clarify it in my brain. Thanks for reading. I'm trying.

tursiops999

Hi sohard. You are right, there is no reason it can't work.

I think the technique is the same for alcohol and tobacco. You quit one, you can quit the other. I quit cigarettes a long time ago, long before i knew about AVRT. I did have residual desire for cigarettes, long after i quit. I remember noticing the urge for a cigarette after meals, but just dismissing it, because i was so clear that i had decided to be a non-smoker, once and for all.

Similar to you, when i quit smoking i could only see the negatives of it -- there seemed to be very little pleasure, and any pleasure was dwarfed by the negatives.

In contrast, with alcohol, when i quit there was still a lot of pleasure associated with alcohol. The beast uses that -- reminds me of the pleasure, and says that to quit alcohol must therefore be harder than quitting smoking. But remembering the pleasure, and thinking that abstaining will be hard -- these thoughts are just AV. Just like with those blind urges for a cigarette, there's only one thing to be done with them -- recognize their source, and ignore them.

I don't think you have to "convince" yourself that drinking was all negative ...you don't have to train yourself not to associate alcohol with pleasure, or not to desire alcohol. The technique is just to dissociate, not to argue -- we don't have to argue with our beasts about whether alcohol can be pleasurable. We just say "oh, there's a thought about how nice a drink would be ... since i am a non-drinker, that thought can only be my AV, which I ignore". It is much easier than arguing (to say, "oh no, a drink wouldn't really be a good idea because of x,y,z, play the tape forward, remember all the bad consequences, etc").

Wholesome

I just want to add that residual desire is nothing to fear, it's not a sign that your quit isn't working or that you are doing something wrong. I think that can derail a lot of people. I used to fear my AV and think it was good when it was quiet and bad when it was active. As long as you are recognizing the source of the thoughts and dismissing them, it's fine if they take awhile to quiet down, and they will significantly quiet down over time. It's when we start to engage and argue with them that it can start to feel like white knuckling. The idea is not to manage the AV but to starve IT. A lot of common recovery information is about managing the AV - watch out for people, places, resentments, HALT. To me, that's coddling the AV and nurturing IT. If you are never going to drink again then what do any of those things matter? Can any of them really make you drink again?