freedomfries

Why can it not see that alcohol destroyed my life? It still says "drink! Just one of two". I wouldn't even enjoy drinking one or two, and if I had more I'd get sick from the Antabuse. I'm practicing AVRT and letting my beast whine for alcohol while I move on with my life. I know it'll get quieter when I get more sober time. I'm only on day 6 but the AV really is a stupid thing.

Resurgence

It's relentless because you are an alcoholic.

But you're right, FF, it does get quieter with time

Robbie64

The AV has always been my downfall. From reading posts at SR by posters with long time sobriety the AV doesn't last forever so it's down to, as you posted, letting the beast whine for alcohol while not acting on it.

Dee74

My appetite for drinking was relentless , and my desire to find a way to keep drinking without negative consequences was pretty relentless too, as was the denial abut the severity of the problem...so it's not such a surprise the AV is like that too?

But...AVs can't 'see' anything - you're dealing with a very basic, visceral, but almost primal force.
The good thing is realising that we are higher beings, and we can defeat the AV every time.

D

Wastinglife

FF, I wish my AV only wanted 2 beers. I am being told to buy a case of 24.

Our AV is a rapacious creditor. It wants to take everything from us....

Canadian Koala

My AV still tries to make me do really stupid things even after 3 1/2 years sober.
It gets really easy to shot it off tough, I have a "SV" angel in me now (sober voice) and it's way louder!

Courage FF, better days are just around the corner

freedomfries

The off licence is open now a d the AV is saying "get a couple of cans". It's really upset Iive decided to never drink again. Poor thing. I'm not giving in though.

D122y

Even after my moderate amount of clean time my AV is still around.

I always use analysis to win.

My wife drank half a bottle of 12.5 percent soju. She was all happy and silly for about 10 minutes. Then she got tired, slept the night away on the couch, and woke up dehydrated with a raging headache.

I was having a great time without drinking. Laughing and making jokes, eating and enjoying refreshing water. I hit the gym and woke up feeling great.

Booze is poison. I don't believe the hype. I hate hate hate the stuff.

Thanks.

DriGuy

The AV is that part of you that doesn't want to get better. It's stubborn and resistant to change. Your intellect and a bunch of other emotions tells you that you are hurting yourself. Your AV only uses intellect to create logical fallacies to manipulate and take advantage of your stubbornness and resistance to change. It's a part of you that is self harming. On top of that, it's clearly aware of your addictions, both physical and psychological, and it doesn't care about anything else. It just wants to be fed like a petulant child that is on his way to becoming a psychopath. It's the part of you that doesn't care about you or anyone else.

But part of you does care about you. Find it.

LumenandNyx

Hi,

It looks like you're treating the AV like it's a person. It's not - it's your addiction. It wants alcohol like your body wants air. Sorta. There's no consciousness or conscience involved.

Sometimes, I find it helpful to treat my AV like it's a child. (Yes, I know what I just wrote) - BUT, sometimes children want things that are unsafe and/or dangerous because they simply don't know better. WE do know better. So the child can bitch and whine and sulk and throw a tantrum - but our answer is simply NO. That works with the AV too. NO. No alcohol. Now p1ss off (don't say that to a child).

biminiblue

I think it's a good idea to come to terms with the fact that drinking thoughts will likely always be with you.

Find a way to shut them down as soon as they show up. That's really the crux of AVRT, ya know? Recognize, separate.

I haven't had a drink in over six years and still the drinking thoughts are there, it was a part of me. Regrets, desires, escapism, habit, all kinds of things play into it.

The Good News is - it doesn't matter what random weirdness my brain dredges up - I don't drink.

Anna

FF, in my experience, the AV is loudest when it believes it's losing. You're on Day 6 and that's great, and the AV recognizes that you are on a path. Stick with it, and the AV will quiet down. The only way to make that happen is to continue your sobriety.

Sober45

This is interesting. My strategy has been to not listen to the AV and it's working for me.

What you're doing is letting it scream a ball and ignoring it. I like it. If you keep letting it sound off without responding I'd assume it will burn itself out over time and be gone. Very interesting strategy. I need to read up on this AVRT stuff.

So much to learn here on SR. Thanks, FF

nez

Sobriety is also relentless, it is just quieter about it. LumenandNyx mentioned thinking of AV as a child. Think of a two child family where the wild child (AV) gets all the attention because of its outrageous behavior and temper tantrums. The quiet child (sobriety) also needs our love, attention, and parenting. Don't let sobriety get lost or ignored due to the antics of the AV. Be sure to nurture sobriety while at the same time correcting AV.

fini

my understanding is that it is relentless because its survival is threatened by you withholding its supply.
i could be wrong; not that versed with AVRT.
ask that question down in the AVRT threads, and someone more familiar with that technique will give you a correct answer within that paradigm.

Gabe1980

I have loved some of the answers on this thread and it has been really helpful today.

Thanks for asking FF

DriGuy

I have thought about this a lot, but never brought it up. I love the AV part of AVRT because the AV is almost a universal experience of all alcoholics, but I have wondered how wise it is to think of the AV as another person. Does this make it easier, or should you fully own up to it being YOU, and confront YOU, rather than an imaginary other? I think most people recognize the metaphorical play on words, or maybe not. For me, it was important to take full responsibility for my problem. I could blame no one else, or expect someone or something else to fix it.

Even before I heard the term AV, I recognized that voice in me, cursed it, but recognized that it was nothing more than me playing head games. Nor did I blame alcohol, which is an emotionally neutral substance with no ill intentions. It is neither cunning or baffling. That all comes from inside us, not from substance that has no intentions of it's own.

Maybe I'm just being pedantic about the whole thing, which I can be often enough. I guess the real issue is whether it works to personify these things. They may be useful tools, so I don't want to discourage anyone from using them, and I think each of has does have warring and self contradictory conflicts within ourselves, almost like two people.

tursiops999

It is relentless because it wants to survive, by getting you to give it alcohol. Without alcohol, it dies. Maybe not 100% dead, but gets closer to dead over time.

I found at least in the beginning it was helpful for me to think of the AV as someone else. That helped cut through the confusion for me -- why did part of me want to be sober, and part of me wanted a glass of wine? If my head was spinning with a bunch of conflicting thoughts and desires, which ones were real, which ones should I listen to? By characterizing it as the "other" -- any thought supporting alcohol use, or thinking my problem wasn't that bad, or doubting my ability to be sober, was by definition "the other" -- I could then see clearly that these thoughts were not to be taken seriously or obeyed. Any other thoughts were mine and were OK to entertain or sort through however I wished, but AV was to be dismissed as quickly as possible.

It's still me taking full responsibility for my sobriety -- because I'm 100% responsible for my choices. AVRT is a "thought-sorting tool", and my thoughts needed sorting.

RecklessDrunk

Sometimes you just have to worry about today.

The drink your AV wants right now.

Play the tape foward, weigh the pros and cons of just this next drink. Is it ever 1 or 2, i mean what would even be the point? What is the magic? Nothing good is going to happen. Before long, before you even pass out from this next drink its probably going to suck. Don't drink because if you're here alcohol probably doesn't work the way it use to. It use to have such powerful magic that we so desperately think we can recapture just a little piece of it but we can't. Its like we think can hit one more jackpot but the game is rigged. We know its rigged and we can't win but we continue to dump all our chips into it. Right to the gates of insanity or death.

Sobriety can be deceptive because you have to win every single day and you only gain a little bit of ground in a day. It can seem like one drink will only set me back a couple steps but no, one drink you fall all the way back down the mountain!

The good news is working at sobriety day after day will eventually stick. You do get a few more inches up the mountain. You keep fighting one day at time and one day you'll realize you are halfway up a mountain.

Don't drink before the miracle happens!

Canadian Koala

This is a fairly accurate description of the downward spiral caused by the use of alcohol and other substances.