Sohard

I drank after 474 days sober last night. I NEED to hear that I have the power, that this doesn't mean an avalanche of drinking needs to start now, that all my work has not disappeared. That I'm FINE. That all is good, and that I can resume my sober life. I NEED to hear this.

Anna

Sohard, I'm glad you're here and posting.

I'm sorry you drank last night, but, yes, you have the power to be sober, and of course, you have learned a lot during your 474 days of sobriety. Focus on how good you felt during your recovery and all the improvements in your life during that time.

I think it would be a good idea to understand why you drank last night and then make a plan so that it doesn't happen again.

fini

Sohard,
i firmly believe you have the power to choose a path forward from here that is a sober one and to follow that path.

Fusion

Sohard, I believe you have the power to not repeat that single drink and to immediately resume sobriety. I believe that you, the non-drinking Sohard, will seize the power back from the AV. I was drafting a reply, regarding your fear that you won't be able to immediately resume your sobriety, then a post from someone in Secular whom I consider one of my mentors, popped into my head. I searched and located it. I agree with every word below and I simply couldn't put it better. Just replace Tatsy, with Sohard.

If it is AV, it is lies. There is no truth in anything said by the AV. The AV is false in its nature, to its very core of being. AV<====>lies

How do you know it is AV? AV is any thought that supports drinking, now, in the past, or in the future. It is also any thought that diminishes in your mind your own ability to quit drinking forever. By extension then, AV is also any thought that seeks to diminish your own self esteem, your worth to yourself and to others.

The AV clearly has a single minded purpose then, to continue consumption of alcohol in pursuit of that deep pleasure and the relief that it brings. It will try to convince you that it and it alone makes life worth living while it makes your life unworthy of living. It will try to convince you that this is all you are capable of while it seeks to diminish your capabilities. It tells you it calms you while making you more anxious, it tells you it cheers you while making you more depressed and it gives you a feeling of satisfaction while removing all reason for self satisfaction.

AV becomes 'not you' by the mental act of declaring your sobriety, by becoming mindful of these thoughts as they occur, and accepting them without struggling with them. Allow them to be. They will pass and you will remain.

There is nothing in that bottle for you, Tatsy, and nothing in your present life that alcohol cannot worsen and destroy.

This is no platitude, Tatsy, you and I know you can do this. Are you ready to make that plan for your continued use of alcohol?

I believe in you.

I BELIEVE IN YOU TOO, SOHARD!

LumenandNyx

Well, obviously things aren't fine. You relapsed after over a year of sobriety. Something convinced you to side on the side of drinking rather than staying sober. What was that event? What were you thinking as you experienced it? I think these need to be identified.

Of course you have the power to stop drinking - you're the only one who does. No, an avalanche of drinking doesn't HAVE to follow and the work you did in the past to stay sober hasn't GONE anywhere. You still achieved that and nothing can erase it. I don't know that all IS good - - - is IT all good? Does it even matter so long as you don't drink again?

Of course you can resume your sober life. Just stop drinking - that's the only thing you have to remember to do (or not do).

Best.

Fusion

Another one of my mentors, Sohard...YOU!

"Tatsy, I’ve been following this thread. I’m just thrilled to read you’ve gotten your power back. I knew you could do it bc you’ve done it before. I’d like to offer you a huge congratulations!!!!! We should all be celebrating this right now. You have got some brain work ahead of you, as you know, but the terrific news is that you now see (as you did in your prior sobriety) that there are TWO highways. You just took a momentary accidental detour onto the wrong one for a bit. Can happen to anyone. What’s important is not that you got lost but that you found the directions back. Well done!"

Sohard, I truly believe you can find the direction back - NOW! After all, it's always now. I will never drink now, so I have no fear of the future. And you can too, never drink now, as you have succeeded in for 474 days. Today is 476/1: (the 1 being a momentary accidental detour)

GerandTwine

Hi Sh,

YOU chose to post here on the Permanent Abstinence Forum.

Your AV chose to post about neediness.

If you really want to use AVRT, this is the correct forum.

If you’d like to skip AVRT and go directly to taking the pledge of permanent abstinence, this is also the correct forum.

A couple years ago, you said your twin sister makes it all the easier for you to reflect about your own drunken mis-behavior because there you have someone close to you who looks like you who has never been a drunkard.

Well, imagine triplets. Her, You, and YouDrunk. If you use AVRT, you will kill off YouDrunk forever, and then you can get on with the rest of your life; past your early good drinking, past your drunkenness, and even past your recovery.

I experienced sensations of sadness when I killed off MeDrunk, but I now realize that was all just my BEAST withering away in its cage in my cranium. Its been frozen in there now for decades, although it did thaw out for about five minutes once when a prescription of hydrocodone ran out. “How can we get some more?” And that was it. I smacked IT down.

When you and your sister are 80, you can sit down and have fond memories of your mother, and maybe even make that once a decade reflection on that distant past obsession you had with getting away with that oh-so-pleasurable buzz from alcohol; which by the time your 80, you will not even remember what it felt like, but you will still remember you made a Big Plan.

All this, even if your sister is still sipping some wine at 80.

If your going to practice the Technique of Addictive Voice Re-Cognition, you simply have to separate that desire to drink from YOU, which I don’t think you have ever done.

It is possible, though, to take the pledge of Permanent Abstinence without using AVRT. But I have found that people who do that seem to develop a mental process very similar to AVRT when presented with an opportunity to drink or thoughts about drinking.

From the other direction, AVRT was created by studying how people who made the pledge dealt with future residual desire to drink.

Learning not to poop in one’s pants example is similar to not drinking alcohol any more. As a teacher, you know children are learning how NEVER to do certain things EVER AGAIN all the time. Bowel control is like alcohol consumption control, when peristalsis sets in, find the bathroom; when the desire to get that wonderful unique pleasure from alcohol again comes to mind, however that may occur, use AVRT and your Big Plan automatically pops into mind. That’s the neural short-circuit you create with a Big Plan.

It is that simple, it works, and it allows you to spend the least possible time “in recovery”. That’s why we don’t see a lot of people here who have used AVRT to end their addictions.

They’ve moved on as common teetotalers, a condition that new people in their lives rarely find out about because someone who has recovered using AVRT has put that recovery completely into the past.

You may recall, the only reason I’m here is to help reveal AVRT and try to expose fake AVRT. As a dividend, I did use several posts on Sober Recovery to assist myself in using AVRT and permanent abstinence to quit (or as dwtb would say “quat”) man-made sweets years ago. That truly has improved my health.

GT

Fusion

Hi GT, long time no see. What does the above bolded mean? What is fake AVRT, and how do you expose it?

D122y

1 slip after 500 days is something to be proud of. You could have drank those 500 days.

Just don't relapse. You did the best thing by going all out here to get support, coaching, advice, etc.

I don't look at myself as an ex drunk anymore. I look at myself as a non drinker. I don't drink booze. It is bad for me.

I cope with my life in other ways now.

That is all I got.

Love and Thanks.

GerandTwine

Fake AVRT is when a tossed salad of recovery ideas and beliefs that may contain some use of the term AV is specifically named as being AVRT. Some of those beliefs include relapse prevention; Counting days; Thinking in terms of "One day at a time”, and many others.

Since the term Addictive Voice, AV, has become as commonplace as Xerox is for copying, there’s no way anyone can point out all the times AV is used incorrectly according to AVRT and explain why each time. So, I don’t see that as a problem warranting any great deal of effort from me.

When you were under the influence of alcohol and posting for a number of weeks last year, you used a lot of AV talk. But I don’t think you actually claimed to be practicing AVRT, because that would be impossible. So, I wouldn’t call your doing that fake AVRT and I didn’t participate in that thread at all. Also, that thread was not on this Permanent Abstinence Forum. It would only be fake AVRT if you actually claimed that you were practicing the Technique of Addictive Voice Re-Cognition.

Here in the US, about one third of adults don’t drink at all, and tens of millions of them were former drinkers/drunks. So, this Permanent Abstinence forum on Sober Recovery is a small window in the rooms of recovery for people to see a way out into the vast populated world of life after recovery, after recovery is completed, living alongside and indistinguishable from people around you that never had a past addiction.

It actually becomes quite clear to formerly addicted people, who actually put in the relatively short time to understand and use the Technique of AVR, when the term AV is used in recovery outside the specific realm of AVRT. They see the tossed salad approach which is to say they have an awareness of a whole lot of unrecognized AV as the very term AV gets tossed around.

I’m not saying a tossed salad approach to recovery is wrong or not useful in some ways for an addicted person. I’m just saying it is not Addictive Voice Recognition Technique.

In AVRT addicts take the full hit of moral responsibility for all the drunkenness and its consequences; this then finally exposes their full and uniquely human capacity to take the BEAST by the horns and simply will it into impotence. I will never drink again. The Big Plan. It’s ironic how taking all the blame for the past gross indiscretions released me from a feeling of incompetence regarding having more to drink or not.

Fusion

Thanks for replying GT. Are you paid by Jack Trimpey, of Rational Recovery, to protect the registered AVRT, or have you volunteered, or assumed a protectionist role? In so doing, aren't you rendering AVRT dogmatic and somewhat exclusionary?

And I don't understand your signature: Articulated Validated Recovery Tactics (AVRT). Because Trimpey's AVRT means "Addictive Voice Recognition Technique". Also, you said "It is possible, though, to take the pledge of Permanent Abstinence without using AVRT." I'm confused, are you promoting, or as you called it "revealing" the real AVRT or are you promoting the "pledge" aka the Washingtoians, from your blog?

On a final note, I see nothing wrong with the tossed salad approach you mentioned, to include AV recognition, if it saves lives. You said "I’m not saying a tossed salad approach to recovery is wrong or not useful in some ways for an addicted person. I’m just saying it is not Addictive Voice Recognition Technique."...which leads me to suppose that you are either here to be pedantic, or here to protect Trimpey's registration of AVRT, and thereby, possibly limit the potential lifesaving technique. I just don't get your stance, GT, or are you Trimpey?

MesaMan

.
Sohard ~

Your stretch of Sobriety cannot be erased. It verifies that you have the Will, and the power to resume your true, non-drinking State.

Part of the delineation of our true selves from the AV, and diversionary actions like Drinking, is to always recall how separate they are. And, to not confuse them. An action on your part does not now 'define' who you are. That action was separate from The Real You. 'You' remain. The Sober You.

About every Week, we read of someone helping to lift a Car off of someone. Or, talking down someone who is threatening others. Often, they will report later that 'they didn't know they had it in them' to pull off such a feat. Most all of us do.

Whatever that Wellspring of deep ability is, most all of us have it. You have it. This was proven by your amazing stretch of Sobriety. Don't be thrown off your Game by a lapse. IMO, you now need only re-focus while acknowledging what The Real You is capable of: continued, permanent Sobriety.

GerandTwine

Hi Tatsy,
First, thanks for reading my Blog here. Yup, the original Washingtonians were right on with the pristine pledge of permanent abstinence, but the program was quickly devoured by other powerful institutions that morphed it into a failure.
Hmmm, I guess if I think in the term “paid” you are using, I could figure how much I’ve saved over the decades by not spending valuable time “in recovery” going to meetings, buying gas, car expenses, etc; not donating $1 - $2 hundreds of times. Yes, I guess you could say Jack Trimpey “paid” me by creating AVRT, which I used to get myself back into the normal stream of life with my recovery completely behind me. I’ve saved mucho dolleros.
As I understood why the Washingtonians were so short-lived, it became clear to me that something was preventing AVRT from becoming short-lived. It is now over a quarter century old. I think it is the legal control over AVRT being registered that has kept it pristine, sort of as a Manual of How to Quit for Good, or Quat, as dwtb has identified. So, it’s kind of you to think my several posts a year is protecting AVRT, but I believe it is the law that is doing that.
I wish I had as much discretionary time as you do Tatsy. Then I could do more pointing out of the AV as it is so frequently missed. I think my role has fallen far short of protectionist volunteering. I just have occasional participation here now.
BUT, on the other hand... there is SO MUCH already posted here on SR about AVRT, if someone wants to find it they have GOBS of good dialogue to read about. (I still encourage reading “Rational Recovery, The New Cure...” 1996, by Jack Trimpey.)
You’ve mentioned in the past Tatsy, about the apparent sudden drop off of AVRT threads here. Actually, if you study the dates and volume of the threads you will find a quite regular tapering off over time, as if “what more is there to say” that can’t already be searched for and read about.
AVRT is like a MANUAL of Practice. Manuals are dogmatic by their very nature; and I believe AVRT is actually ANTI-exclusionary. As i mentioned earlier, it offers a small window in these rooms of recovery through which an addicted person may finally see a way out of recovery back into the normal stream of life with total personal control over alcohol never being swallowed again.
It’s just another way to describe AVRT in four suggestive words. I did not put (AVRT) in parentheses as you seem to be suggesting I did.
Hmmm, this leads me to think... I’m going to give you, Tatsy, and also Sohard, since she had the wherewithal to start the thread, a new mnemonic as a gift from me to you two.
AddVoiRe-CogTech. Yes, from me to you - AddVoiRe-CogTech. Now that I’ve given it to you, you can never un-give it back to me. Take it and use it and pronounce it however you like - or else... ( ;-)-(—<
The two are completely compatible and, in a way, symbiotic. In the early years of RR here, I think that was completely understood. There are people here who made their pledge and then found AVRT and used it to streamline their recovery. I am one of them. The unrecognized AV has planted roots attempting to separate the two.
In the 4th huge thread on AVRT, Terminally Unique said (thanks to msl999 for post #100 in soberFitness’ thread in this forum):

Originally posted by Terminally Unique
“All this said, knowledge of AVRT alone isn't going to get the job done, Pam. You will need to take the plunge, and nobody can do that for you. If you want a very good example of this, just look at Jack Trimpey. He obviously knew AVRT, but he still kept on smoking those cigarettes for years after he quit drinking. I know you may not believe me, but trust me, no Big Plan, no AVRT. Without it, it's just another one-day-at-a-time evasion scheme, and you won't appreciate its true potential.”

The Washingtonians had a 19th century verbosity about how they took the pledge, but it was remarkably pristine at the beginning in 1840, especially when it was popularly thought that drunkards couldn’t save themselves and were only useful as examples of what not to become.
“I will never drink again.” Is the basest English version of the pledge of permanent abstinence.
“AV recognition” can easily still not be AVRT, so I think we agree here.
Well, we’ve already shown I’m powerless over that and it’s the law that protects AVRT, and as regards to pedantic, yes. The Addictive Voice absolutely requires its host to be pedantic about the Re-Cognition Technique. I would not doubt some who understand and use AVRT and have gotten on with their lives but check in here to read occasionally might even think I/we are not pedantic enough about explaining all the unrecognized AV they see blossoming all around even while the term AV is being used.
I don’t believe this follows. I believe it is the opposite. When people profess to be practicing AVRT without actually using the “lens of AVRT” (a lens made from the material of the Big Plan) that professing will unquestionably limit the Technique of AVR, as huge swaths of Addictive Voicing whizzes by completely unrecognized and thereby plants roots for even easier future non-recognition.
Well, if this post doesn’t help your “don’t understand”, “confused”, and “just don’t get”, I guess we’ll just have to leave it at that.
Forum Violation #3. Breaching of Privacy
“...do not ask for personal information from others...”

GT

Fusion

Thank you for replying, GT. You have parsed many of my sentences, then replied to those parsings.. Which effectively renders your replies out of context.

I have no doubt now, that you are not Jack Trimpey, because of the extracts below:

GT you didn't curtail an alcohol addiction with AVRT, did you? Just a 'man-made sweet' addiction. I can't relate to that, particularly given that Sober Recovery is a platform for sharing experiences of quitting addictions. I await your reply. I intend to contact Jack Trimpey. I hope that Secular Connections can become active once more, and folks share their experiences, without a gate-keeper intent on exposing something.

fini

hi Tatsy,
secular connections is actually the bigger tent, and a different category than the one this thread is in, which is the Permanent Abstinence Based Recovery one.
and though i understand the shall-remain-un-named program as a permanent abstinence one, i realize that in SR, this category concentrates on AVRT. therefore, i think, the focused and precise explanations are on topic in this subforum.
i imagine the OP chose this category for a reason.

Fusion

Fini, thanks for replying to my post to GT, and noticing and pointing out my slip of the tongue. I had no idea that you were so well versed in AVRT to think in terms of 'on topic in this forum'. For the benefit of any doubt, I actually meant Secular Recovery, the umbrella forum, not Secular Connections. I'm quite aware that I'm posting in the PABR sub-forum, and therefore, my post to GT remains.

If you have followed the OP's posts, she counts days. In AVRT (Trimpey's version) the Beast counts days. I apologise for hijacking your thread, SoHard. I must say that I was riled by GT's post to you as follows:

How does this help, looking into the future and imagining Sohard aged 80 and her mother dead? It's not AVRT.

How does this help? Equating stopping drinking as an adult, to an infant learning how to toilet, it's demeaning. And it's not AVRT, as Trimpey teaches it.

dwtbd

Allowing or even fostering the idea that someone(anyone) does not possess the wherewithal to end an addiction is demeaning. The AV will react to this comparison , in the example above, and insinuate a pejorative in order to color the future purposeful use of alcohol in a more palatable manner. (If not putting more booze in your throat was as easy as not pooping your pants, anyone could do it, the AV redirects and makes a self directed commitment to no more booze consumption a 'special' case of human action as means to allow for more consumption in the future.)

Through the lens of AVRT, ending an addiction is accomplished by choosing to remain abstinent from the use of a particular substance. AV is identified as any thing to the contrary of a Big Plan.

Fusion

I searched this thread and only I used the word 'demeaning' so perhaps this is directed towards me? If so, I never said that "someone(anyone) does not possess the wherewithal to end an addiction".

dwtbd

Tatsy, yep towards you("me") but only as long as 'you' denotes the idea that is being discussed(posted by you) and not Tatsy the poster/person. Yeah ?

Would you agree that AV is the only thing that would take offense to the toileting/abstinence analogy? And that the offense would be in service of future consumption ?

Dee74

Hi Tatsy

We made this forum in response to members who felt a need for it.

Its a safe place to specifically discuss Permanent Abstinent Based Secular recovery, outside of AA.

As an Admin I don't have a problem with what GT wrote - it's not breaking any rules.
If you do, you can always use the ignore function.

I'm really not sure its worth getting riled up about.

You can contact Jack T too if you like - but he has no bearing on the rules or policies of this website nor, I suspect, on what GT or another RR adherent writes here.

Peace in the Valley,

Dee
Administrator
SR


ps So Hard - If you're out there, please check in

D