I see what you are saying but practically speaking if followed, meaning that if you follow a daily "I will not drink today no matter what", you will also never drink. Stating that you will not drink today does not mean you can drink tomorrow. Your not even thinking about tomorrow. As soon as you wake up, if you are following a today plan, you are not going to drink. There is no more out with a today statement than there is with a never statement... both require a follow through or are just words imo.


The difference for me though was I didn't go into it with this attitude, I just wanted to quit. It was after a year into the quit and going through all of that that I realized that I didn't want to go through that again.

This is my problem. As soon as I use an extreme word, whether it be Never, Ever, Nothing or All my thoughts snowball out of control. That is not a good balanced place to be. Its the opposite of balanced for me actually.

Yes it's an extreme word and almost has an angry feel to it.

I envision or would like my future drinking statement to be similar to how my smoking one is now.

I don't smoke. I don't drink.

If that works cool beans man, I am not going to argue with a good thing. as far as the urges one month out I do think that AVRT could help. One of its main priciples if you call them that is learning to recognize those urges hoever they manifest and dismissing them for exactly what they are. There are excersizes in the book to practise this skill, so when you do decide to quit with or without the antabuse, then you will be better prepared to handle those "one month out urges".

:rotfxko Your very welcome, but this ^ had me rolling Its InsertNameHere not Right here :rotfxko where is your mind at ;)

You can do whatever you want, pentuate, but it is not the same thing, and I believe that intuitively, you must know this. After all, if it were indeed the same thing, you would not be balking at the 'never' word. No Big Plan, no I/It split, and hence, no AVRT.

BTW, if it helps,

"I will never drink again" = "I will never drink in the present moment"

thanks, sorry about that!

Speaking for myself, I have no problem whatsoever being angry at the Beast. That disgusting thing kept me going around in circles for years, and if I hadn't gotten really angry, I probably wouldn't have broken free. It's payback time, and I hope it rots. Poor thing. :)

No problem man it just gave me a laugh :)

I moved my Big Plan into the eternal Now, because that shift fitted with something I was trying in order to deal with my depression and anxiety. Mindfulness and Mindfulness based cognitive therapy appealed to me and still do, as my form of 'spiritual awakening'.

My Big Plan is a view of me in an existence where alcohol is not a consideration. My words are weak here, but I am trying to say that my feeling consciousness, the one that inhabits the eternal present moment, will never drink.

And another thing: INH did a great job of explaining RR and AVRT. Welcome to the team!

I fully understand the aversion to the word "never", but it is the beast's aversion, not yours. Why do you fear the discomfort that "never" creates? I think if you fully understand the I/It split, you will understand that you have nothing to fear or feel uncomfortable about. Never is very liberating.


Pentuate, this is important. Conditions are always subject to change.

For me, I finally did feel balanced once I said "never". There was peace in knowing I would never have to struggle over my drinking again. I was done. It restored my much needed balance. In some cases, never is very appropriate. For example, if I see something in a store that I really want, but can't afford, do I steal it? No, I would never do that. Would I sleep with my best friend's husband? No, I would never do that either. These are just my examples, but I think many if not most of us have some personal "nevers".

I have some nevers, though I don't think of them as nevers. They are more just self evident things. I never steal from a store (perhaps I would if there were no other options - so perhaps that is not a never) and I have not ever stolen from a store up to this point. I don't cheat. But i don't think or affirm I never cheat and i never will. To say that to myself seems like I am trying to convince myself of something. Even just saying that feels like some sort of extra restriction or tension.

The other thing is, unlike these "nevers" that I have, where I have actually not done these things, drinking, I have done, big time. A more accurate statement or assessment would be, historically, I drink/drank often and in large amounts. Certainly not never. To say I never drink seems a little delusional given my history, lol. I have stopped drinking seems a more rational thing to say imo. I think if you replace "drinking" with any other "doing" in the i never and will never statement the uneasiness and "oddness" and I guess aggressiveness of it becomes more apparent.

I guess it makes me uncomfortable because never is a word to my ear that has to have some evidence behind it. To say I never drink means I "not ever" or "at no time in the past or future; on no occasion; not ever." drink. In the past time (which is part of ever) I did drink so never can't be right. I could say I will never drink again or I never drink anymore/now (and i will never change my mind...) but that to me, because of the word never, suggests someone getting ahead of themselves. It sounds way overconfident for someone who was closer to always drinking than never drinking in action. Never is a cold mathematical word to me. In my mind, never exists after "never" has taken place, not before.

If someone is known to overeat and has an obvious obesity issue and they said to you, I never overeat, and I will never change my mind, wouldn't that sound/seem strange?

I looked at things differently. My big plan is I will never drink again and I will never change my mind. The "will" makes a big difference. It's like a vow, from this point forward I will never drink. It is a positive not a negative in my viewpoint.

Your friend,

I've made many "never" kind of vows in the past with drinking and other things and I think most if not all of them failed. I don't seem to have much success with "never". I think i will just kind of use the idea of a beast wanting to drink and to just ignore it and not get too hung up on what I will or will not never/ever do. I guess I can just say to this av, "i don't drink anymore beast, sorry" or something like that. Maybe without the sorry. Really I just don't want to drink anymore. I don't care how I do it as long as it breaks the addiction/works. Based on my own experience with addictive things like pot and cigarettes, it seems the most important thing is to reject or not respond to the urge and keep doing it and the urges will weaken and eventually no longer exist/happen given enough time.

pentuate, I don't know if this is an AVRT thing or not but one thing that helps me is I find it easier to move to a good place than away from a bad place. I have started running again as my good place to go, or my new self image if you will. I don't just not eat sugar or drink because it is bad for my blood sugar as a diabetic but because it is not consistent with this new image of myself as a runner. I might be a fat, slow, old runner but by god I'm a runner. I'm now up to 3 to 4 miles a day. This change in self image makes it much easier to say no to urges. Another thing is that once you get to the point you are running 3 or more miles running becomes a pleasure rather than a chore. It is a primitive activity that I actually think satisfies some of the beast's needs. It doesn't take the place of AVRT but I think it supplements it very well.

Your friend,

You don't have a problem with cheating or stealing, though.That is why they are 'self evident'. Your abstinence, apparently, by your own admission, is not.

See the difference? You have done 'drinking', big time. You have not done 'stealing' big time. As for historically being a drunk, there is a word in the Big Plan that addresses this very thing:

"I will never drink again."

What do you think 'again' means, pentuate? It means that you have done it before. Unlike someone who hasn't done it before, you can therefore judge that it would be very bad for you to do it again, and very good to never do it again.

For the benefit of other readers, the bolded part above is Addictive Voice. In AVRT, it is neither good nor bad to have 'urges' or desires, and we treat it as a permanent possibility. If the day comes where pentuate declares "I have no desire to drink, no urges," that will also be Addictive Voice, because it suggests that if he did have a desire to drink, he would. With AVRT, we abstain in spite of desire, and the phrase "I have no desire to drink" naturally begs the question: "What if you did? What then?"

See this post and the few that follow it:

I have no desire to drink -

Your AV is already pulling up your 'rap sheet', building a case of incompetence against you based on your past. This is to be expected, BTW, and there is a page in the book that addresses this. Past 'failures' have nothing to do with future success, however.

That is certainly your prerogative, pentuate, and I'm not going to waste any time trying to convince you otherwise. Since you don't want to use AVRT as designed, I'm not sure what else I can offer you at this point, however.

If I said "I never drank" that would be silly, not to mention delusional, since there is a legal and medical paper trail which substantiates my drinking. I can however say "I will never drink again", and I did say that. My only point was to consider that the word never makes your beast uncomfortable, not you. Pentuate, you are free to do as you wish, of course.

Ok well, the statement I've seen around here in these AVRT threads is:

"I never drink and I will never change my mind for better or for worse"

You have to include the missing "will", "again" or "now" for it to make sense now don't you?

It's not really optional like the tone here suggests is what I'm saying in addition to my other issues with the word "never".



Then I likely would feel uncomfortable and it would be a battle like it was initially. Like if I still had the kind of urges I did when I quit smoking today (instead of no urges) then it would be tough and torture (and I probably would have failed a long time ago) instead of effortless and an non issue.

The Big Plan is optional in the sense that you don't have to use AVRT if you don't want to, but you do need the Big Plan for AVRT to 'work' its magic.

By all means, though, feel free to try things your way instead if you think that will work out better for you. AVRT is just a description of the common thread of self-recovery from addiction, drawn from the experiences of a few thousand people. AVRT isn't addiction treatment, however, and unlike treatment, it can't be done to anyone. You much choose it voluntarily.