auden67

Hey everyone! I'm just a few days into recovery/abstinence, and still playing around with a lot of different treatment styles and strategies. I like SMART for certain things, I like REBT for some, and I like AVRT a lot as well. I went to a group support meeting, and while I really felt for and empathized a lot with the folks, I personally prefer a more proactive, cognitive approach. Just a personal preference.

Anyway, I took the crash course for AVRT and really enjoyed the rationality behind its premise, and appreciate the psychology behind its practices. I for myself, though, I can't really call my AV "beast". It rings too closely with biblical interpretations of Satan or the antichrist, and while I know we want to take the AV's nasty tricks seriously, I can't jive with that terminology. So I call mine Larry.

So far, it's worked really well for me. Larry is sort of the unsocial butthead I associate with my drinking. So for example, when I have a music festival coming up this weekend, I think, "What, you can't enjoy music without a drink? That's super lame, Larry. I don't drink, and I enjoy music without it. Music is awesome." It makes me disassociate myself with drinking and wanting to drink, while making me feel good for enjoying these wonderful aspects of life I missed while drinking, and feel strong for not associating myself with such a lame character as Larry the AV.

Also, I appreciate humor and laughter in this whole process. I want it to be fun and liberating! Even if I Pollyanna myself sometimes. Do any of you play fun with your rational and irrational sides to work on sobriety?

soberlicious

Hi auden, yes, I do play fun with it. I think once I really seperated and saw the absurdity of the excuses my AV uses, it was easier to laugh. Lame is the perfect word. Although I don't care what others do and I have many friends who are drinkers, I often say that people who have not discovered how to really have fun sans chemicals are lame. People who have no personality unless they pull it from a bottle...their sh*t is weak. They are "all beast" and that's super lame since the beast has but one goal, one hobby. Fearless people do anything and everything they want with a clear mind. That's badass.
If you haven't already read it, you would probably really enjoy Rational Recovery: The New Cure for Substance Addiction I am currently reading it, even though I have been a non-drinker for several years.

shockozulu

Very much so. My program consists of portions of SMART, RR and a nonsecular program. I have been known to say to my addictive voice "Shut up or I'll come after you like Mr Power comes after the devil" If that isn't a good natured mish-mash of different programs I don't know what is!

auden67

Ha! I love the term "Mr. Power"! Reminds me of my favorite high school teacher: smart, firm, and kind. I love your story of recovery; it's filled with a lot of humility and inspiration.

auden67

I agree. I was afraid I was becoming one of those people. I remembered how I used to love reading poetry, philosophy and painting when I was younger (pre-drink), and felt a lot of empathy toward the vulnerable, but it seemed like it slipped away from me over time, out with drinking. Staying home and watching 6 hours of online TV while drinking 2 bottles of wine seemed like a good use of time. [LAME!] I look forward to rediscovering these old dreams and curiosities of mine. Honestly, they keep me very motivated. Like finishing Infinite Jest and enjoying botanical gardens with a clear, open mind.

I will definitely check out that book. I went on a Kindle spree this week (GIMME MORE ADDICTION MEMOIRS NOM NOM NOM) but I will order this and get down to studying. I didn't learn to be out of it in a week, and I won't learn to pull myself back in a week either.

GerandTwine

The closest to a human form that I can imagine for my Beast is a Zombie, and even that doesn't fit. To me the Beast and its AV expressions are the opposite of human, funny, or friendly. It is not even close to a pet or domesticated animal. It is a beast, single tracked to get drunk as desperately as I want to breathe after holding my breath for 60 seconds.

My Beast would have loved to be called an informal/friendly human first name like Bobby or Joey. IT would have loved to imagine I was dismissing the essence of incorporating the Structural Model of Addiction into my thinking, and prolong what I intuitively sensed could be a quick recovery.

I suppose similar to "fun and laughter", I had an optimistic appreciation "in this whole process" (it was a long time ago for me), and I see it and try to encourage it in others.

I have been known to say I was glad to have had such a blatant, glaring, specific, in-my-face type of problem to solve as not ingesting alcohol and marijuana. I knew I had total control over that stuff not going down my throat, and I learned that following AVRT by the book made it all the easier. AVRT was designed to make recovery as fast and easy as possible.

Dalek

Trimpey stated somewhere that he hesitated for a long time before deciding on the term Beast when people wrote to him about this 'concern'. Even without the Biblical connotation, though, it still fits, because the Beast brain really is the brain of a Beast. If you look at the structural model that RR uses, with the picture of a human brain, the neocortex is large in comparison to the midbrain.

In animals lower on the evolutionary scale, such as a mouse, the midbrain makes up a much larger part of the whole brain than in humans. Humans are animals, though, and we still have the same needs and primary survival drives as all mammals. The Beast of AVRT is an artificial, perverted survival drive originating from this "lower" brain common to all Beasts.

Personally, I just can't give my Beast a pet name, certainly not anything nice or endearing. It isn't human, it has no conscience, and it doesn't give a damn about anything except that next fix. Homeless, living under a bridge, freezing, and headed for worse, but with a bottle of whiskey in hand? "That's great! That's what life is all about!" says the Beast. No, that's just not human in my book.