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-   -   AVRT-Does this mean he's "getting it"? (https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/secular-connections/262570-avrt-does-mean-hes-getting.html)

Beauteous1980 07-15-2012 03:04 PM

AVRT-Does this mean he's "getting it"?
 
Since learning about AVRT/RR, I've been sharing the info(not demanding compliance) with ABF. I thought it would be a good recovery choice for him given the way he views his addiction and his recovery.

The first time I shared passages from the RR site, I got the following response. I found it encouraging but I wanted to make sure those in RR/AVRT see it as the same and not just manipulation.

Here goes:


"This is how I feel. Like I said earlier, never have I been so sure that this is in my past. I feel like a totally different person is making decisions. That person is me. Instead of seeking out what is pleasurable now and what will temporarily make me happy immediately, I now think, what can I do to ensure that I will be happy tomorrow. I've always just lived day to day because that's all that seemed to matter to me. When I said I love you and want to marry you, that is something that made me happy immediately. Now I realize that that is something I need to fill myself with because it's something that is going to make me (and you) happy in the future as well. Drinking and smoking are not things that are possibly going to make me happy in the future. And not just an immediate happiness, a sustained joyful happiness. Thinking that I could ever become a "social drinker" or just smoke on weekends was impossible. Even if I don't smoke or drink for 6 months and then say, "ok, just one drink won't hurt" that's just going to make me feel, all over again, that that's what I need to be happy. Bottom line is this... I am not a drinker or a smoker anymore. I can't and won't ever be again. It's always been a "voice" or "beast" inside me that has been holding me back. The part of my brain that used to look forward to getting home to get high was never concerned with getting a better job or doing anything nice for you, or going back to school. Those types of things didn't make that "voice" happy. But like this article said, that's not me. I look back at that and HATE who I was. If that person were alive today, I would wish terrible things on them. I'm glad that person is dead. I know what is going to make me happy is doing things for my advancement. Things that will help boost my own confidence. Things that will help me be the man I've always promised to be but until now have failed. Things that the old me never knew about. And just like when I quit smoking cigarettes, a single event changed what I was doing. I smoked my last bowl *with you that Tuesday night in bed and when we woke up, I wasn't a pot smoker. And when I had my last drink, I woke up the next day a new person who doesn't drink at all. I've shed something off of me, a layer of me that was only weighing me down, only to reveal a more honest (to myself and others) and true me. One who seeks happiness not by an altered state of mind, but by an alter state of life. One that is constantly improving and seeking out ways to share love and true happiness. I actively love you."

So?

freshstart57 07-15-2012 04:49 PM

That is beautiful, Beauteous. I hear a Big Plan, the statement that he will never drink again and he will never change his mind. I also hear a separation from the addictive voice, the voice of the beast.

But that is only part of this AVRT business. The other part takes practice, and it involves recognizing the voice of the beast whenever any thought comes along that suggests drinking in the future, or a lack of confidence in the ability to keep to the Big Plan.

There are some AVRT Whisperer types around here, who will parse and dice the manifesto you relayed to us, but I would say that this is a credible start. I am hopeful.


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