No problemo, Cleopatra. I'm listening to you. I don't, however, agree with your earlier statements that you may have cracked this. I also don't agree that simply because you (or anyone) feels great, that this then equates to meaning the quality of your (or anyones) life is also great.

You know, plenty of times I felt great while using, and my life quality was totally in the toilet, okay? Also, there have been times I felt just so low with myself, and yet at the same time my quality of life was great. Quality of life is not , imo, determined by how I feel about myself.

When we talked about AVRT in your thread, particularly AV, you openly talk about being confused of what is and is not AV. So, we talked about that a bit. Eventually, I made it clear enough, I thought, that I did not agree with the veracity of your conflictive statements. And I cautioned you to re-visit your understanding of what is AV and AVRT. I even asked if you practiced AVRT.

Later on, Fresh and GT posted their thoughts. My ideas on your thread and their ideas are going in totally different directions. You seemed pleased about their direction and unpleased about mine.

I have not contradicted myself in this thread about what I said here or in your thread.

Simply put, and no offense intended, but I believe the experiences being shared by dybehfar are honest and straightforward, where as, your shared experiences present to me as being disingenuous and undeveloped. So this is my opinion on my experience with sharing with you. It's not really a big deal.

I'm sorry Cleopatra, but your thread was directly asking for input from members with some length of experience, and so I decided to share mine.

It turns out we don't agree, you and I, on some essential things, and that's okay. Like I said, I find you to be an interesting person. On the other hand, I'm not just gonna say I agree when I obviously don't. I'm sure you don't want me to just chat you up, lol.

I have no problem with you though, Cleopatra. You'll also notice I don't agree with what Fresh and GT said either, and it's not a problem for me or them, you know?

So, did this help you understand I'm not contradicting myself?

Let me know either way. Thanks for bringing this up, Cleopatra. I hope you can feel better about our disagreements.

Cheers!

My AVRT initially was a 'that's not me / that is AV / that AV has no power any more' situation which took me months into my sobriety. That became a secure place to get active, work out details of how my new life was going to be, and become comfortable in daily life with out alcohol.

A little more pondering made my Big Plan a moral decision. I related to that part of the AVRT book by Mr. Trimpey that explained how this was going to seal the deal for good. I have a friend whose life was irrevocably changed when she lost her husband and 6 week old daughter to a drunk driver in an instant. I made the connection from this tragedy to the idea of drinking again, and conflated the two ideas into something that can turn my stomach if I need it to, by visualizing myself sitting on the curb with flashing lights around me, and carnage all over the place. I made this connection around 9 months sober.

My AVRT now has become a mindful thing, as Robby suggested, and my life has become more present. The awareness of myself in the moment which comes from AVRT has spilled over into other aspects of my life too. This mindfulness does double duty in that my emotions have become things that I can merely observe if I choose, just like my AV. Anger, frustration, embarrassment, anxiety, worry, all the things that I drank to relieve, are now just things that come and go. Just like an urge to drink, they have no power over me simply because I can become the person who watches myself have these emotions. Mindful.

Tabasco and I have done that exercise of visualizing a situation where we are watching a screen that shows us as we are in the present moment. I imagined a little cctv monitor, but Tabasco did it up right with a big screen, a comfy chair and popcorn. This is separating, becoming mindful, being present in a personal, visual way.

I still have rough times in my life, but they just don't drag me down into that black pit where I drowned in vodka. I don't want to appear presumptuous, so just let me say that this has been my experience. I hope you find it helpful. Remember, you can do this if you only decide that you can, that is all you need to do.

hi,,, thanks for yr reply,,, i am rather put out by you saying that my experiences are dishonest and undeveloped,, in what way may i ask??
i know my posts are not at all dishonest ,, and to be honest , lol,, i find that rather offensive that you could compare me with anyone else and call me that,, its your opinion of course,, that i get,,, but maybe just because i havent been telling experiences of a struggle ,, i really have none, that you cannot grasp?
also , not once have i ever mentioned that i do not seem pleased with your posts, or replys,, i do know fresh more than i do you,, altouhg i do follow your posts and im sorry you feel that way.
as i said in my earlier post,, i opened up and shared an extremely tough subject,, about my father and previous addiction probs,, yet you have not answered any of those questions,, not that you need to,, gee,, this is mad,, but i feel a degree of unfairness,, as i am an honest person, i dont need to explain myself to anyone,, but i feel that you dont understand where im coming from .
maybe just a clash of personalities,,, im not one to hold grudges,,, unless you break my heart lol
so,, peace ,love and hugs ,,,phew,,, this place is enough to send someone crazy sometimes ,,lol
lv cleo xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:c031:

Let me add that I don't get twisted up into a tangle anymore about what is and is not AV inside my noggin. There are certainly obvious thoughts about drinking that occur to me from time to time, and I would be disingenuous if I did not admit it. My Big Plan and mindfulness make these thoughts pop right out of the background into sharp focus, so I don't have to get fussed over them.

I think that some of these thoughts don't even register anymore into solid awareness, because just a flick of recognition is enough to diminish them to the point of inconsequence. So, I guess if this is true, I may be exposed to more AV than I am aware of, but who cares, really. If that beast has found some traction that needs full conscious attention, then I have big guns, really BIG guns, ready and waiting for it.

If you are not at this point in your AVRT / mindfulness / meditation / vajrayana / dzogchen practice, Cleo, I would not be able to tell from those few words you have shared. If you aren't, I hope you make that short evolution to that place of comfort and indifference to your AV. If you have arrived, ain't it just great? Best to you.

fresh i am,,, the confusement i started with was merely putting it out there,,if that makes me dishonest then fine,,, but i regert it now,, maybe i should have just stated,, im great,, my beast is always gonna be there , but im ok with that, it can do whatever it wants as far as im concerned!!!
im living an extremely good quality of life and why cant i share that?
im not gonna bother posting here anymore,,, i can get what all has been said,, but i do find it all rather,, hurtful that i am being called dishonest , if i have not gone into much detail of my addictions then i apologise,,, i didnt think i had too, as im a non drinker now,, and thats all in the past,
maybe im a dumbass,, but i know im not
cleoxxxxxxxxxxxx

Okay, I'm still listening, Cleopatra. Let's sort this out some more.

Being disingenuous is not readily really fully translated into being dishonest, okay? When I say you're being disingenuous, I'm saying your not really coming across with all you got, okay? I'm saying, again no offense, I'm saying you're holding back by pretending you don't understand, when in fact you most likely understand much more then your presenting, okay? That is how I experience you, okay?

Still though, you honestly feel like I have offended you, Cleopatra, and of course, I don't want you to feel such awful feelings. I can sincerely apologise for any misunderstanding that may have been caused by me. I know I can get kinda complicated and whatever, and sometimes I can mistakenly just assume people know of this or that other thing while I chat with them, and this can lead to my creating some confusion.

If this has happened, you have my full apologies. :)

Please though, I still don't agree with your take on your experiences. I'm not saying your being dishonest though, and I'm not comparing you to anybody -- you brought up that i'm contradicting myself in this thread, I simply compared my own experiences with the two differing threads authors, being you and dybehfar.

As for your experiences with your father, you have my sincere support, and as much as I can relate, my empathies. I see, now looking back at the thread, you did ask for opinions. I had already felt before that post, that you and I were already in disagreement. I kinda felt we left huge smilely faces with each other, and we were done for awhile. I didn't think you were still asking for my personal opinion at that point, since you were, I felt, simply replying to GT.

So, how are you feeling about all this now, Cleopatra?

Are we good?

:c031:

I'm on my second really serious attempt to quit drinking although I had been drinking many years.

Prior to my first attempt I read the RR book, participated on the AVRT threads here, tried to practice mindfulness, etc., and just spent hours and hours thinking about me and my drinking, trying to get a whole understanding of the whole picture. I spent hours and hours reading the various forums on SR (still do).

One day back in June I was out walking on a trail, very, very hungover with my marriage falling apart, and I slipped, fell, and fractured my femur (thigh). I decided that was like God punishing me for all the pain I've caused and declared then and there that I was done, just done with drinking. I knew AVRT and all the tools needed to quit. I was 100% never going to drink again. My belief that I was never going to drink again was so strong (as it needed to be) and I felt so good about it and so proud of myself. I, too, wondered if I was being over-confident and whether quitting drinking could really be just that easy, like turning a switch off.

I continued that way for about two months as I recovered from surgery. One day my 25 year-old son invited me to a really nice restaurant for dinner. I'd always enjoyed being able to have a few drinks with him now that he was old enough to drink. Well, we went to dinner and he ordered a cocktail and I ordered an Arnold Palmer. I could see how disappointed he was (or his Beast?) when I explained that I was not going to drink during this special time together. After dinner he wanted to go to the restaurant's bar and have a couple of drinks. When I explained that sure we can go to the bar but I wasn't going to have a drink, once again I saw his disappointment. He really wanted me to have a good time and in the past, drinking at a nice bar would certainly have a been good time for me.

So...in spite of all my planning, knowledge gained here and elsewhere, and 100% confidence when I first walked through the restaurant's doors, I caved. My AV told me why not just a couple in order to make your son happy, then you can get back with your plan? It was supposed to be a special night just for the two of us.

Well, that night started another run at drinking that didn't end until the night before Thanksgiving when I ran out of my own wine, drank most of a bottle of my husband's expensive wine, and he lit into me about how rude I was to do that (among other things).

I know people say here you quit when you decide to quit, and I believe that. Still, my personal experience is that I was not prepared to disappoint my son in order to remain sober. I was prepared for other things and situations, but not that one. At that moment I could not separate myself from my AV. I learned from that experience, though. The next time that happens, I will be prepared.

Now here I am back at SR with a new quit and a very humble attitude. Yes, I'm confident I'll never drink again, but I have no doubt of the sneakiness of my AV, either. I don't think it would be in my best interest just to declare myself "cured" and move on. There is much more I need to understand so I spend even more time reading here, learning, and preparing myself for the next time. Because I'm convinced there will be a next time, for me, there certainly will be a next time. And, I would venture to say that most people new to recovery are worried about how they will react when their "next time" comes, even those practicing AVRT.

Cleo, I don't know if what I've written helps you in your journey, but it has surely helped me. I can set the bar at 100% but even so, I need to be ever vigilant in this, to me, very, very serious business of quitting. It turns out that even though it's easy to quit, more often than not it's also not so easy. Hopefully, in time I can let loose a bit.

I courage you to stay here and continue to learn from everyone here who has so much to give. And I wish you much luck going forward.

I understand what both Robby and Cleo are saying. I have to admit at this moment, I know I will never drink again. But Oakwood, your story is very pertient, because even with that 100% confidence I have, I know the separation from the beast is never far enough apart (even if light years as Robby said).

And the living in the moment part that was mentioned, that is where I struggle. That will be a phase of my life that will take a long time to master. Hopefully the AVRT method will help in that regards as well.

Thanks all for the thoughtful discussion!

Toss

Cleo,please don't quit posting. I like reading your posts. For me, recovery has been an evolving situation. I've grown in sobriety and my concepts have changed a bit, here and there, as my emotions and psyche grow and mature.

I hope this makes sense.

Love from Lenina

Cleo,

I hope you stick around. Everyone is trying to help each other here and you help me with your posts. We have roughly the same quit day and I enjoy hearing from you.

You have much more experience in looking inside your self than I do. So perhaps you are able to identify and separate your AV. I am just a bit slower in being able to do that effectively, but I am getting much better.

We are all in the same boat. Metaphorically speaking.

wow,,, ok,, i admit when i looked there was a reply from robby, last nite,,, i didnt read it,,, i was tired and i went to bed.
so , first thing this morn,, with my coffee ,, nom nom,,, i read thru this WHOLE post again,, and the new replies.
firstly,,, to robby,, i want to say im sorry for any offense,, or misunderstanind,, im a very complicated kinda gal,, a bloody aquarius fgs,,, (ask my hubby lol),,, i do analise things very deeply,, always have ,, its in my nature!!
i admit i havent gone into much detail bout my xp's,, ive been on "someatt" for 22 yrs now,, id be here allllllllllllllll day , lol
i am sorry to confuse or annoy peeps here,,, im a bit of a bugga for deliberatley "taking the other side ",, and wanting to hear others points in regarding to,, you shoudve seen me on mushies lol
had em all crushed when talking bout buddism v's krishna lol
so,,, to robby,, i do respect the time taked to reply to me,,, maybe i should pm you ,, lol
and yes , of course we are ok now,,, friends?? :ghug3
fresh,, for me,, is always so eloquent,, and i just "get " where hes coming from,, maybe its a clash of the writing ,,?
lol
(oh and i apologise for saying , lol,, lots too,,, i cany help it ok?? lol

to all the other guys and gals here too,, i love the variation of backgrounds, stories,, cultures,, exp's,, i adore it ,, and im sorry if i came acroos as an idiot,, but i really do thank you all for your time regarding,,, well ,,, me , lol
aaaagggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

so,, im am a wierdo,, as in my signature,, i can be a pain in the ass,,, but i am also caring ,, and thoughtful,,, and i love this place,,, even if it drives me mad sometimes,,,
dammed if i do,,, dammed if i dont ,,, LOL

so,,, i will apologise to anyone who ive pissed off,,, i didnt mean too,, just got "on one" as we say in the uk,,,
oh now you see,,, im gonna get replys saying "you dont need to apologise "
aaaaaaaagggggggggghhhhhhhhhh,, see what i mean?? lol
or maybe i wont ?? lol
its all a bit of YING AND YANG ,, INNIT?
i love my spirituality , and i love myself,, i am an ex nurse,, worked in the gastro unit,, and then in endoscopy,,, we saw lots of returners,,, who had been drinking for yrs,,, who we knew were never gonna give it up,, poor loves , some of them had nothing,, did it stop me drinking at that time?? nope,,, and to my opinion,, doctors and nurses are HUGE drinkers lol
we had to just patch em up,, and send em on their way,, knowing we'd see em again in 3 months or so,, doing ecactly the same ,,, it was v sad,, but i know the thing im getting too here is,,,, when i did my training,,, we were asked "whats the most important thing to you",, family,, friends,, money ,, health,,, work,, pets,,, and so on,,,,
we all got it wrong,,, most of us said,, family,,,
it shouldve been,, our own heatlh,,, for if we are not healthy, we cannot properly love our family /friends,,, we cannot work,, thus no money,,, we cannot take our pets out,,, we cannot do much really,,,
so,,, first things first,,, we all have a moral ajenda to take care of ourselves frist and foremost,,,, some peeps call it selfish,,, but hey hoo,,,,, im a nurse,, i know what id rather peeps do lol

so,,, im on that one,,, have known it for yrs,, just now im putting it into practise,,, physically as well as spiritually,, emoitionallyy,, (sorry for spelling,, )
and yes i am finding this easy,,,, before having kicked a few hard drugs ,, and easy ones too,, (like addiction to bad men lol ),,, im v aware that my av is lurking,, always will be,,, but RIGHT NOW ,its just been kicked in to the bloody corner where it belongs,,, for now,,,, i cannot see into the future,, but i can tell you all now,,, eveyone in the whole wide universe and beyond,,, "i aint a drinker,, and i aint gonna change my mind"

PEACE , LOVE AND YING YANGNESS TO ALL ,, incl robby the bloody robot ,,LOL LOL LOL

thanks for reading ,,, lv cleo xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

LOL

:c011:

[QUOTE=freshstart57 "[B[/B]The awareness of myself in the moment which comes from AVRT has spilled over into other aspects of my life too. This mindfulness does double duty in that my emotions have become things that I can merely observe if I choose, just like my AV. Anger, frustration, embarrassment, anxiety, worry, all the things that I drank to relieve, are now just things that come and go. Just like an urge to drink, they have no power over me simply because I can become the person who watches myself have these emotions. Mindful.[/B] QUOTE]

Awesome, love and needed to hear this. Im experiencing rather deep and unpleasant emotions as listed above ATM, and my Gestalt therapist has me doing this very kind of practice (its hard, but maybe it gets easier?)...

But thanks for this comment on mindfulness...

Hi Cleopatra,

Awesome! Good to know we can put whatever behind us and go forward as better SR friends than when we started, lol.

You know, we've all learned experience is a wonderful teacher. Speaking for myself, I haven't always understood what it was I experienced during several important and critical times in my life. These ongoing misunderstandings only added to my own misery. When I would finally seek from others their help to a better understanding, it was always painful somehow, no matter how careful my "helpers" tried to be in their efforts.

Knowing more of your background now, I can fully understand your clear need to know you are feeling good about yourself. I want to tell you feeling good about ourselves is a worthy pursuit in itself. I too felt very deeply rotten and guilty from abuse I received, so I'm knowing abit about what you speak of, I think.

I also now know, that I can still feel good about myself even while I examine myself in ways which cause me to feel uneasy so as to get to the bottom of some of my challenges with life. I've learned to not entirely let go of my good feelings even while enduring other feelings. It can be a bit tricky sometimes, but I learn from my challenges to do it better next time.

I like AVRT alot. It is an ideal way to place some very horrific feelings into the Beast, which otherwise I would have difficulty with. The separation experience is priceless for me, and so I'm very attentive to my AV, so as to have razor sharp separation of many issues with myself and my past addictions.

Even though I can instantly become indifferent to my AV, I still make sure it's not new AV I'm dismissing. I'm always careful. If it's same old same old, fine, away with it. If it's new though, I really do make an effort to explore it's finer points, lol. That's me. :)

Thanks so much for your earnest and honest reply, Cleopatra. You Rock!

:ghug3

lol

Hi Oakwood,

I expect you had not thought through in advance what you would do if you saw disappointment on a love ones face by not drinking with them, or how you would explain that you love them, but can not drink. It might have helped if that potential circumstance had been seen in advance and imagined to a good outcome.
Are there any other difficult circumstances that we could fall at, that by highlighting them in advance could help?

Tabasco, you bring up a really interesting point about trying to foresee potential obstacles that might cause a problem. Navigating a disappointed family member would be a real challenge for me, even if I could say that it is really their beast that is disappointed or threatened.

One of the things I was most concerned about when I made my initial big plan was navigating my way through an upcoming birthday party with a group of women who seem to think wine is necessary and that all must partake! Midway through that week, I read in one of the AVRT threads (maybe #2?) that we can look at encounters like that as an opportunity to beat down our beast. Awesome! But I decided I'd better have a back-up plan, and I took a cooler with a jug of cranberry juice, four quarts of cold seltzer, and slices of lime. My drink was so pretty that they all wanted one. And no one realized that I didn't have wine until they were pouring the very last drop out of the very last bottle. And by then they really didn't care. I'm not sure I would have made it successfully through that evening (and a subsequent one at a winery two weeks later) intact without a game plan going in.

Anticipating obstacles and coming up with a game plan is probably going to be really important to me, at least until I get the hang of this a little better. I really appreciate your honesty in that struggle, Oakwood.

You're exactly right, tabasco, I certainly was not expecting it. Really, he deserved more of an explanation from me. But, you see, that would have required me to come completely clean with him and explain that his mother really has a much bigger problem than he thinks and that his mother is not a normal drinker by any stretch of the word, you know what I mean. That would have been very hard for me to admit to him and I was was just hoping I could stop drinking without involving him too much in the messiness of it. He knows I drink, a lot. But, I suspect he would at first deny that I was a "real" alcoholic and say I might just need to control it more. My drinking has escalated too much in the years that he has moved out of our house for me to think that moderation will work.

So, for me, I have learned that at some point I will have to give him the explanation he deserves. And I'm planning that conversation now so that I can be prepared to face it head-on when it comes.

Other difficult situations? I don't know, I thought I had them all covered in my head, you know, like a death in the family, going to parties, the possible break-up of my marriage, loss of my job. Believe me, if I could see the future and had an answer for that question there would be a lot less suffering in the world!

In some of the previous posts there is talk of certain conditions that should be met in one's daily life in order to remain abstinent. Of course, this is the idea that I must make sure that activities and relationships develop without certain "obstacles" and "problems" coming up, otherwise I will most certainly be pouring ethanol down my throat and swallowing it. Well, this sort of thinking is pure Addictive Voice activity driven by the Beast and is not part of AVRT.

This thread's subject is about Beast activity, but the Big Plan has been brought up repeatedly as well, as it should be.

First, making an "initial" Big Plan doesn't make sense - even in retrospection. When I drank again, I could realize how I may have felt like I made a Big Plan but didn't. One time it was simply an emotional longing based on self reflection after a bad binge. Another time it was out of fear of people learning all the irresponsible crap I was creating. And it would be 100% AV to say my Big Plan didn't have enough other contingent plans in place to protect the Big Plan and keep it from failing. This is 180 degrees off track.

The Big Plan, obviously, can be made only once in a lifetime for booze and drugs which I did a long time ago. I then made another one for caffeinated beverages and foods except chocolate. I quickly added another one for chocolate. And just about six months ago, I made another one (right here on SR) for for all sweet foods with sugar added. I know I can't go back on them. And WOW, does it feel comfortable! It's so nice to NOT have to make up all sorts of "game plans" to protect my Big Plan. That idea is SOOO AV!! The truth is the opposite.

It's my Big Plan that protects all the rest of the other plans I make in life to progress and expand, and, ALL BY ITSELF, THE BIG PLAN ABSOLUTELY INSURES I DO NO FURTHER DRINKING/DRUGGING - not the other way around. I do not need "game plans" to keep from drinking.

With a Big Plan in place, it was certainly logical to decide not to go to bars, some parties, see some old drinking friends, etc. - but that logical decision making had nothing to do with fear of MY having any anxiety. Using AVRT I knew it was the Beast that had anxiety if went to those places. IT would be salivating, but I would not be concerned because my Big Plan had predetermined that I would not drink/drug in ANY CIRCUMSTANCE.

I really appreciate your thoughtfulness on the nitty gritty details of RR and AVRT. There is a lot of really deep, thought-provoking stuff on these threads. You guys are doing a great job.

I hope you'll cut me some slack here. When I deliberately chose to use the word "initial" before Big Plan I was trying to be forthright about the fact that I am having to regroup and start over. Honesty is the best policy, right? I get that in the truest form of RR, my Big Plan must not have really been a Big Plan since I only made it a little over a month.

I tend to do better at all things in life if I have the opportunity to anticipate what I might be facing and prepare for it. I'd like to think I would have made it through those parties if I'd walked in and all they had was wine and tap water, but I definitely wouldn't have enjoyed them very much.

Interesting post, GT. I'm not entirely sure I agree with it all. I'll have to think on it, lol. Hmmm.