mecanix

Sorry if my post came across as harsh Non ,
I used to have notions such as :-
It's dinner every civilized person has wine with dinner,
I've worked hard i deserve to have a few beers ,
It's a party lets get drunk and high .
It's friday night ,

By working on changing my mind about these pre-conceptions i now have no desire for them , if you have no desire do you have an AV ?

Bestwishes, M

bemyself

I think we're collectively on our way to clarifying your original question!

Yeh, Non, the fact that your particular association of beer-after-labour is indeed within you, originally as part of your 'normal' family life with your relatively abstemious Dad, is what I was referencing via the neuroscience stuff.

And as R went on to sum up quite well, the Beast 'farms' OUR / MY once-'normal' / benign thoughts - even from long, long ago in life. We each have our respective correlative benign memories of alcohol use, I suspect - well I do anyway. Best example is: some of us were once upon a time rare or 'social', even occasional 'party' (bit of a binge) drinkers - I was for many years in my 20s, and early 30s. Clearly, back then, my Beast hadn't, as it were, grown legs; It had a semi-failure to launch or thrive.

Brain-wise, I suspect that the mysterious mix of brain pathways, chemicals, etc etc hadn't then 'crossed the line' as R puts it. I reckon, for me, my Beast crossed the line - began to thrive, grow, started feasting on me, 'farming' me, around my mid-30s when I was thrown into a cacophony of major co-occurring life events.

Fast forward to now, I'm 57, and It's now had 20+ years of progressively heavy drinking to run amok; alcohol became my go-to mental solution to all ills, joys, etc etc.

Thank you for starting this thread (did I say that before?) - it's helping me a great deal, Non!

Blessings to ya
Vic

Nonsensical

Thanks for all the inputs. I have other discussion points I'd like to raise, but I will finish reading the book first.

Thanks!

GerandTwine

image copyrighted by Rational Recovery

Every thought pertaining to never drinking, though - that is YOU.

Nonsensical

So if I think "I am never going to drink that delicious looking, relaxing, rewarding drink over there", that's me. Got it.

GerandTwine

IT is inserting ridiculous adjectives in YOUR clear and precise sentnce.

Nonsensical

So if I think "I am never going to drink that red, room temperature, 8 oz. drink over there", that's me. Got it.

soberlicious

Or "I don't drink alcohol"
just like "I don't steal", not "I don't steal those lovely red patent leather slingbacks that would look amazing on my beautiful feet and slender ankles."

Nonsensical

I guess my beast's glass is half full.

RobbyRobot

Yeah. Sometimes things can get way too anal when recognising / seeking out AV. Great response, Non. It gave me a good chuckle.

ReadyAndAble

Whoa dude, I think of myself as laid back, but I guess maybe I'm pretty anal after all.

Honestly, if I still thought of alcohol as rewarding, I'd probably want my money back from RR. Maybe it's because I had already quit before I got into it, but for me the single greatest benefit I've derived from AVRT is the elimination of any sense that I'm missing out on anything positive at all.

RobbyRobot

For me, AV is what it is, and I'm not now, never was, never will be, all that much caring about making sure I'm counting and checking every nuance of my AV and my own thoughts to see if I can eat off the floor after I'm done swabbing it. There's always AV if I look enough. So what?

To each THEIR OWN though, of course. I'm not complaining, I just got a laugh out of Non's response.

soberlicious

Yeah, it's funny. But in all seriousness, the reason I drank again after 10 years of abstinence...10 years...is solely because I did not have complete separation and identification of AV.

So anal is not always a bad word. lol

RobbyRobot

Nothing personal, soberlicious... but I remember somewhere recently you saying you don't presently have an AVRT BP, yes?

Did you have one during those 10 years?

Yeah. Here you're saying you don't actually use AVRT per se meaning I assume, you don't have a BP in place.

Nonsensical

I had a different interpretation. The positive was being drunk. I liked it, so I did it. When I figured out that the negatives outweighed the positive, I knew I should stop. When I had trouble stopping I knew I had a problem.

Twenty years later, I found out I was sharing my head with a beast who craves alcohol.

Nonsensical

Circles back to one of Robby's points that successful sobriety plans are often personalized/tailored, vice off-the rack.

soberlicious

Thanks for qualifying, but why would I take anything personally?

I quit both times the same way, by saying "I'm done. I'm never drinking again" which come to find out later is very common and is what AVRT is actually based on. What I was getting at in my earlier post is...had I known then what I know now, had I known of the concept of those thoughts being "not me", had I known how to effectively identify and separate from them, I would never have started drinking again. It is what it is, it happened, but I did die by the medical definition, so it's a little bit of a big deal. When I quit the 2nd time six years ago, I still did not know about AVRT. Finding it years after I quit has enabled me to refine what my natural approach was. I'm glad for that because I will never again be confused about AV.

So, I made a Big Plan before I knew what a Big Plan was, just like gajillions of others have done since like, um, forever.
So I will state this again, because I think it's important: The reason I drank again after 10 years of abstinence...10 years...is solely because I did not have complete separation and identification of AV.

Hope that clarification helps. xo

soberlicious

That assumption would not be wholly correct. I used "per se" to indicate "not in its exact nature", since I learned about it after quitting for good on my own.

soberlicious

Which I would agree with, since it is also my belief that most people are self-recovered, whether they identify as such or not. BTW, AVRT is not really something you continue to use really. Once you quit for good, you're done with drinking. It's like the Buddhist parable of the rowboat. Once you get across the river, you have reached your destination. There is no need to carry the rowboat around on your back.

RobbyRobot

Hmm. I thought it was said about AVRT that if one has a BP in place, they really can't drink while that is in place, yeah? I'm pretty sure I've seen YOU assert much the same...

So I guess you really didn't have a BP back then, I'm thinking. Do you have a true AVRT BP in place today? I'm not real clear on your present meaning, okay?

Glad you're not taking anything personal