soberlicious

I'm thinking maybe you need to reread my post carefully
xo

Nonsensical

These statements appear inconsistent to me. In the second one you seem to be saying that you started drinking again, after stopping forever, because you weren't Recognizing your AV after 10 years. This seems like a case for using AVRT in perpetuity.

Have I misunderstood something? Not busting chops, trying to learn. Thanks!

soberlicious

Not inconsistent. As I said, if I knew then what I know now...
I understand now what I didn't then.
I have learned it. I cannot unlearn it.

I was done drinking for sure the first time, but what I was not prepared for was the day my AV spoke to me and I listened because I thought it was me. Now that I know that any thought that suggests drinking is AV, it is dismissed automatically like a computer program runs in the background, so it is not like something I have to keep doing on an ongoing basis. I hope that makes sense. Non, I really do appreciate your sincere questions, and I will try to give my clearest answers.

Although my intent was clear, I truly was missing a big piece by not being able to identify and separate. I knew of no such concept. I do now.

RobbyRobot

Hmmm. A Big Plan itself ensures complete separation. Totally ensures it. So... what happened then if in fact you did have a BP in place?

RobbyRobot

This means to me of course you did not in fact have an authentic AVRT Big Plan in place at that time. That big piece missing was in fact a BP, imo.

soberlicious

Well, yes, and if you understand all of AVRT (which by no coincidence stand for Addictive Voice Recognition Technique)then you get that piece. As I stated earlier, I did not know of AVRT.
I'm not sure what you're getting at, but if you clarify your question I will do my best to give a clear answer from my perspective.

Nonsensical

It does.

For years, decades even, I had this compulsion to drink. It spoke to me in my head. I didn't know what it was or why I had it. My ignorance, IT's mystery, gave IT power in my mind. Over my mind.

I had been presented with different explanations of my compulsion to drink, but they didn't make sense to me. In some ways those other explanations made it more scary and powerful.

Once it was explained to me that voice was coming from the alcohol-craving beast in the animal portion of my brain, my life changed in a heartbeat.

soberlicious

OK you win

My point...which I still think is very important, is that although some of this may seem "anal" to some, I do think that learning to effective recognize and separate is vital. Ignorance of that was my undoing.

RobbyRobot

It's not about winning, and I know you know that, so I'll take that comment as an inside joke.

I think your experience is vital, and important, and best shared without alluding to have had a previous semi-BP. I didn't know about AVRT in 1981 since AVRT came out in 1986 proper, and I certainly had complete separation in my mind. I called my "Beast" my "alcoholic mind" back then. I called it a few other things too, but such language is filtered out, lol.

I don't agree that it was your "ignorance of separation" which got YOU returning to drinking/drugging/whatever. Just my opinion here, fwiw, I think you returned back then because "forever" was not truly part of the real deal you made with yourself. JUST MY OPINION.

ReadyAndAble

OK, so I have to jump back in. I'm not going to label this by-the-book AVRT; just going to describe my experience. So nobody can tell me I'm wrong, ha!

I quit drinking "forever" several times. And believe what you want, but I know what I felt; I meant it every time. I didn't know about AVRT, and didn't say it in exactly the right words, so I'm not sure it qualifies as the Big Plan. It was a plan, tho, and the plan was to never drink again. Call it what you want I guess.

So my plans were isolated acts. I made a plan, and I was done with that. Execution, of course, is where the rubber meets the road. After my last plan, I learned about AVRT, and I would say it was the ongoing use of AV recognition that helped me move comfortably, solidly, and I believe permanently into sobriety.

Do I still use AVRT on an ongoing basis, more than two years after my last drink? I think so. Sort of. I think it's so ingrained that it's almost subconscious. It's like playing a G chord on my uke; I don't consciously think to myself "this is how to make a G chord." It's as though after enough conscious effort, my fingers eventually learned what to do on their own. What was once a very deliberate act has become instinctive.

An example: I was at a bar for a few hours this week, surrounded by booze, and I don't remember ever thinking about those drinks or the fact that I can't/won't/don't want to drink any. It's like if someone has a sandwich with mayo near me. (I think I've made my stance on mayo clear these past few weeks—yuck!) But I don't really pay any attention to mayonnaise that happens to be in my presence, or have to remind myself that I don't like it.

Once in a while a thought of drinking will enter my conscious mind. But it feels so irrational and absurd, that I instantly recoil from it. One of my other SR friends—not an AVRT or AA user, for whatever that's worth—compared it to standing on a very high ledge. For a split second, one might think, "What if I jumped?" I know I've had that happen to me before, and because I've never actually been suicidal, the thought feels completely alien to me. I don't have to talk myself out of jumping, because I soooooo do not want to jump.

So am I still using AVRT? I'd have to say I am, it's just so ingrained at this point, that my mind knows what to do on an subconscious level, just like when I'm playing a familiar chord on my uke, or looking over a big scary ledge.

fini

I was done drinking for sure the first time, but what I was not prepared for was the day my AV spoke to me and I listened because I thought it was me.
soberlicious,

now i'm really more confused and glad there's just me with no separate voices that aren't me
let me see though if i get what you're saying. no, i think not. what it seems you're saying is this:
"i was done drinking for SURE except when i later thought that i wanted to drink, and actually thought it was me that wanted to/needed to/should drink. if i had known it was something not-me that had decided a drink was a great idea, i would have known better than to have a drink."
did i get that right, even though i can't see the sense in it?
huh?

Nonsensical

Even though this is generally a family-oriented site, the purpose of this thread was to be anal - to dig into some details (of questionable merit - but to each their own. I like the mental exercise.)

GT's opinion seems to be any thought about alcohol that is not negative comes from the beast. I threw some examples out to be both silly and thought-provoking.

What if I was at a party and some one brought the birthday girl an alcoholic drink that was colorful and decorated with streamers and sparklers. If the thought pops into my mind, "my, that looks festive," is that me or my beast? It wasn't negative, but it wasn't about me thinking about drinking, either.

So far, I think that thought (it looks festive) could be coming from me, not IT. Others may disagree, based on their perspective. As was pointed out, a drink could never rationally look tasty to RAA (puking was mentioned, if I recall), so that thought (for RAA) would definitely have to be beast think.

GerandTwine

It doesn't really matter if you don't answer, but what were you thinking and feeling at the very moment you started swallowing ethanol after the first "quit drinking "forever"" plan?

ReadyAndAble

Ethanol. Yummy. It would have been helpful to me if they had marketed it as such.

That's a great question, GT. I didn't really take stock of my feelings at the time, so I'm going to try to place myself there to answer, which is probably not a very reliable approach, but I'll give it a shot. I think there was a mixture of relief and regret. Obviously pretty easy to separate those feelings now, and attach the AVRT-approved pronouns to them. But I didn't know about AVRT, and didn't consistently think in those terms then. I sometimes was able to intuitively separate, just as Rob said he did, but it wasn't a focused effort.

Which is why I relate to a lot of what soberlicious is saying. In my mind, in my particular experience, the decisive change wasn't some enhanced or more genuine commitment to quitting forever. The difference this last time was learning to separate myself from any desire to drink.

ReadyAndAble

Yeah, that rings true for me, too. Kinda like what I said the other day about my friend's beer. I smelled it and thought, Yeah, he should like that a lot. But in no way, shape, or form did I want to drink any myself. I might think soberlicious looks nice in those patent leather slingshot thingies she mentioned, but that doesn't mean I want a pair.

GerandTwine

Then it's not your AV. I've been at parties and had similar thoughts.

What could have an AV component, though, is the fixation on such "festive" manifestations of ethanol in your future. That's exactly the kind of "silly thought provoking mental exercises" IT would love to have you find a chinq in the armor.

It reminds me of the drowning rat that was gasping for air in that squirrel cage I couldn't quite fully submerge in water.

Not to worry, I had the same sort of thoughts myself. From a non-AVRT view, I believe there is a genuine human curiosity element to testing the strength of a technique.

soberlicious

lol yes, I actually do think you got it right.

I quit in my early 20's. Nothing too bad had happened to me except lots of blacking out, some drug use, property damage, and way too much waking up naked with strangers. I decided this was not congruent with who I wanted to be.

For the next 10 years I lived happily without drinking. I was a non-drinker. Everyone I knew, knew I just didn't drink. No bigs...I continued to be the life of the party anyway. Started my career, married, had kids, picket fence, blah, blah, blah. One day, and really it was just a thought one day...I thought, "Hey, I wonder if I could have a beer with Mr. S (who btw was NOT sober nor licious)..." Other thoughts continued..." I'm not in my 20's, I'm responsible now. Everything is different now."

Had I been able to identify that as AV (which it so obviously is), I would have been able to seperate from it, and dismiss it. It's as simple as that.

So yes, Robby, you would be correct in that it wasn't a "real bonafide AVRT BP", since obviously I didn't know about AVRT at the time.

This last time would definitely be defined as a BP, because I knew it was the end. The shift was there. Although I still did not know about AVRT, I said "no matter what, I will never drink again." I still did not know about the concept of "not me", but I ran through every excuse in my head and said "no, not even then" over and over again. I went so far as to even say "ok what if you lose one of the boys?" so that I could answer "No, not even then". That is what I did in my head when I quit six years ago.

I don't even think about it now. A fleeting thought maybe, but it's negligable. Like RAA said, it's the "I could drive off this bridge right now" or "I could just put these shoes in my bag" kind of weird thought that, like drinking, is funny/odd, absurd, certainly not worth even looking closely at anymore.

soberlicious

Yes! Exactly.

soberlicious

Yes, you are quite right, since there is no such thing as a semi-BP. My apologies if I used language they may confuse a new person.

The first time I quit, I quit on my own, and unknowingly used many of the strategies that are common to the self-recovered population, which is the basis for JT's body of work now known as AVRT.

Nonsensical

What would stop us from inventing one?