Wish I'd Read Rational Recovery Sooner!
Up from the ashes
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Northern California
Posts: 213
freethinker
For a long time I recurrently contemplated giving up multiple addictions; ultimately I found myself solely using alcohol because this is the legal and socially acceptable kind of addictive compulsion. I tried many times to either mitigate use or quit. I was fairly successful multiple times spending several weeks, several months or several years with only modest amounts. Reading Rational Recovery really helped me. It’s currently been nearly 6 years since my last drink.
I don’t like conformity. I don’t like religion, I don’t like political platforms, and I don’t like anyone who claims that they somehow found enlightenment by blindly (or deliberately) following other people. For these reasons, I do not support everything that Trimpy has to say in his books. I agree with his assertion that viewing alcoholism as a disease process, without a hope for a “cure”, provides a very dangerous paradigm. This throws the door open for a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy and relapse. It also gives people an excuse for the inability to control impulses.
There’s a guy named Chris Prentiss, he founded a recovery program called Passages. He runs this uber posh recovery center out in Malibu, California. Anyway, all I did was buy his book and he uses the pretense that there is a “cure”.
There’s another website, SMART recovery, which approaches addiction and alcohol recovery using various techniques of psychotherapy. Check their toolboxes and you will find methods for recovery that adhere more to modern therapy, not to the 12 step technique.
The strange thing about my situation is that I also went to AA when I quit. I have been attending regularly for 6 years. I go to a very unorthodox group that offers an alternative to the often religious mandates of AA. They allow skepticism and freethinking, which suits me well.
I believe that people suffering from addiction can decide to build a different worldview. It’s a choice and a motivation that comes from within. People often make decisions and form beliefs because others have persuaded them or demonstrated unity around a particular belief. This is the fuel of witch hunts and genocide. The point: think for yourself and don’t let someone else’s rigid view of what you should or should not think manipulate you. There are a few AA mantras that I do abide…
To thine own self be true
Take the best, leave the rest
I don’t like conformity. I don’t like religion, I don’t like political platforms, and I don’t like anyone who claims that they somehow found enlightenment by blindly (or deliberately) following other people. For these reasons, I do not support everything that Trimpy has to say in his books. I agree with his assertion that viewing alcoholism as a disease process, without a hope for a “cure”, provides a very dangerous paradigm. This throws the door open for a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy and relapse. It also gives people an excuse for the inability to control impulses.
There’s a guy named Chris Prentiss, he founded a recovery program called Passages. He runs this uber posh recovery center out in Malibu, California. Anyway, all I did was buy his book and he uses the pretense that there is a “cure”.
There’s another website, SMART recovery, which approaches addiction and alcohol recovery using various techniques of psychotherapy. Check their toolboxes and you will find methods for recovery that adhere more to modern therapy, not to the 12 step technique.
The strange thing about my situation is that I also went to AA when I quit. I have been attending regularly for 6 years. I go to a very unorthodox group that offers an alternative to the often religious mandates of AA. They allow skepticism and freethinking, which suits me well.
I believe that people suffering from addiction can decide to build a different worldview. It’s a choice and a motivation that comes from within. People often make decisions and form beliefs because others have persuaded them or demonstrated unity around a particular belief. This is the fuel of witch hunts and genocide. The point: think for yourself and don’t let someone else’s rigid view of what you should or should not think manipulate you. There are a few AA mantras that I do abide…
To thine own self be true
Take the best, leave the rest
Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Mmmmmm
Posts: 3,178
I read this book years ago. I gave it to my H. Although I am working on me with 12 steps, I like the simplicity of not building addiction into a disease, I like the AVRT, I laugh over what he calls the addict.
I'm pretty sure when I kicked my H out, it was more Rational Recovery than Al Anon.... There is a lot of good info indeed on their website.
https://rational.org/index.php?id=1
I'm pretty sure when I kicked my H out, it was more Rational Recovery than Al Anon.... There is a lot of good info indeed on their website.
https://rational.org/index.php?id=1
Member
Join Date: May 2014
Location: Washington, MO
Posts: 2,306
It is of course a mind trick and my "AV" is me but by compartmentalizing all thoughts that promote drinking in any capacity as irrational and untrustworthy and giving them a name does seem to ease the progression by stopping the romancing--confronting the lie. A valuable tool for me this time around. And of course SR.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 125
Originally Posted by Freepath 
I believe that people suffering from addiction can decide to build a different worldview. It’s a choice and a motivation that comes from within.
December, being the twelfth month of the year, is a month where Step 12 is often the topic. The prospect of an entire month discussing spiritual awakenings and their necissity for recovery seems a bleak way to spend the holidays. I LIKE listening to people share at meetings and I benefit from hearing them sometimes, but this particular aspect of the program is not one I choose to emphasize in my interior considerations of my recovery.
Might as well order the book. I'm not exactly willing to incorporate it into my worldview, but I might read it while I drink coffee or smoke cigarettes.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 3,109
Started reading Rational Recovery today.......
In AVRT, you will take a direct moral hit for becoming addicted, for maintaining the addition against your own better moral judgement, and for ending the addiction, immediately, all on you own, forever. There is no sterile robe of "disease victim" to protect you or explain away your future drinking. When you get started, you may even feel sick inside, but you will also understand those feelings and the meaning of abstinence. Some of those bad feelings will be regret or remorse for your past behaviour, and some will be grief for the loss of substance pleasure. there is no compensation due to you for any of this, even though hope for a better life may motivate your decision to abstain. Although your original family may have been imperfect, and you may have been mistreated, and society may have given you a rotten deal in some ways, your are not owed an apology or compensation, nor are you excused in any way for becoming addicted, for remaining addicted, or for any of your behaviour associated with your addiction. AVRT is entirely uninterested in you personal problems and life's troubles. In fact, there is no guarantee that your life will not become much worse following your decision to abstain. As an abstinent person, you may consider yourself just like anyone else, taking the hard knocks of life, finding out that life can be lonely at times, and taking risks to gain the good in life. When you feel your history of addiction is a handicap in remaining abstinent, or that you need more than your own resources to remain abstinent, you are simply hearing your Addictive Voice.
I like this guy a lot!
He makes so much sense, the only way to treat addiction is abstinence. Endlessly talking about life's problem or personal defects will never cure someone wanting to get drunk or high. He really blows traditional treatment out of the water!
I wish I'd read this a long time ago.
In AVRT, you will take a direct moral hit for becoming addicted, for maintaining the addition against your own better moral judgement, and for ending the addiction, immediately, all on you own, forever. There is no sterile robe of "disease victim" to protect you or explain away your future drinking. When you get started, you may even feel sick inside, but you will also understand those feelings and the meaning of abstinence. Some of those bad feelings will be regret or remorse for your past behaviour, and some will be grief for the loss of substance pleasure. there is no compensation due to you for any of this, even though hope for a better life may motivate your decision to abstain. Although your original family may have been imperfect, and you may have been mistreated, and society may have given you a rotten deal in some ways, your are not owed an apology or compensation, nor are you excused in any way for becoming addicted, for remaining addicted, or for any of your behaviour associated with your addiction. AVRT is entirely uninterested in you personal problems and life's troubles. In fact, there is no guarantee that your life will not become much worse following your decision to abstain. As an abstinent person, you may consider yourself just like anyone else, taking the hard knocks of life, finding out that life can be lonely at times, and taking risks to gain the good in life. When you feel your history of addiction is a handicap in remaining abstinent, or that you need more than your own resources to remain abstinent, you are simply hearing your Addictive Voice.
I like this guy a lot!
He makes so much sense, the only way to treat addiction is abstinence. Endlessly talking about life's problem or personal defects will never cure someone wanting to get drunk or high. He really blows traditional treatment out of the water!
I wish I'd read this a long time ago.
Member
Join Date: May 2015
Location: Eugene Oregon
Posts: 306
Thanks for calling attention to rational recovery. I'd sorta looked at it but didn't read anything because what I was looking for was secular support groups. Read through the crash course and found something I needed in it. I read Allen Carr's book and am not having any problem with wanting to drink but persistently am struggling with the idea of Never drinking again. I've decided when I'm 87 I'm going to be at Disneyland's 100th anniversary and have a glass of champagne...until then nothing...:-) that actually helps me a lot. At that point if I want to have a drink a day --why not lol. I may not want to at that point or be alive and or functioning-- who knows-- kind of gives me motivation to stay healthy through my life lol. I feel my av has been holding me back from starting true recovery in my life and this seems to satisfy it. I feel I can get up off my rear now and start the rest of my life.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 3,109
Another excerpt that reflects where I am right now.
People who have made Big Plans do not have relapses, or even lapses: they never drink or use again.
Of course, some people who consider a Big Plan or even go through the motions of making one simply change their minds and simply decide to drink or use drugs. They do not have relapses, they have drinks. They have not failed, nor did AVRT fail them. They are free to do what they wish, they are victims of nothing. Others may go through a period of uncertainty and conflict when they have not made a final commitment to abstinence, and they drink or use again with a great deal of self-consciousness. This kind of experimenting, if it occurs at all, usually serves to strengthen understanding of how the Addictive Voice works and usually results in rapid progress towards secure abstinence.
He's right. Now that I know I can't unknow it. Any time I choose to drink I'm gonna feel like a turkey! Maybe that's what I'll name my beast.... my inner turkey. Gobble gobble.
I have been toying with the idea of experimenting with AVRT...... it's like he wrote the book just for me!! How nice of him lol
Or there's this part......
Much of AVRT concerns language, but Beasts have feelings. When you threaten it with a Big Plan, it will react with strong feelings, usually anxiety, anger, a desire to withdraw or be isolated, or a vague "sick" feeling. Usually, you can hear it talk to you, arguing and pleading that you not deprive it forever of alcohol.
When I finish the book I'm going to go right back to the beginning of it and read it again with a highlighter and a notebook so I can properly study it and do the exercises.
People who have made Big Plans do not have relapses, or even lapses: they never drink or use again.
Of course, some people who consider a Big Plan or even go through the motions of making one simply change their minds and simply decide to drink or use drugs. They do not have relapses, they have drinks. They have not failed, nor did AVRT fail them. They are free to do what they wish, they are victims of nothing. Others may go through a period of uncertainty and conflict when they have not made a final commitment to abstinence, and they drink or use again with a great deal of self-consciousness. This kind of experimenting, if it occurs at all, usually serves to strengthen understanding of how the Addictive Voice works and usually results in rapid progress towards secure abstinence.
He's right. Now that I know I can't unknow it. Any time I choose to drink I'm gonna feel like a turkey! Maybe that's what I'll name my beast.... my inner turkey. Gobble gobble.
I have been toying with the idea of experimenting with AVRT...... it's like he wrote the book just for me!! How nice of him lol
Or there's this part......
Much of AVRT concerns language, but Beasts have feelings. When you threaten it with a Big Plan, it will react with strong feelings, usually anxiety, anger, a desire to withdraw or be isolated, or a vague "sick" feeling. Usually, you can hear it talk to you, arguing and pleading that you not deprive it forever of alcohol.
When I finish the book I'm going to go right back to the beginning of it and read it again with a highlighter and a notebook so I can properly study it and do the exercises.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 3,109
Sorry guys I know I'm over posting but I don't have anyone to really talk about this with and it helps me to get it out.
This part just rattled me. It's been awhile since I had these thoughts but I've had them in the past more times than I'd care to admit......
It tells you that life is largely meaningless, that there is little good in life, that life has little if any real pleasures, and that it is hardly worth living. It will not hesitate to suggest that might as well commit suicide and get it over with. "Life sucks," it broods, "and you will never feel right." And it will often suggest specific ways that you can kill yourself, such as by shooting yourself or running your car into a cement wall or off a cliff.
I can remember lying in bed and thinking if I had a gun I would shoot myself in the head and end the misery. Or lying in the bath and contemplating my wrists. Or driving my car and thinking about just running it off a bridge, free fall. Again it's been a long time since I had them and at that time I was drinking A LOT. Yeah I never want to go there again.......
This part just rattled me. It's been awhile since I had these thoughts but I've had them in the past more times than I'd care to admit......
It tells you that life is largely meaningless, that there is little good in life, that life has little if any real pleasures, and that it is hardly worth living. It will not hesitate to suggest that might as well commit suicide and get it over with. "Life sucks," it broods, "and you will never feel right." And it will often suggest specific ways that you can kill yourself, such as by shooting yourself or running your car into a cement wall or off a cliff.
I can remember lying in bed and thinking if I had a gun I would shoot myself in the head and end the misery. Or lying in the bath and contemplating my wrists. Or driving my car and thinking about just running it off a bridge, free fall. Again it's been a long time since I had them and at that time I was drinking A LOT. Yeah I never want to go there again.......
Member
Join Date: May 2015
Location: Eugene Oregon
Posts: 306
Originally Posted by fini
interesting.
wouldn't "work" for me, as it would have me in hold mode of some sort.
i'm interested to know what happens/what your av says if you push that up until you're 157?
genuine question.
wouldn't "work" for me, as it would have me in hold mode of some sort.
i'm interested to know what happens/what your av says if you push that up until you're 157?
genuine question.
Not The Way way, Just the way
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: US
Posts: 1,413
Originally Posted by BlueFairy
I don't know-- I just know 87 works for me, I know they day more would do it but I couldn't imagine it working on me. Plus this will make my av work for me by wanting me to be healthy and live a long time lol. If I do make it that long and get me drink-- then good for me, I can't see a drink a day doing me much harm at that point.
You've mentioned a drink a day somewhere down the road for yourself. For myself, that kind of drinking was never of interest. But I'm curious as to why you believe you have to wait until later on to have one drink a day. It seems to me it's just as good an example of mature drinking today, as it might be sometime down the road.
GT
Self recovered Self discovered
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Toronto Canada
Posts: 5,148
My beast has been mostly quiet since I made my BP and I am enjoying the silence.
He might have said, 'But what if your AV is not mostly quiet? What happens if for some reason it becomes very active? What then?'
I understand now that he was seeking a restatement of the Big Plan. 'It doesn't matter what my AV does because it has become completely irrelevant to my BP. I will never drink again, and I will never change my mind.'
Congratulations to you, Zenchaser, on your decision and your choice of unconditional sobriety. Onward.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 3,109
It's still there and I'm sure I haven't heard the last from it. But like you said my sobriety is unconditional. I really like that btw. It was pretty active on Canada Day. But not in a way that it was telling me to drink.... more just that I was feeling really out of sorts and uncomfortable. Uneasy. Mostly what I've been feeling is a HUGE sense of relief. Now it's onward to figuring out how to live sober.
Member
Join Date: May 2015
Location: Eugene Oregon
Posts: 306
Originally Posted by GerandTwine
BF,
You've mentioned a drink a day somewhere down the road for yourself. For myself, that kind of drinking was never of interest. But I'm curious as to why you believe you have to wait until later on to have one drink a day. It seems to me it's just as good an example of mature drinking today, as it might be sometime down the road.
GT
You've mentioned a drink a day somewhere down the road for yourself. For myself, that kind of drinking was never of interest. But I'm curious as to why you believe you have to wait until later on to have one drink a day. It seems to me it's just as good an example of mature drinking today, as it might be sometime down the road.
GT
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
