terall

I do find the Smart tools handy for stress management.

Jack16

Helpful - thanks

jazzfish

The AV, the beast, is not a separate entity. The beast is a conceptual convenience that helps one compartmentalize all thoughts, emotions, and feelings about drinking and focus on a singular response that leads to permanent abstinence. However, the AV is 100% me, and is driven by my brain's reward system, stress response, and cognitive functioning - including whatever impairment those areas have suffered because of my drinking. All that impairment can make the thought of drinking again seem to be rational.

Not drinking is the only thing required to achieve abstinence, but the tools of SMART can be very helpful in keeping me focused on that plan.

Algorithm

Firstly, the Additive Voice (AV) is not the same thing as the Beast in AVRT. Other paradigms may not make this distinction, but AVRT certainly does. Very crucially, in AVRT, unlike in other paradigms, the Beast is not the cause of your addiction.

In case this is not clear, for comparison purposes, a meow is not the same as a cat, and a bark is not the same as a dog. They are certainly related, but they are definitely not the same thing, and people don't use the terms interchangeably.

This has been covered before in the main AVRT thread.
The logic of AVRT is contrived for the purpose of compartmentalizing, or separating, but the Beast is not conceptual. It is simply the name that AVRT gives to the new 'bogus' survival drive. It's worth noting that this drive did not always exist.
The I/It separation of AVRT is not between rational and irrational, it is between higher/moral reason and lower base drives, which are not, and cannot be, irrational. Think of how your sex drive works. Your sex drive is not irrational, it simply is. The thoughts and feelings it gives rise to are an expression of that reality.

There is a reason that SMART, formerly the RR Self-Help Network, split off from Rational Recovery. AVRT violates most of axioms of RET/REBT that SMART uses as its tools, chief among them, treating the Beast as a rational entity, and the AV as its human voice.

The underlined part in your post above is your Addictive Voice.

Why? Because uncertainty about "keeping focused" on a plan of not drinking supports and suggests the possible future use of alcohol. The Beast is setting up preconditions for abstinence, which are automatically and necessarily conditions for drinking. What happens if you don't keep focused?

CelticZebra

I quit drinking, using the online crash course and reading the SR boards, just over 3 years ago.
I have recently started therapy, this is my first therapy since I quit using AVRT.
I told my therapist this and she seemed more surprised and saddened by the fact I hadn't been in therapy that by the fact I had used AVRT to quit.
It's a little known fact that more people quit drinking without help than any other 'method' out there.

The concept of mindfulness is useful when dealing with the addict brain until there is some distance between the undesirable behaviour (drinking) and the brain has been rested from the abuse of alcohol.
It does become easier, as time goes on, to understand how to 'rewrite ' those maladaptive brain patterns (it's like brain damage)
So there is hope and changing the lifestyle and minimising stress is all part of the journey of recovery.

Keep reading about AVRT and use your BP as a mantra when the beast is restless and the AV is noisy.
Send he beast whimpering back to where it belongs!

In the words of FreshStart: ONWARDS

Keep on keeping on

Driving my wagon of hope through beautiful views on my road to myself

jazzfish

First, I should state that I don't follow AVRT, but I did take what I wanted. However, I in no way represent the trademarked version of it.

That said, the underlined part was not the AV, it was me - I wrote that. The beast cannot set preconditions because the beast is the survival drive and has no rational thoughts. Isn't AVRT just a tool for staying focused on the decision to never drink again? I know that decision can be changed at anytime, so it is more effective for me to stay focused on the why. That doesn't mean forever, just for now. I still believe in using the simplest method that gets the job done.

Fusion

Hello, Jazzfish. I'm interested to know what it was that you 'took' that you wanted from AVRT. Please can you explain, thank you. From my studying and implementation of AVRT, it is designed to be utilised as a whole, an effective and simple technique for stopping drinking, forever. Not, take what you want and leave the rest; which wouldn't prove so effective.

jazzfish

The main differences (for me) I see are that there are multiple dimensions to addiction, which also include impairment of brain functioning and the role of trauma. For me, this means there will be a period of transition from the addictive state to the non-addictive state, rather than being instantaneous.

Even if I made the decision to never drink again, if drinking is primarily my coping mechanism for past trauma, then unless I resolve the past trauma or develop a healthier coping mechanism then there is a high likelihood of reverting to old behavior, Likewise, impaired brain functioning may mean that I have difficulty deciding to not drink when urges or stresses arise. Simply put, the previous decision to never drink no longer seems to make sense.

What this means is that I will temporarily need to throw some extra weight behind my quitting during the period my brain heals and while I develop different coping skills.

So what I took was the BP and AVRT, but with a personal understanding that the break with the addicted self may not be as neat and clean as it is set out. YMMV

Fusion

Thank you for your explaining your previous comment, Jazzfish.

I drank the equivalent of a fifth of vodka (750ml) per day for years, so I certainly have impaired brain functioning. Plus, it was (after initially being my celebratory mechanism) my coping mechanism; after my life started to devolve into chaos and mental pain.

I've spent years attempting to combat my addiction, to include studying the latest (ever increasing) knowledge of brain neuro-science and related recovery methods.

It's hard to explain, Jazzfish, but it was only as a consequence of my decision to never drink again, making the Big Plan, that the past trauma excuses that my AV used, were negated. There was no loop hole or escape clause for the Beast via IT's AV.

Over two decades of daily, excessive drinking, people have sympathised with me for my underlying factors, which I self-medicated with alcohol. But that sympathy seemed to serve the AV well. Look, IT said, you're damaged, so you must drink as a coping mechanism. Round and round I went on the hamster wheel of addiction.

I'm finding this difficult to explain. But it was only when I took the final decision to remove the prospect of EVER drinking again, off the table, that something shifted and the power was placed in my hands, rather than the mis-directed alcohol survival/pleasure/coping drive.

I believe that's the distinction. I said NEVER (and believe me, that was so hard to say and MEAN it) and the rest fell in to place. Any thoughts or feelings that suggest drinking are not me, but the defective neural circuits created by drinking too much (for whatever reason). The Beast and it's attendant communication means, the AV, in time, will settle down and become background noise, although never completely dissipate.

It's been scientifically proven that once a mis-directed survival (coping) drive neural pathway is created, it will become overgrown with lack of use (not drinking) but not disappear. I think you know this.

AVRT creates a new, beneficial non-drinking neural pathway loop. The old neural pathway 'I want a drink' (says the Beast through the AV) is instantly short-circuited by the BP. 'I will never drink again and I will never change my mind.' I do wish you well Jazzfish.

jazzfish

That's great that it worked for you and I have no doubt about it. My experience has been different.

Fusion

Thank you, Jazzfish. I'm sorry if I come across as too evangelical, but after trying lots of methods and then finding a technique that works for me, I want to race around and save everyone from addiction.

If I guide just one person (as those SR folks who replied to the thread I started on AVRT in Secular Connections, guided and thereby saved me) then I'll be content.

I do hope that you discover a method, technique or combination that work for you, Jazzfish.

MesaMan

.
FWIW, this has been my wonderful Experience as well:

'The Beast and it's attendant communication means, the AV, in time, will settle down and become background noise, although never completely dissipate.'

However, this much-wanted Adoptee doesn't have the 'added Overhead' of Trauma. So far as I know.

My repeated Mantra here on SR is that I don't cheat on my Wife. I don't kick my beloved Dog. I don't empty a Pal's Wallet on the Coffee Table when he's in the Loo. Behaviors can be taken off the Table in other aspects of our Lives. I compartmentalized 'Drinking Again' into that same Cubbyhole. 'Cuz I could. Sometimes, I ask Folks if they have other such things in their Lives that they simply don't do? If so, explain to me again why Drinking cannot be added to that List?

I don't sweat the occasional idea of Beast-inspired Drinking any more than I sweat a recurring Childhood Memory. That is, some Folks interpret ANY thought of Drinking as a failure; that they're not fully Recovered. I recall all kinds of Memories. Like, ones of old GFs.-) None represent 'failure'. Hopping off the Hamster Wheel of actually Drinking is good enough for me. I can't wipe out all my Memories. That means some necessarily include Drinking like a Fish. No worries by me, since that Memory has zero.dot.zero chance of being acted upon. Re-tooled Neural Pathways allow this.

NEVER Drinking 1 Liter of Vodka/Day again was incredibly liberating. As was quitting after 42 Years. You simply can't lust after that which you no longer want. Internally integrating The Big Plan eliminated 'desire'.
.

jazzfish

Not at all. I just didn't want to distract from the AVRT topic any more than I had.

And this gets to a point I failed to make, which is that trauma and brain impairment exist along a spectrum. If you fall lower on them, then they may be non-factors. No matter where ones falls on that spectrum, they are never an excuse to drink. But that is my view only.

Algorithm

The Addictive Voice (AV) is simply any thinking, imagery, or feeling that supports or suggests your possible future use of alcohol and other drugs. That is to say, that your own thinking can be, and often is, Addictive Voice.

AVRT is just a paradigm, or model, for making sense of addiction, and recovery from addiction. It is a very simple logic engine, patterned after addiction itself, that locks on to any thinking that supports the addiction.

It identifies the uncertainty principle, as it pertains to lifetime abstinence, as one of the pillars that support addiction. Any contradiction of a personal commitment to permanent abstinence supports the addiction, and is the Addictive Voice, by definition.

You are correct in that the Beast has no thoughts of its own, but it will certainly organize your thoughts around its addictive mandate ("you will drink/use again"), and the cardinal rule of addiction ("never say never to the possible future use of alcohol/drugs"). The Beast speaks in your mind's eye and ear, and this is what we look at with AVRT.

I would say that AVRT is a sorting filter for thoughts that support the addiction, and a means to live comfortably with residual addictive desire, without concerning oneself with removing that desire. This is in sharp contrast with other approaches to addiction, which often take detours.

We can also think of AVRT as the addict's missing moral conscience as it pertains to the use of alcohol and other drugs. Indeed, AVRT actually has a name for the denial of the moral dimension of the pivotal act of self-intoxication -- Original Denial.

With AVRT, once the principled decision (the Big Plan) is made, we need not concern ourselves with the why. In fact, we assume that we may, and probably will, eventually forget the why (the pain). We identify that as a potential weak spot, a loophole for the Beast.

My aim in most of my posts regarding AVRT is not so much to put someone on the spot, although there is a certain back-and-forth element to AVRT discussion. I am also often concerned with clarity, for anyone else who may be reading.

GerandTwine

AVRT is the opposite of any type of recovery process. AVRT is a way to immediately interrupt what tries to become a long drawn out process of internally disputing ideas, feelings or beliefs; or neediness for meetings, phone calls, etc based on powerlessness. AVRT quickly allows me, within seconds, to get on with daily life as a pledged common teetotaler.

For me, AVRT was the anatomically based buffer, that kept the Big Plan pristine, as I moved on within a society that is literally drowning in anti-pledge excuses that have had 175 years to become entrenched in our society.

I am an organism, not an organ. I have many different parts. The Beast is just a name I use for the appetite center in my brain with respecct to one particular unwanted appetite. Of course it is part of me. But to think I must never divide any part of my brain activity out of believing I am one individual entity seems unnecessarily irrational to me.

GT

terall

Very well said GerandTwine and Algorithm
Although AVRT has worked for me for over 5 years now, I still find your posts very enlightening. I like the way they cut through any unwanted and unneeded mental conflabulation, back to the core of the matter

MesaMan

.
Do not Drink under any circumstances.

Ever again.

The End.

terall

It is not so much "The Pledge"..the Big Plan that helped me, it was the technique of separating "me" from the "Beast". Recognising "It's" voice wasn't "my" voice. I vowed a thousand times not to ever drink again, but until I tried this technique, I couldn't do it!