GerandTwine

Don't worry about "testing" your Addictive Voice. It DOES exist, and it WILL try to get you to drink some more. There's no need to "control" it either. It's simply the "bark" of the Beast. Totally harmless - IF, IF you do not act upon its barking.

Making the Big Plan is the only behavior changing event in Rational Recovery. And it's a very well defined, crystal clear change. There will be no more alcohol going down your throat, ever again. When you think about it, it's really a very small, and completely controllable change that can be done PERFECTLY.

Using the Technique of Recognizing your Addictive Voice (AVRT) is not even a behavior change. It is a thinking change. No longer will you think of the desire to drink some more as something YOU will work towards satisfying. You will simply Recognize the AV as an understandable part of you, but one you have just turned the tables on. The AV is no longer an old buddy. It's an artifact within your brain the existence of which means you are still completely healthy, but, understanding it, you no longer have any use for it whatsoever.

Since there's no way to extricate the Beast and its bark (AV), teetotalers with one simply accept its existence and dismiss it in a matter of seconds whenever its AV comes into their thoughts or feelings.

Karamazov

[QUOTE=GerandTwine;6659818]Don't worry about "testing" your Addictive Voice. It DOES exist, and it WILL try to get you to drink some more. There's no need to "control" it either. It's simply the "bark" of the Beast. Totally harmless - IF, IF you do not act upon its barking.

Making the Big Plan is the only behavior changing event in Rational Recovery. And it's a very well defined, crystal clear change. There will be no more alcohol going down your throat, ever again. When you think about it, it's really a very small, and completely controllable change that can be done PERFECTLY.

Using the Technique of Recognizing your Addictive Voice (AVRT) is not even a behavior change. It is a thinking change. No longer will you think of the desire to drink some more as something YOU will work towards satisfying. You will simply Recognize the AV as an understandable part of you, but one you have just turned the tables on. The AV is no longer an old buddy. It's an artifact within your brain the existence of which means you are still completely healthy, but, understanding it, you no longer have any use for it whatsoever.

Since there's no way to extricate the Beast and its bark (AV), teetotalers with one simply accept its existence and dismiss it in a matter of seconds whenever its AV comes into their thoughts or feelings.[/QUOTE

I appreciate this valuable advice GT... it does feel like it's a 'kill switch' of some kind and I can't believe I didn't know about AVRT before. Why is this not out there??!! I KNOW RR is right for me after so many attempts over the last 5 years and I know we don't count days (AV) but I did have 14 days before I came across the link to AVRT and made the BP the next day. It kinda flipped my thinking, as you say, from a 'battle' to some kind of 'remote viewing' of my addictive voice. However, IT is unusually quiet and I keep thinking that it's gonna hit me hard soon! Perhaps I think this because it used to hit me hard when I used to engage it!

Wholesome

Hi Karamazov! Welcome, glad you found AVRT!

I think it's quite common to have some anxiety about the AV being either active or silent in the beginning. I know I did. I feared that IT could somehow be overpowering. IT really is harmless though. Mine still comes out in my thoughts and in my words, all you have to do it notice ITs presence. The important thing is to never drink again. Whatever that voice says is dead wrong, every time. No more battling.

I know what you mean about finally finding something that is like a light bulb going off in your mind! Finally something that explains what happens in my mind and something that makes sense that I can utilize to stop the madness. Something rational and final! It really is revolutionary.

GerandTwine

There is a long history of recovery programming that leaves addicted people suspended within the service oriented diseased and powerless attributes being pushed upon them today.

Twenty years ago, after its decade long process of discovering how people quit serious addictions on their own, Rational Recovery decided it was better to get the truth out there using the terminology of AVRT than to hide this truth and keep trying to convince addicted people they had a life long struggle ahead of themselves that needed endless professional services and group dependencies. To put it simply, Rational Recovery's AVRT does NOT rely on the fundamental business model of Planned Obsolescence.

Your AV (and mine and everyone else's, too) loves the idea that total abstinence can only be a temporary, uncertain condition (Planned Obsolescence).

Karamazov

Thanks for the welcome folks - I don't usually post anything but this is different. I like the idea of AVRT as 'revolutionary'!! It does feel like it too.
I can now see the enormous difference between this and the usual method which I never got on with... hated the idea I was 'powerless' and NEVER recovered. I feel like I know you all already because I've read so many of your posts GT and Zenchaser 😀

Fusion

Hello Karamazov, and welcome to Secular Connections!

I can't add any more to what Zen and GT have said, save for, you must realise that the Beast's AV is every bit as canny as you, it uses your thoughts, feelings and emotions in order to direct, order or guide you towards its fixation...alcohol.

Therefore its quietness is often just lulling you, until it pounces again. But that's NO problem, because its pounces are just verbal, it can't control your extremities, legs, hands, mouth...therefore NO alcohol can pass your lips under its direction, it's impotent: YOU are in control!

tursiops999

Karamazov, welcome! I understand it can be a little unsettling when The beast is quiet. Mine isn't very predictable ... quiet for long periods, but will occasionally pounce when I'm not expecting it. With a little practice I found that I could develop a mindset that doesn't care much if the beast is active or not -- if it's quiet, that's great...if it attacks, that's annoying but not a big deal. I just recognize it for what it is, and move along.

dwtbd

Karamazov
Congratulations on your desicion! Enjoy your freedom and keep kicking that AV's butt! Glad to see another member of AA(Abstainers' Alliance )

Karamazov

Thanks all for your support on this. Sorry I didn't back earlier, I went looking at a university today with my daughter and had coffee and food. I truly felt a crystal clear frame of mind. I wasn't hungover and this is a SATURDAY too. This would've usually been an event between two big drinks and I'd just scrape through until I had a drink in my hand when I got home. As it stands, my BP is solid and AV still dormant... which still worries me. Like I turned up for battle and no one was there??!! I will not complain about this though 😀

Wholesome

AV activity is neither good nor bad....took me awhile to accept that. I was always happy when I wasn't having any and worried when I did, but the longer I'm sober the less it matters to me if IT's chirping away at me. I was walking today and feeling a little melancholy from the grey weather and of course, my AV offered the same old solution of wouldn't a few beers be nice? Lol sooooo predictable! Instead, I came home and did a killer workout! I've accepted that when I am in any kind of discomfort my AV will tell me that one and only way to feel better and I tell it no and do whatever else I think I should do to care for myself.

AlericB

As zen says when AV is silent it can sometimes reappear in its most subtle guise. You can start to think that you've finally beaten it only to realise that that complacency is itself AV: it may lead to future drinking because when the AV next appears, as it almost certainly will, you may feel like giving up because you thought you had had it beaten. I think your image of a battle is a good one. A bomb explosion that follows a period of calm has a bigger effect on public morale because people were beginning to feel secure again than one that occurs when tension is already high.

Wholesome

Yeah it's true that it can reappear at random after long periods of inactivity. I've had some pretty intense AV attacks that seemed to come out of nowhere. I've also been in situations where I was expecting to have lots of activity and had none. The important part is to remain true one's BP, no matter what.

Good analogy with the bomb and public morale Aleric!

Karamazov

I hear you AlericB and thought the same thing too. The silence does bother me but decided to enjoy it for the time being... while it lasts. I like the killer workout Zenchaser - and its gloomy and windy here too weather wise. I will order the book tomorrow and study it. I really want to take this seriously as I can because AVRT has already given me so much back in such a small amount of time. I couldn't be more appreciative of finding this... by doing this my wife already knows this is a different/better me.

AlericB

AVRT is the practice of recognising and separating from AV and so it really doesn't matter if AV is present or not. If AV is not present the practice would be that there's really nothing to do as far as not drinking is concerned, and if it is present the practice is then simply to recognise and separate from it.

If today I have no thoughts , feelings, imagery, sensations, impulses about the possibility of future drinking (AV) then fine! But if I end up experiencing incessant AV but manage to recognise and separate from each occurance if it then that's equally fine as far as my non-drinking goes. It does not mean that I'm failing at AVRT. AV cannot be controlled in any way and if I have to recognise and separate from it hundreds of times a day then I am just as successful in my non-drinking as I woud be if I only had to employ AVRT only once a day or not at all.

The practice and success at it is the recognition of and seperation from AV, not the stopping of AV which is simply not possible.

Fusion

In the early days, when the AV popped up, this realisation, "AV activity is neither good nor bad" is what propelled me from this mindset "wishing the AV wouldn't pop up, and worrying when it didn't/worrying that when it returned it would deluge me" into this mindset "the AV can do what it wants, it's neither good nor bad, it just is - like background music or wallpaper - just irrelevant and can be ignored in its presence or absence.

How are you doing today?

AlericB

Good point. If we judge the absence of AV as good and its presence as bad we are giving AV the power to determine our happiness and so making our happiness dependant on something we can't control. If we view it non-judgmentally, as background music or wallpaper and as something that just is as Tatsy said, then we will be free of it's influence. Your words make me think of the Shakespeare quote 'Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

shockozulu

Great quote to explain the AV. I recently made a BP after 5 1/2 years clean and sober. I know at this point I am not going to drink or use again. No thank you.

Fusion

Yeh! Shockozulu , go girl! I expect your sweet Zero is proud of you.

AlericB

Interestingly I suppose the first recorded use of the word "addiction" was by Shakespeare in Henry V. The Archbishop of Canterbury says of the king’s misspent youth that "his addiction was to courses vain" although the word was used more in the sense of "inclination" than it's modern meaning.

The English word "addiction" comes from the Latin word "addicere". "Ad" means "to" or "toward" and "dicere" means "to speak" and so "addicere" means “to give my voice over to.” This seems to support the AVRT idea that if you're addicted you have no voice, you have given your voice over to IT and you need to reclaim it.

Wholesome

That's really interesting Aleric and once again very apt. I have this mental image of you as a dapper British English professor.