JeffreyAK

I quit drinking many years ago and moved on, what keeps you from moving on? Sounds like you're still stuck, like Tatsy, in about phase-1 early recovery.

Greenwood618

You lead, 862 to 99, Hoss

fini

i didn't read the OP as having any question about AVRT, as was claimed up above.
the OP is a rather open- ended post where the poster was reminded or brought to think about some features of AVRT by reading in James' Varieties of Religious Experiences, which he found a good laugh.
(i have read that book, and found it a tough slog, myself)

i have stopped responding to threads where there is a clear question addressed to a person who is a member of a certain group., such as "question to SMART people", but this thread here seemingly invites general participation.

what saddens me about the suggestion that someone not participate in threads like this unless they have only good and encouraging things to say is that the field is getting narrower and narrower here, and suggestions that folk leave if they disagree or widen the questions will only tighten the spiral.

and that is in addition to plain nasty personal attacks.

dwtbd

AVRT doesn't say addiction is caused by beasts or pleasure drives , as far as I understand. Choosing to act on and satisfy those drives does.
You said that even at the end of your drinking , you drank instead of facing the consequences of not drinking. I did too, btw.
How did you quit, if not by making the decision to quit? How,did you overcome the biochemical process while in its midst?
I'd agree there are piles of scientific data, just not sold on the conclusions some make of them. I'm sure there have been drunks for as long as there has been alcohol and just as sure there were quitters among them.
Has addiction changed since the advent of fMRI?

JeffreyAK

Great question, I wish I understood. This came up in another thread, and for me I guess it came down to, I ran out of alternatives that were not worse than quitting. End of the line, on the verge of totally wrecking everything I had worked hard for, wife was about to leave again for the last time, leaving me alone to drink myself to death. I knew that was next, and I didn't want that. Somehow, with the last vestiges of will and a lot of help from my wife and counselors and support groups at an outpatient rehab, I just put on my blinders and marched through the days until, weeks later, I kinda came out of the fog. I absolutely own the process as a thinking individual with will, just like I own all that I did that led me to becoming a shaking, deceitful and denying addict, but I definitely could not have done it without a lot of help and support. That's me, other people may have different stories.

Fusion

I can do no more than repeat the above. A pattern has formed this year. When a member starts a thread regarding AVRT, Jeffrey and Fini appear, with negative comments about the technique.

That is factually correct, as you both well know. What I don't know, is what do you get out of constantly disparaging someone else's method of stopping drinking?

AlericB

I was being ironic when I said that!

Just to quickly describe the book for those who haven't read it, James gives lots of accounts of individual spiritual experiences to support his thesis that religious understanding starts from personal experience of God, not the other way round. Organised religion of whatever variety can then hopefully play a role by providing an intellectual framework in which you can interpret your experience and take it further. He tries to see if there is any commonality in people's experiences, finds that there is and draws conclusions from this about the nature of religious truth and salvation. As I say, one big scream laugh from beginning to end

dwtbd

Jeffery
What's your plan for future alcohol use ?

Fusion

I think you're getting me confused with somebody else. I haven't accused "one free sober person", I have NO triggers....that's the WHOLE point of AVRT! Nothing outside myself will cause me to drink, again, I have NO triggers. Have you ever learnt AVRT?

Of course there are many approaches to stop drinking, that goes without saying. I simply post regarding the approach that was successful for me.

Regarding your accusation that I'm "stuck in phase- 1 of early recovery". I'm not stuck in any stage - because I'm RECOVERED! I only read and post on SR on an altruistic basis, to offer insight into my method of recovery, AVRT. I only posted on this thread because the OP (AlericB) was reading up on AVRT and we'd had previous exchanges in their previous threads.

Why did you post? To talk the OP out of AVRT, that's how it reads, I do hope that wasn't the intention. If someone had acted as you have here, on my original thread last year (as opposed to the complete support and encouragement I received) I may have been dissuaded from AVRT and I'd likely be dead now. AVRT was my last port of call. This isn't a game.

AlericB

Tatsy,

I have found your posts the most helpful to me of any on this forum and I'm sure many visitors do too.

You certainly don't need to defend yourself from patently false criticisms like this. They don't sound good anyway, quite disgraceful actually.

Wholesome

Tatsy, when I came back to SR and made my final BP you were incredibly supportive to me! Your help and the inspiration of your success helped me to see that I could do this. And you're right if one of us went into the 12 step forum and started trying to poke holes or criticize the BB and the steps we would be promptly shut down. Anyone is free to open their own thread to talk about mixing recovery methods and how they took parts from different ones to create their own hybrid success story. I think it would be a very interesting and informative discussion. But hijacking Aleric's thread who is new to AVRT and saying negative things about AVRT isn't helpful.

JeffreyAK

I have no plan, I'm kinda beyond that. I have no plan on never dropping acid or snorting coke, either, but equally, no desire at all, and that's served me pretty well for 35 years.

JeffreyAK

That's ridiculous, Tatsy. RR is one of many secular recovery approaches, it works for some people, and I strongly believe, whatever works for you is what you should do. People in this forum have different perspectives, and clearly mine is different from yours. I don't know why you can't seem to respect that, and this isn't the first time you've gotten personally nasty to me and others for not towing a RR cheerleader line, and for trying to participate in ongoing discussions and maybe help the next person who comes along a month or 5 years from now - possibly even a person for whom RR has failed utterly, and who is looking for different perspectives.

There's peace in accepting that we can't control other people and their perspectives, or whether they are "allowed" to post those different perspectives on forums we don't control, nor should we try. All our perspectives are valid, including those with whom we don't agree, the only thing that spoils it is personal disrespect and nastiness.

fini

Tatsy,
yes, we've run into similar dead-end before.
it seems there is a confusing of questions and discussion with "negative comments" and "disparaging" the technique.

no-one has disparaged the technique or is making negative comments about the technique.

if discussing it, bringing comments and conversation and musings and asking folk about what they/we are saying runs frequently into these accusatory roadblocks...it is likely to get quieter here instead of more welcoming and it will be less comfortable for new people to approach. my guess.

for myself, i'm tired of this.
best to you.

JeffreyAK

No, it was you, here is your post, http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ml#post6448295

dwtbd

Do you mean you are agnostic about drinking again , or consider yourself a confirmed teetotaller?
Acid was a blast , when it was , so not when it wasn't, so not. I can't see me booking any trips either.
Coke was great , but when I ran out or couldn't find any , it wasn't that big of deal and lost its allure when the money dried up.
I was a confirmed pothead for years then just stopped. I tried smoking again a few years back , thought it would help to stop the drinking, quickly turned into daily smoking and drinking for about a year or so, stopped the pot but the drinking increased. Was always an intoxication enthusiast, just always seemed to be something about booze that made it so hard to shake. Probably a combination of the socially accepted view of alcohol , its availability and immediate effect but being an enthusiast was the base of it all.

That bit about the piles of data suggesting my brain is now back to normal , has the ole AV thinking a few buzzes and there , shouldn't really be all that bad, especially now that I proved I can stop.

JeffreyAK

Oh confirmed teetotaler all the way, never going back. I just mean, I have no "plan" anymore, I'm confident that I can weather any storm that might come up in the future, and I have the tools in place to help myself. Staying at least a little bit engaged in recovery world keeps me from ever forgetting. But I truly have zero desire anymore for alcohol, no more than I do for acid or coke. And alcohol has the added bonus that it very nearly wrecked my life and killed me, so the thought of drinking again is forever associated with that really deep horrible hole I was in when I last drank it.

Weed was actually my first drug of choice, I liked that far more than alcohol at first, in my mid teens. Been 30+ years for that too, except for a couple instances 25-ish years ago when I tried it to see what I would think. I hated it, it made me paranoid and kept me stoned far long than I wanted to stay stoned.

Yeah, I understand on the addict voice, I've had those thoughts before too. Thing is, the way I see it, that path is forever barred to us even if our brains are completely "normal" (can take up to 10 years, from what I've read), because we will very quickly rebuild that chemical dependency and wind up right back where we were. In every single case I've ever heard of, that's what happens. I don't understand it, so perhaps our brains never fully return to "normal" (the differences may just not show up in brain images), but the empirical reality is that every single person I've ever heard about who became an addict, quit, and then went back to drinking, has wound up in an even worse place.

It helped me early on to remember just how horrible that place was for me at the end, regularly, never forget, and if I think on it long enough I can still tear up nearly 7 years later, it was an awful yawning dark hell. Drinking ever again = return to hell, no doubts whatsover. Now that association is pretty deeply stamped into my brain.

dwtbd

Jeffery
That 'forever barred' is where I see the permanence of AVRT and the Beast.In that sense, I'm kinda beyond a plan too. Mine is set, took about 30 minutes to institute it, years of working up to it and almost didn't make it. Finally freed myself and intend to stay that way, if that makes me not beyond a plan , it's probably just a matter of semantics. And in the case of AVRT trademarked ones at that

JeffreyAK

dwtbd, thank you, that makes sense, and I get that interpretation of permanence. Note I'm always careful to say "addict voice" and never AV, would not want to step on Mr. Trimpey's toes.

dwtbd

I think I have seen referenced a few times the idea that JT is aware of the use of his terms on forums and such and is not stringent in pursuing the rightful protections afforded him by laws of copyright and trademark, in those instances.
As long as dwtbd Publications Inc doesn't start marketing products on AVrT, it's cool