zerothehero

zen, thanks for sharing. I think it's not so much about whether one "buys into that" or not, but just being aware. You say you were set up for addiction by inappropriate parenting and abuse, and that you addressed it. Nuf said. What's done is done.

And you're right, we liked the way alcohol felt, and for me I think that's largely because I didn't particularly like or accept the way I felt without it. That's a wiring thing - environment and epigenetic. Plus, I liked to party. I large part of my initial impetus was about having a sense of adventure and wanting to have a good time. Cheap thrills.

I also agree with dw that "not putting alcohol down your throat is more than not putting alcohol down your throat." Paying attention to the AV seems largely about developing a better understanding of triggers, and making better choices as a result. Triggers can be in the immediate environment, or they can seemingly come out of nowhere, but that internal nowhere started somewhere.

I have to say, though, that "stopping the damage we do/did to our lives by not ending the addiction" IS "fixing your life." We can't fix the past, but we can come to a better understanding of it, and thus learn to be less controlled by it and our unconscious minds. We can consciously start rewiring our brains.

A really good book for those who experienced trauma and found themselves struggling with addiction or other issues (depression, anxiety, PTSD) is The Body Keeps the Score. Great read.

GerandTwine

The reasons for deciding to never drink/drug are legion. Variety is the spice of life.
The reason for remaining permanently abstinent is utterly singular. "Because I said so."

VigilanceNow

Great post, David Sedaris is hilarious!

Also interesting re: the European vs American reaction​ to declining a drink, as I have found the same thing! Americans don't even usually get into it when I say I don't drink... But in France everyone is like ohhhhh come on just one!!

And the "going to any lengths" is a concept more than a literal action of some kind. It reminds me that I would have done just about anything to get alcohol when I was deep in active alcoholism... Sneaking around, lying, finding weird places to pour booze in a water bottle... And I have to be just as determined to succeed in my sobriety as I was in successfully finding a drink!!

Wholesome

It was a bit of an overshare, but what the hell it's only on the internet! lol

I think some of this is growing up and maturing. I don't regret my past, I had some really good times! Had some lame sad drinking with only Jesus to keep me company too. I'm just not going to sit here and blame external factors or legitimate trauma for keeping me drinking for as long as I did. I liked the buzz and I drank to get drunk. I drank because I drank. There's no talk therapy that will cure me of my AV's desire to get intoxicated. Nobody gets addicted because it didn't feel good..... so good that you wanted to do that again! MORE. It just seems like by placing the blame on issues or problems the fact that it feels so good gets bypassed when really that's the bottom line. Your brains reward centers get hijacked and you will seek that high regardless of the consequences.

zerothehero

zen, I agree except that I wouldn't call it blame. Alcohol feels good to almost everybody, but not everybody gets addicted, that is, not everyone's brain reward center gets hijacked. Neurobiologists are beginning to amass evidence regarding precursors to addiction; why some do and some do not develop substance use disorders. I.E. the "set up." Some of the answers to that are pretty obvious, but we're learning more about how it works in the brain. Saying you were "set up" doesn't mean you're blaming your parents or anyone or anything else; it's just acknowledging history. I went to a music festival the other day where almost everyone was high or at least drinking. I enjoyed focusing on how good it felt NOT to be high or drunk. Not something I used to think about. My brain is changing, and that, my friend, is entirely my doing and my responsibility, just like the fact that I used to go to shows and if I wasn't high I would be thinking about where I could find something and how good it would feel to be high. Now is more important than the past or the future, to be sure, but we learn from our pasts, and we ought to consider future consequences of choices we make now. Cause and effect. Not blame; just reality.

zerothehero

Funny, I just realized my quote at the bottom of my posts uses the word blame. No wonder... Maybe time to change that even though the blame to which it refers is not blaming people or circumstances as much as pointing out cause and effect.

Wholesome

Yeah, I believe that there is a genetic component to addiction. I was addicted to sugar as a kid before I ever tried drugs and I did other compulsive ritualistic things. I also believe that trauma can play a part because using takes away those feelings and that pain and it provides immediate relief. I think people can start for one reason and then have it turn on them when they find that now they NEED rather than want it. Those things are no excuse for staying addicted though.

Music festival eh? I don't think I could handle that just yet, although I used to love going to them. I think my AV would be screaming at me to get high, drinking I would be ok with leaving alone, never was a drinker at concerts..... too many trips to the dirty port-o-potties. Not that it matters how much of a fuss my AV kicks up but the point would be to have fun not torture myself lol. I'm just not there yet. I've got a boating weekend coming up where some friends who like to party are coming aboard and I'm already planning my escape to someone else's house who lives nearby so I can get away from my friends once they get too drunk! And it's my boat! Haha!

It does take more than just quitting to be successful in my opinion. Quitting first and forever and then learning to navigate life without it.

dwtbd

All the scientific knowledge currently being collected and what ever else may be learned about causes of addiction are purely academic. And will have no effect on the guaranteed solution.

Knowing what a neuron is has little to no effect on someone who after vomiting due to over indulgence repeats those same actions. Intoxication feels good, how individuals deal with that is what matters.

Focusing on causes is a way to get further from the solution.

Wholesome

Sobriety feels good too! I feel fantastic since I quit. I have so much energy and my mind is way sharper. I've lost 15 lbs and due to exercising I'm getting really fit again. I sleep like a rock, I laugh and smile more. I have interests again and things to look forward too, I spend time outside in nature. I have no complaints about giving up drinking.

dwtbd

Good? nah...better
I feel better in my skin everyday. I don't mean to come across as doom and gloom, but it is a binary choice, either drink and use and live the consequences or quit and give yourself the chance to live a good life , not one that feels good as in a pretense of goodness a veneer of pleasant sensation , but one that actually can be actually good and feels that way too

Greenwood618

This is of course entirely correct, but I am certain that it will soon be besieged by a litany of "whatever works!"

It is much like the Anatabuse debate.

Of course, taking get-sick drugs doesn't really "work" in the conventional sense of the word, any more than any coercive method does in any sphere of life, which is sparingly, with great resentment, and not for the long term.

Get-sick drugs are pure AV, and their prescription another slice of evidence for the state-run, psycho-therapeutic medical complex that encourages drunkards in their worst behavior - the hypochondria, the dependence, the desperate desire for attention, the always bumbling around causing problems, whining about not being able to drink and then collapsing in tears when they don't get enough back-pats for not doing so.

zerothehero

I don't think there is any "guaranteed solution," unless you're referring to never drinking again, but even then, avoiding relapse is never guaranteed - unless you never drink (of which there is no guarantee)...

I don't believe scientific evidence is purely academic, and I do believe that understanding the dopamine reward system is helpful to those who wonder why, despite full awareness of negative consequences, they go ahead and use anyway.

And understanding causes most definitely can be part of the solution rather than taking us farther from solutions.

I wonder, also, what country Greenwood618 is from that offers a "state-run, psycho-therapeutic medical complex" and whether s/he had a horrible experience with that system that has caused a rejection of anything hinting at psychotherapy. If so, that's too bad. Of course, if that rejection is working for you, great!

Recovery is a growth process. There was a time that I thought that any examination of the past would have been irrelevant, but my experience has shown me otherwise, and in retrospect, I didn't want to look at it because it was unpleasant. I now continue to learn from my past, and sometimes despite my past, and that understanding becomes infused with solutions in the present. That's not to say I dwell on the past, but my brain does produce memories that become part of present experience, so the focus is not ON the past, but rather, on the present with awareness of the past and possible futures. A thing must first be held before it can be let go.

JeffreyAK

Ya, if there were a single guaranteed solution, everyone would use it and there would be no discussion or need for alternatives, just use that solution and off you go. Problem is, we're all different. That understanding is what brought us alternatives to 12-step, which was once the only approach, and still dominates in most of the world.

I did get a lot out of understanding what addiction is and how it works, at least at some level (people spend careers studying this stuff). But for me, it was mostly after I quit for good, not so much before, and it was for helping me understand where I had been and how I got there, not so much where I was going. At the end of the day, I still had to decide that, finally, I wanted to be sober more than I wanted to stay drunk another day or week or month. But some of the things that I learned before I quit, did help me later even if they didn't really contribute to me deciding to quit.

GerandTwine

I posted this several hours ago in an adjacent thread -
------------
"Pledging "I will never drink again" is clearly possible to do perfectly because it so obvious when alcohol/drugs get close to the mouth/skin."

"...in our society, some people believe it is impossible for you, or anyone, to have the capacity to decide and to know, IN FACT, that you [they themselves] will never drink/drug again. This social fiasco is in great part due to centuries of institutionalized coddling of all the different ways there are to make excuses about drinking/drugging more or less, and all the businesses that are created by imagining that the only way to help people stop or cut back is to treat those excuses with massively invasive way-of-life programs and medicines."
-----------

And then just a few hours later up pops the following -

Well, I know my Big Plans have guaranteed that certain things will never enter my body ever again, and while it first appears to be the height of effrontery for anyone to tell me otherwise, it is actually their own Addictive Voice scared sh*tless that my truth may actually become understood and replicated.

zerothehero

It is unfortunate that you felt that my post might be "the height of effrontery" but I was only speaking from my own experience, and the experience of the majority who try to get sober numerous times before it sticks. It is actually quite a leap to judge me (or my AV) as being "scared sh*tless" about your "truth" (or the truth you read in a book or a website), because if your truth can be "understood and replicated" with great success, and I believe it is, that's fantastic.

For what it's worth, I am around 42 months sober, I'm a musician who plays with others who drink and get high, we perform in bars sometimes, I go to music festivals like the one last weekend where I was surrounded by what I would call temptations except that I am no longer tempted, I have done this on my own (well, I went to half a dozen AA meetings and said no thanks) largely due to a personal commitment to sobriety, I used the AV concept in early sobriety and found it helpful, and I have nothing against RR (aside from zealots who freak out if anyone shares other, apparently invalid, approaches to recovery).

I posted something similar in another thread a few weeks ago, but again, I used to come to the secular forums because it was less dominated by AA dogma, but now the secular forum is overrun with RR dogma.

Dogma: dog·ma
[ˈdôɡmə]
NOUN

a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true

GerandTwine

Ok.
1+1=2.
More dogma.

GerandTwine

"I, GerandTwine will never drink again."
Dogma for me.
Unprovable theory for you.
"I, zerothehero will never drink again."
You can do this, zero. It can be dogma for you.
But, yes, it is unprovable theory for me.

Wholesome

I try not to let myself worry about the future. Of course I can't know what will happen, but once I get there it will be right now to me and I'm confident that I can always not drink right now. That's why relapse worry is considered AV, it's doubt in your future ability to not drink in that imaginary moment.

Ananda

This is an interesting thread in a way because I could relate to some and to some my natural reactions ... well ... I need to examine that!

I have to say that I miss the time when secular was less ridged, but I am perhaps part of the problem. I will start a new thread that hopefully will provide a place for those of us who don't prescribe to any particular program 100%.

I did this once before, but prefer to start a new thread.

I, too deal with abuse and other issues. The way I see it in my mix and match method is that I have to learn to deal with these things to have a decent life and probably to stay sober ... but I consider it that my AV (not the AVRD one) will use anything it can to lead me to a drink. My answer is to pay attention and be aware when this starts to happen. Then I just say "my mind is a liar" or "I know you Mara" ... although it is what those words represent that helps me step out of it.

I still don't think I will ever be able to say that there is nothing that would get me to drink or that there is a guarantee of sobriety.

Thanks for all the shares.

GerandTwine

You're getting close. If you change the word "can" to "will", an amazing sense of completion and resolve will time warp you out of a worrisome tenuous in-recovery past into a wide open future as a common teetotaller. The Abstinence Commitment Effect.

This is the approach to recovery that has dominated the world for many centuries and still does. Within the last 200 years noisy businesses, professions, and religions aligning WITH the Addictive Voice might make it seem otherwise.