AVRT and Antabuse
Not The Way way, Just the way
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: US
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AVRT and Antabuse
Is it possible to practice Addictive Voice Recognition Technique while at the same time maintaining a pleasure-from-alcohol-inhibiting (in fact a pain-from-alcohol-inducing) level of antabuse within the bloodstream?
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Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 4,251
Absolutely, in fact, you would NEED to. Antabuse is not a magic pill that just propels you into sobriety. It is only a tool to help you, you have to work on your sobriety foundations and plan in order to more into a solid sober life. I take antabuse and Campral (a craving reducing drug) and those medications are only a small part of my recovery. The real work is mine to do, not a medications.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 3,109
Yeah I don't see why not? I mean why not use everything at your disposal? Especially in the beginning, that first month can be really hard but it does get easier. I think a person could make a BP and learn to recognize their AV's and also add that extra barrier to temptation. The plan is to never drink again and antabuse is a good deterrent. I think it would take a lot of gumption and commitment to go to the doctors and admit your problem and ask for a script. I don't think I could do that.
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Join Date: Jan 2015
Posts: 1,183
Well sure it's possible, I think maybe you're asking if it's recommended and I have no opinion on that. I tried antabuse at one point, and I found ways to "forget" to take it and eventually decide I "didn't need it", so I could drink without feeling like my head was going to explode. By the time I was really done with drinking, I didn't need that extra barrier since far worse things than throwing up were going to happen if I drank again. I think like AVRT and other tools, antabuse is a tool that helps some people.
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Join Date: Jun 2015
Posts: 2,574
If the question is can one practice AVRT with dogmatic purity while taking it, my opinion would be probably not (why would I need a medication if I'm never going to drink again?). However if one's goal is to get sober by any means necessary, then my opinion would be "sure, why not."
My own experience was of getting sober through other methods, then later learning about AVRT. The other methods gave me sober time and the clarity to keep learning and exploring. AVRT is the framework through which I now understand my own experience and maintain permanent sobriefly.
I do not have the personal experience of achieving initial sobriety using AVRT, so I can't speak to that (I know many others here can). I think my own experience points to the fact that if sobriety is the goal, there are different ways to get there.
My own experience was of getting sober through other methods, then later learning about AVRT. The other methods gave me sober time and the clarity to keep learning and exploring. AVRT is the framework through which I now understand my own experience and maintain permanent sobriefly.
I do not have the personal experience of achieving initial sobriety using AVRT, so I can't speak to that (I know many others here can). I think my own experience points to the fact that if sobriety is the goal, there are different ways to get there.
quat
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: terra (mostly)firma
Posts: 4,822
In my opinion, which should only matter to me by definition, others' opinions about my opinion notwithstanding, in a strict AVRT philosophy sense no.
A fundamental principle of practicing AVRT is that abstinence in the presence of desire is not only possible but is ultimately the 'endgame'. Attempting to create or an expectation of the elimination of the desire for intoxication is not the goal of AVRT, ending an addiction is.
Stopping drinking and deciding to use medications or techniques to curb residual desire is , imho, a proactive stance , but for a long term strategy still an AV driven , as opposed to AV ignored mindset.
The use or perceived need of creating a state of absence of desire has more to do with one's view , or understanding, of the structural model when describing or assigning benefits to such a state.
All that said, quitting is quitting and possible , everyone can/will be a 'purist' self avowed or not
A fundamental principle of practicing AVRT is that abstinence in the presence of desire is not only possible but is ultimately the 'endgame'. Attempting to create or an expectation of the elimination of the desire for intoxication is not the goal of AVRT, ending an addiction is.
Stopping drinking and deciding to use medications or techniques to curb residual desire is , imho, a proactive stance , but for a long term strategy still an AV driven , as opposed to AV ignored mindset.
The use or perceived need of creating a state of absence of desire has more to do with one's view , or understanding, of the structural model when describing or assigning benefits to such a state.
All that said, quitting is quitting and possible , everyone can/will be a 'purist' self avowed or not
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 3,109
Yeah you guys are right. It goes against the principle of staying abstinent regardless of desire and also why take it if you aren't going to drink again? The BP and the recognition of the AV should be all that's needed. I think it could affirm a distrust in oneself that they can do it, when what you need to do is the opposite and in fact learn to trust yourself that you can once and for all break free solely upon your own power.
Not The Way way, Just the way
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2012
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First:
As I understand it, and from firsthand experience, AVRT cannot be practiced without a Big Plan pledge.
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.
I tried practicing AVRT on man made sweets over four years ago and it didn't work at all. Then I made my Big Plan against ever again eating man made sweets. I did it while posting online here at SC. Thereafter, I was easily able to practice AVRT and over the next month gained significant health benefits that are still with me today. Being offered man made sweets makes me smile inside as I decline. I often like to say when being offered, "No thanks, I will never eat man made sweets as long as I live." just to see what the reaction is. My explanation takes but a few sentences, and that usually ends that topic.
No Big Plan? AVRT cannot be practiced.
Big Plan in place? AVRT works fantastically - fast, clear, confident unto death.
Second:
Practicing AVRT obviiously means not acting upon the Addictive Voice unless it's within the deliberate conscious exercise of shifting, such as pouring and smelling a drink before discarding it.
The desire to swallow disulfarim (Antabuse) is clearly the Addictive Voice. To actually go through with swallowing it as part of an exercise in shifting would be absurd. The bad side effects of disulfarim are real and significant.
The only arguable reason to take disulfarim has nothing to do with you practicing AVRT. Untrusting relations (including some treating physicians) may want you to swallow it to prove that you will not be getting drunk. This is because it is impossible to prove to them, or to anyone, that you have made a Big Plan and that you will, in fact, never get drunk again. I belive it's much healthier to get them to agree to random testing for the old substances.
Furthermore, 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 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.
So, the only way i can imagine someone practicing AVRT while on Antabuse would be if they were being coerced with some payoff (such as job retention) that made taking disulfarim worth it that was completely extraneous to any self doubt regarding actually drinking or drugging.
As I understand it, and from firsthand experience, AVRT cannot be practiced without a Big Plan pledge.
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.
I tried practicing AVRT on man made sweets over four years ago and it didn't work at all. Then I made my Big Plan against ever again eating man made sweets. I did it while posting online here at SC. Thereafter, I was easily able to practice AVRT and over the next month gained significant health benefits that are still with me today. Being offered man made sweets makes me smile inside as I decline. I often like to say when being offered, "No thanks, I will never eat man made sweets as long as I live." just to see what the reaction is. My explanation takes but a few sentences, and that usually ends that topic.
No Big Plan? AVRT cannot be practiced.
Big Plan in place? AVRT works fantastically - fast, clear, confident unto death.
Second:
Practicing AVRT obviiously means not acting upon the Addictive Voice unless it's within the deliberate conscious exercise of shifting, such as pouring and smelling a drink before discarding it.
The desire to swallow disulfarim (Antabuse) is clearly the Addictive Voice. To actually go through with swallowing it as part of an exercise in shifting would be absurd. The bad side effects of disulfarim are real and significant.
The only arguable reason to take disulfarim has nothing to do with you practicing AVRT. Untrusting relations (including some treating physicians) may want you to swallow it to prove that you will not be getting drunk. This is because it is impossible to prove to them, or to anyone, that you have made a Big Plan and that you will, in fact, never get drunk again. I belive it's much healthier to get them to agree to random testing for the old substances.
Furthermore, 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 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.
So, the only way i can imagine someone practicing AVRT while on Antabuse would be if they were being coerced with some payoff (such as job retention) that made taking disulfarim worth it that was completely extraneous to any self doubt regarding actually drinking or drugging.
Join Date: Sep 2016
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Originally Posted by GerandTwine 
Is it possible to practice Addictive Voice Recognition Technique while at the same time maintaining a pleasure-from-alcohol-inhibiting (in fact a pain-from-alcohol-inducing) level of antabuse within the bloodstream?
Furthermore, the Beast will very likely 'lay low' while taking Antabuse, much as it might lay low while one is in jail, and unable to obtain any alcohol. The Beast relents to circumstances, if it perceives them to be temporary. Trimpey uses the example of 'release day relapses' for inmates, or the fact that cigarette smokers can fairly easily manage to abstain during a ten hour airplane flight trip, even though they may usually smoke every hour.
The Beast relents to circumstances, and lays low, at least until the landing strip is in sight. The goal of AVRT is to live comfortably in the presence of addictive desire (the Beast), and it's expression, the AV. The aim of AVRT is not to remove or to mitigate either one.
Through the lens of AVRT, the desire for the absence of desire, aka, the Beast laying low, in order to abstain, simply conceals a plan to drink in the presence of that desire. Likewise for wanting, or making, the ingestion of alcohol feel bad, in order to abstain.
"Drinking doesn't feel good" = "I might drink if it did"
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