Rr
 

Just got the Rational Recovery small book, after repeated attempts to stay sober, same every time go six months or two months or however long and start drinking again, usually a several day or week long bender and really make myself sick, got to change. hope this book helps me see things differently.

Got to change.....

Making a list of things we need to change
within ourselves and in our daily lives is
a good place to start.

What is it you think needs changing?

Talk about it and ask how can I make this
change within myself. Seek and you will
find the answers. Ask and you will receive.

The biggest takeaway and perspective change I got from AVRT, was that I was wrong to try and stay sober. 'Staying sober' implies the possibility that I would choose to drink again.
Quitting for good, full stop, I will never drink again and not change my mind, the Big Plan doesn't allow for the possibility of choosing to drink, ever again.
I don't try or struggle to 'stay' sober, I Don't drink.
My AV wants me to try and stay sober , tells me that is what I have to do and for far too long I believed IT and tried , sometimes real hard , sometimes not, feeling the futility of struggling and eventually caving, because I was trying stay sober instead having Quit drinking.
AVRT/RR gave me the perspective to see that was the one of biggest tricks, lies of the AV. Focusing on how to try and stay sober hid the solution, which is to never put alcohol in my mouth ever again.
The AV (any thought of future drinking, or doubt in your ability to remain abstinent)hates the idea of 'never again' ,permanent abstinence, you can feel it squirm and bristle at mention of those terms , yeah?
IT will answer with scorn "you can't say never, that's ridiculous, history shows you don't really mean it, don't say never " . IT means it too, when you do say never ITs gig is up , IT says "don't think in terms of never, never say never" so IT can keep ITs foot in the door , slam the door all the way shut for good.
The top thread in the Stickies list above is a great read, have you checked it out yet?

I re-read the first post in the top sticky thread and it's a moving and very human and full description of AVRT and ending addiction for good.

'Saying sober' suggests to me that not-drinking is not my natural state, that my 'real state' is me-as-a-drinker and that it's only by constant vigilance and effort that I'm able to stay in a sober state and that one mistake will send me plummeting back to my real drinking self.

AVRT defines addiction as being in a state of ambivalence about drinking/drugging. You want to quit but you also want to allow yourself the possibility of drinking again if you really want to. When I was in addiction I felt that if I was totally honest the real me was the second one, the one who wanted to keep the option of drinking on the table, and the one who wanted to quit was an insubstantial, aspirational self who existed only as a hoped for possibility.

But this was an arbitrary choice I made. I could just as easily have said that the real me was the non-drinking self and the drinking-me was the inauthentic self. And this is what I feel now after making my Big Plan. I don't drink and I don't even want to drink. My desire to do so is merely the false survival drive that AVRT talks about.

"The desire to do so is merely the false survival drive that AVRT talks about."

Not sure if it is an American idiom, or if we were kept our British cousins' jurisprudence, :) with possession 'being nine tenths of the law' and that since experience of desire 'happens' 'in' an individual one's reflex is to assume and claim ownership, the separation of AVRT assigns title to the claim of desire to IT, and not just title, ITs sole attribute is IT, the heretofore aggrieved party :)
Onwards !

That is what I have been doing as well....I hate booze. I will never drink again.

I say that here over and over. I relate to people that don't drink. People that don't drink almost sneer when the topic of drinking is brought up.

I have several folks that I admire in this regard. They are bright, clear headed, bright eyed, and confident.

The choose not to drink a slow acting, addictive neuro toxin. Alcohol alters our perception of reality, it makes us euphoric. We were all trained, in a way, to drink since our birth.

The internet puts information out there for us that we couldn't get before. We are all educated and have the analytics to defeat the addiction alcohol causes.

Everyone that toys with the govt sanctioned guidelines has an addiction.

If a person drinks 14 units a week, eventually they will binge. Trying to moderate is a fantasy.

Not drinking is the right and normal thing to do.

Now we all know. We have to unlearn our behavior. It is totally doable. It is like learning another language, learning to play golf, learning to play guitar. Practice sobriety. Copy sober people.

Find a sober role model. I have several. None of them are in AA.

Thanks.

dwtbd,

And also, as John Lennon said, possession is nine-tenths of the problem!

Because desire is experienced as an internal mental event it feels as if it's ours. Buddha has something to say on this. He said that all his teachings can be summed up in one sentence and that sentence is "Nothing should be clung to as I, me or mine".

It seems that as well as giving up there's also giving. We give up drinking by giving our desire to the Beast.

IT can have IT, it does me no good stead :)