andyh

I think (Reckless) Eric was the OP

AlericB

Ah yes

Trohyn

Oh Dave, what are you like!

AlericB

I'm RecklessEric! Or at least I'm sometimes reckless in replying to posts I haven't really read.

dwtbd

Minus the official verbiage, AVRT is basically :

Stop
Don't,ever (ignore any impulse or thought that says it can't be this way)

A rather pointed and straight vector.

AlericB

Agreed. Well said.

LBrain

My apologies. In my little discourse above I didn't explain my repetitive "I will not XXX and never change my mind". I don't have to have faith that I will not murder someone, steal a car, or do whatever that goes against common normal thinking or common 'morality'. I'm not worried that at 8 o'clock next Friday I may kill someone. It doesn't require faith, the same way I don't need faith to know that I will not drink again. It may differ for others, but that is my viewpoint.

AlericB

I agree that generally we don't go around saying to ourselves that we aren't going to kill anyone next Friday because as you say that lies outside of common or normal behaviour. But presumably if you were a serial killler trying to stop you would do just that!

The way I drank wasn't normal behaviour and I need a way in which I can be consciously sure that I won't be drinking next Friday. For me, this is both the realisation that I can stop if I really want to and that I have a sure fire way to stop: to just allow any AV to rise and fall without me getting caught up in it. Both elements involved some faith or trust for me to give it a go but as you say it may be different for others, When I found it worked that trust became internalised and no more conscious than the trust I have that other drivers will drive responsibly whenever I get in my car.

dwtbd

As an observation , a critique not necessarily criticism, to me the overall tenor here is AV .

There is a sense that addiction is still ‘out to get you’. That without a constant vigilance one may succumb to an AV ‘battle’ and drink again.
It feels or seems as if once addicted one is always going to be susceptible to addiction again or even more ‘susceptible ‘ than ‘normal’ people.

That quitting or a commitment to abstinence is a pipe dream-ish stance that one assumes in order to keep ‘addiction ‘ at arms length.

AlericB

I do think that AV is out to get me if it can, that's it's purpose after all, but I don't think that constant vigilance is required. Over time abstinence becomes your default state, perhaps this is through neuroplasticity, and you can regard AV as no more than an occasional thought that you can easily dismiss as something that you don't want to do. Similar to if I see a woman I desire. I may have a fleeting impulse to act on that desire but I wouldn't dream of following it up, and I also don't feel the need to be consciously monitoring myself when around women. I think that's also answered the pipe-dream point as well.

Having said that of course, it would make no difference other than having to separate from it more often if AV doesn't diminish over time.

JeffreyAK

Ten thousand posts on this forum, hundreds of books, countless articles, and any time at all spent in recovery groups, shows very clearly that this is absolute truth whether or not you wish to call it "AV". Once you've been an addict, you cannot go back, and you are indeed far more susceptible than others to becoming an addict all over again. I've never once heard a case of a former alcohol addict stopping and being able to go back to non-addictive drinking, and I thnk it's important for us to just accept and embrace this reality. We are more susceptible to addiction again, and much more susceptible than people who have never been addicts.

Greenwood618

Wrongo!

Greenwood618

Righto!

Trohyn

Surely there is a difference in this argument whether approaching the question from the point of a long time abstainer and a newly abstinent viewpoint.
For myself, as a recent BP declarant, I do indeed need to be vigilant of the Beast. Whereas for an established AVRTer, such vigilance is diminished (if not completely distinguished).
Possibly/probably because of neuroplasticity as Aleric mentioned.

AlericB

Correcto! Correctomundo even.

Fusion

For me, once I saw the Beast and it’s mouthpiece the AV for what it was, I couldn’t unsee it. Therefore, after making my BP, and practising AVRT, albeit very rarely now due to the extinction curve; even if AV was frequent, it’s irrelevant and the B/AV are powerless, whereas I’m not.

Therefore, I couldn’t become, or be at risk of, becoming addicted again. My prior addiction is over and I wholeheartedly believe I’m in fact, unable to become addicted again. Because I’ve awakened to the ruse of the alcohol beast and consequently that neuronal loop/my habituated behaviour: is history.

Greenwood618

If you are at risk of addiction - which requires drinking last time I checked - you haven't made a BP. There is no risk. Again the prospect of "never" sets some people off.

dwtbd

Neuro plasticity is irrelevant to AVRT.

Making a BP will ‘work’ whether or not your neuro pathways change.

Without a BP ‘old’ pathways wouldn’t be discarded, yeah?

A medical science explanation is nice but unnecessary, cause and effect are experienced to the same degree blissfully ignorant or intimately familiar.

Apples fell before Isaac penned the Principia.

People who have decided to never drink again and never change their mind are by definition the least susceptible to alcohol addiction people there are and just as susceptible as people who have never touched alcohol and never plan to.

AlericB

Would you agree though that the common experience is that AV lessens over time when you quit drinking? It's very hard to explain that if you say that it is the single act of making the BP alone that is responsible for keeping you abstinent. If that were the case then you would expect the AV to immediately drop to its lowest level as soon as the BP is made and not follow, typically, the extinction curve that Tatsy mentioned.

Isn't it more plausible that it is the continuing application of the technique of separation from AV - any thought or feeling that is counter to your BP - that explains why AV lessens over time, at least in everyone's account I have ever read anywhere on SR, whether they are following AVRT or not?

It's true that AVRT does not depend on which physical mechanism, whether neuroplasticity or something else entirely, is at play here, though from the little I know neuroplasticity seems to be the prime candidate. And it's true that AVRT would still 'work' even if AV didn't lessen over time it's the technique of making a BP and ever afterwards recognising and separating from AV of and whenever it arises, and so it's not dependant on whether the AV is rare or frequent, weak or strong, or growing or diminishing.

Perhaps its me but I just don't understand this insistence that it is the BP alone that is needed. It doesn't match up with most people's experience and, if that were the case, why does AVRT have a technique at all?

dwtbd

My comments to AleicB’s post were meant to highlight the erroneous idea that addiction is something you catch, like a cold, or are susceptible to as opposed to something you do to yourself.
As you point out recoveryism is rife with the idea that ‘addiction’ the abstraction is out there somewhere and can just come back at you.
I never meant to even imply more drinks , why did you you infer it?

The striking simplicity of making a BP is , obviously, almost universally confused with ease. Giving up booze is as simple as deciding to never put it in your mouth ever again. Denying the desire almost universally doesn’t feel easy and a possible solution to alleviating the ‘pain’ of abstinence is to indulge the desire, the AV.

I’ve seen thousands of posts here on SR where the Beast isn’t shut off from Its supply with obvious results, where people drink and then blame drinking for their problem of drinking. From those who drink to just try and stave off the effects of withdrawal to those who just can’t let go of the experience of the buzz. In all those instances future drinking will be the cause of future problems. They could ‘simply’ just ensure the future problems never arise, but try and explain that to anyone’s AV or in the face of the cultural AV, lol. You can’t , obviously ‘explain ‘ that to AV , as It isn’t an entity open to debate , It is just the voice of the desire for more booze.