tyler

And I think that this is perfectly OK. I don't think that most people here are saying that AVRT is the only way to go, simply the way that worked best for them. I'm not saying that there aren't people who will say that it is the only way, but fortunately most of them aren't here!!

JeffreyAK

I submit that deciding to abstain from drinking safeguards nothing. Actually abstaining, however you accomplish that, does. I think that's among the roots of the semi-philosophical perspectives I'm reading here, and for most people it's really about actions, and the best plans are action plans. Usually short-term action plans, what am I going to do tomorrow, how will I deal with this upcoming situation next Tuesday, little milestones on the Gantt Chart of recovery. At least early on, when it matters most.

andyh

I don't believe this is the case any longer. I haven't heard/seen any reference to it in my dealings with SMART.

AlericB

Indeed and in fact all plans are action plans. Plans are the actions you will take in order to bring about a desired future action. The action of the Big Plan is the ongoing practice of the AVRT disocciation technique.

AlericB

I was referring to the recent emphasis on AVRT here. The earlier teaching of AVRT by TU focussed on the practical aspect of separating from AV which made sense. The more recent focus has been on the "unbreakability" of the Big Plan which, frankly, does not make sense

We can say that our BP has been "unbroken" but we can't see into the future and say that it will never be broken. We can't avoid our personal responsibility for our abstinence with a lingusitic sleight of hand.

dwtbd

You are right, of course, we can not see into the future, but why can’t anyone say “it will never be broken”?

What is it you mean by “personal responsibility for our abstinence” ?

MesaMan

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Many SR Members allude to compiling and working their Tool Kit of Sobriety Approaches. For me, part of doing that includes pragmatic strategies and tricks. Conforming to any Recovery Ideology in purist form helped me sort through challenges early on, but all that becomes a distant, secondary concern once well into Sober Life.

I *cherry pick* Recovery Program and POV aspects toward the end goal of what I call 'Effortless Sobrietry'. That is, to not over-think it; just live it. I don't equate 'the action of not Drinking' to 'the action of Drinking'. Soberlicious puts it well in Post #92. JeffreyAK then provides a nice complement to this pragmatic approach in Post #102.

I just get up Sober - something that requires no action - just as I get up and 'take no action' to conform to the demands of Gravity. Gravity and Sobriety are pretty much equivalent in my Sober Life. They're both present daily, and demand no choice of action. Early on, when I was still 'fighting' to remain Sober, this was not the case. Reading some Threads here in Alcoholism or Newcomers refresh our Minds what a battle this is early on, and how inconceivable Effortless Sobriety is. Then, it blissfully becomes The New Normal. One SR Pundit mentioned feeling like he fully transitioned to a Sober Person at about 5 Years in. Though arguably-arbitrary, that made sense to me; given my own journey.

I'm all for the approach of needing or preferring first sorting out what makes one 'happy' if the desired end result of Sobriety stems from deciding what 'Happiness' is. Sobriety is subjective that way, IMO. When the fight is finally over - and it certainly can be - the philosophic conundrums and purist Program thinking fade to irrelevance. As does understanding every last detail of how Gravity works.

As I've written about here prior, I don't cheat on my Wife of 41 years. I don't steal Money from a Pal's Wallet left on the Coffee Table when he goes to the Bathroom. I don't kick my Dog. I shifted maintaining Sobriety into that same mental, and behavioral, non-negotiable category. This was the moral component mentioned in AVRT that Drinking/Using is not the highest moral choice possible [my interpretation there]. Even if my approach is nothing more than a less-than-purist Mind Game I'm playing on myself, what does it objectively matter? It works. For the only Person it need work for.

So, my Dog-loving, Affair-free, Theft-immune Self bops along Sober while not giving any more thought to standing up every Morning 'deciding' to conform to Gravity than I do 'deciding' to be Sober. None of the choices I mention above require ODAAT effort; an approach I would find exhausting to confront daily. In that working AVRT is a decision, not a Program, it suited my staunch Personality. When I make up my Mind on something so critical as Sobriety, there's really nothing left to question or dither on. Even in the future. The Day I *slip back* into Drinking is the Day I'll *slip back* into kicking my Dog. Such is the power of the resolute Mind...
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GerandTwine

I think it’s like, if someone got wind that I stated I’d never kick a dog or steal a purse from a little old lady, then, in order to be a good person, I suddenly must profess that, yes, I do frequently remind myself, not of my decision to never do it, but of my “responsibility” to not kick the neighbors dog, or steal that little old lady’s purse because, even WITH the pledge to never do it, I don’t really know what I will be doing in the future. Weird, huh?

Should we really spend so much time thinking about not doing reprehensible, or impossible (for all practical purposes) behaviors?

Algorithm

I would tend to agree, except that I see the "Big Plan" not as a plan per se, but as a decision never to decide again. That is to say, to remove the Option of deciding in the future, thereby forcing the loss of choice. Humans are free agents, after all, and can choose as a matter of free will.

The initial learning curve for AVRT may be steep, but it quickly becomes second nature, and life soon revolves around the new, non-using mandate. This new mandate, of course, replaces the Beast's addictive mandate to use, and it's cardinal rule to 'never say never' to using again.

The Big Plan corrects the single, functional error created by the birth of the Beast, by categorically refuting and reversing its addictive mandate. The machinery of AVRT exists to prevent any reversals of intent in this regard.

Is AVRT 'action'? I don't know. Is mental arithmetic 'action'?

AVRT is somewhat like mental arithmetic. Both burn calories, but action?

Style and emphasis may certainly differ, and what Terminally Unique managed to do here on SR is certainly unusual, but I would not be so quick to dismiss GerandTwine's grasp on AVRT, either. My personal feeling is that GT knows what he speaks of as well.

This has been covered before:

AlericB

Saying 'it will never be broken" is making a prediction about the future no?

If we know that our Big Plan can never be broken then we do not need to assume any responsibility for maintaining it.

Fusion

For me, it’s not a case of delegating responsibility for the final decision I made on the issue of drinking (in my case to abstain forever, or for each now) to the Big Plan. Because the BP is just a construct, a mental filtering system or backdrop: against which my AV is filtered out, or highlighted, with great proficiency.

Obviously this efficiency increases inline with abstinence period achieved. As a non-drinker of 19 months, my BP/AV filtering system now runs automatically. I have almost no AV occurances and if they do occur, i.e. whilst attending a concert this week, ‘guarding’ someone’s drink (comfort break) a ‘thought’ popped into my head, “I could have a drink, too, just one” and ‘I’ immediately noted that single wispy thought and dismissed it, because ‘I’ didn’t want a drink, not one bit.

The drink thought emanated from the years of mental association in my mind: concert, fantastic music, great company, singing along and dancing = drink as well. The ‘drink thought/AV isn’t ME, because I have no desire to ever drink again - the ‘drink thought’ is my brains’ learned, habituated, addictive thought pattern.

But, the Big Plan does not remove my mental autonomy. For example, (unlikely I know) but if someone threatened my dogs with a gun, but agreed not to shoot, if I drank a proffered bottle of wine: I’d override the BP and drink the wine, instantly.

And please, in light of the aforementioned, don’t say the last paragraph is my AV, because it’s not. Once I’d saved my dogs by drinking, I’d resume my non-drinking status. I’m simply demonstrating that my BP does not render me a conscious automatum, although I certainly fitted that description during my addicted years, in a Pavlov dog experiment way.

I retain free-will. The same free-will that I gave power to, when I made my BP and thereby separated from my Addictive Voice.

daredevil

Is that the only external contingency? Or are there a myriad of others? If someone threatened my life with a gun and agreed not to shoot if I drank a proffered bottle of wine, I'd drink too. If someone threatened any number of people close to me with harm and rescinded that threat if I drank, then I'd drink on that occasion.

Contingencies render a BP useless.

Fusion

Not so. The example I gave was not a contingency, as in, “a BP will stand, unless I encounter certain possible events” which is not true. I have absolutely zero contingencies attached to my BP: I will never drink again, no matter what.

However, as I was merely demonstrating, in response to AlericBs post, the BP does not disengage my free-will. That is, should an unexpected, highly unlikely eventuality ever occur (such as I described) I won’t behave as a conscious automatum i.e. pre-programmed robot. I tried to make this distinction clear in my previous post; if not, I hope this aids your understanding of my position.

daredevil

You stated that were someone to threaten your dogs with a gun, but agreed not to shoot, if you drank a proffered bottle of wine, you'd drink it, instantly.
That's a contingency.

MesaMan

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Welp, before we get out the Microtome and slice off aspects of this Topic that are too fine to be of concern while Effortlessly Sober, lemme interject this.

In other areas of SR, the Drinking issue I'll label 'intent' arises. Someone is fretting about accidentally taking a sip of a Drink handed to them that clearly has some Alcohol in it. So, they sip no more of it. Or, someone posts about eating some Tiramisu with Alcohol content, and they wonder if they need to reset their Sobriety Start Date. The customary answer 'round here: No. The 'intent' to get loaded simply wasn't there.

Day In/Day Out Sobriety, as Tatsy illuminates us on, has no Contingencies. Other extreme Scenarios don't really matter. I'd get through them, and carry on being Sober. Theoretical Scenarios are just that. Understanding 'intent', here, matters. Coercion to drink, and save a Life, is not a voluntary Scenario. In voluntary Scenarios, my BP stands w/o corruption.

Here again, Sobriety is somewhat subjective. If ya think that some Theoretical Scenario 'proves' a BP imperfect, then carry on thinking that. If you don't think so, then carry on thinking that way instead.
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AlericB

You can decide to never decide again but as you acknowledge we remain free agents and so will always have the capacity to change our mind if we want to. It is therefore our responsibility to honour our decision - it does not just take care of itself.

I really do not understand why there is such a reluctance here to acknowledge this.

If we are in agreement that action is the fact or process of doing something in order to achieve an aim then mental activities like mental arithmetic arithmetic or recognising and separating from AV are clearly actions.

Again, what is the reluctance to acknowledge this?
I am not singling out GT but I can only take someone's views seriously about the Addictive Voice Recognition Technique if they at least acknowledge that it is a technique! I would encourage any newcomers to realise that the view frequently presented here that says that AVRT is just a one-time decision and nothing more than that is an interpretation that is not shared by everyone who sees a lot of good in AVRT.

Fusion

Crikey, I did not SAY that. It was used as an example (perhaps you’d prefer hypothesis) in order to respond to AlericBs ‘loss of responsibilty’ post; as I stated in my two previous posts.

I was merely demonstrating the principle that MesaMan has also set out in his post #115. I shan’t respond further, when someone is misinterpreting my view as presented in my posts. Plus I don’t utilise a Microtome and I don’t engage in argument for its own sake.

I merely remain an SR poster in the hope I can pay it forward. Given recent activity in Secular, that seems increasingly unlikely.

AlericB

The reason I spoke about responsibility is not to be argumentive either Tatsy but to point out to any newcomers that the Big Plan will always have the contingency that you assume the mantle of self-responsibility to honour your commitment to never drink again.

Any argument that tries to do away with self-responsibility would IMO seriously weaken AVRT as a coherant and realistic proposal to anyone new which is why I wanted to put the counter-argument.

Fusion

Aleric, I wasn’t accusing you of being argumentative. Your responsibility post had merit, which is why I responded.

AlericB

I realise that you weren't accusing me of anything. Guess it's just difficult to convey your meaning accurately at times