daredevil

Does it provide at least some people the requisite foresight to avert rock bottom?

Dee74

It never helped me none

With all my education, erudition, and intellectualism I felt I would surely be able to find the way to drink like a gentleman...which for me was to drink as much as I want and not suffer any negative consequences.

I'm a lot less intellectual now in my approach to recovery ...but a whole lot smarter.

D

SportsFan15

Ditto! I thought I could think my way out of addiction. Ironically, the less I think (ruminate), the better off I am.

daredevil

The pertinent question isn’t whether you could think your way out of addiction, but whether you were able to get out of its grasp sooner than you otherwise would have because of your proclivity to ruminate.

Algorithm

I would say that if you aren't afraid of where you are headed, then you won't do anything to avert going there. I don't believe that people have built-in bottoms that will magically and automatically deter them from further self-destruction, besides death itself. That said, pain and fear are, unfortunately, the classroom of recovery, so to speak.

daredevil

Pain and fear preceded the recovery industry and I surmise were the impetus for the self-recovered.

I stopped not because of the wreckage that was, but because of the wreckage that would have ensued.

In that respect, there was a built-in bottom.

andyh

I wasn't living under a bridge, but it still wasn't pretty

I think that contemplation of the pain I was already causing myself & the additional pain that was potentially yet to come, versus what I had to gain by getting sober, provided the impetus for me to quit.

daredevil

I wonder if averting a dire bottom makes it more difficult to reach a decision for permanent abstinence.

tyler

Looking back on my addictions I hit so many "rock bottoms" but always found a way to get lower. I don't think there is any need to seek out a rock bottom. Some do, but I personally don't think it is any kind of requirement for sobriety,

fini

oh gee...i used to ruminate my head off while getting drunk.
nah, ruminating and erudition didn't do nothin' for me as far as quitting drinking. though i was convinced for a long time that that is where the answer lay. hence the ruminating.

the lack of a "dire bottom" didn't make it more difficult to reach a decision, for me, but in retrospect i see that the lack of such a "bottom" made it easier not to implement the decisions with the actions needed.

tursiops999

I wrestled with this very question, early on. I had not had dire consequences and i had a lot of thoughts that maybe i hadn't really crossed the line, maybe my drinking could still be managed. Maybe i could try again later after a break.

Luckily i was able to see somehow that that was an endless game ... the goalposts could always be nudged back a few inches so that i could continue to judge myself as "not yet over the line". Denial just ramps up as needed.

I dont know how i was able to see that. Maybe it was listening to other peoples' stories, but listening for the "early" parts, before it got bad.

daredevil

For whatever reason, I have ambivalence about permanent abstinence. It's there, sure, but I really ought to assess what perceived value I was deriving from copiously imbibing; it's illusory, for the most part--but if it didn't exist, I'd not have drunk. Denying that I derived some benefit would be denial in itself.

ScottFromWI

Most of us did. And I researched, pondered, philosophized and debated it to no end. I was convinced that I was smarter than my issues with alcohol - after all, it's just an colorless/odorless compound that I should be able to easily control my intake of. And in the end, that's what all my research really was about - I wanted to know WHY i am the way I am so I could fix it - and be a normal drinker again. I mean c'mon - i've got advanced degrees and tremendous amounts of responsibility for other peoples' lives in my work, I should easily be able to control MY intake of this recreational drug, no?

Turns out for me at least, it was only after I conceded/accepted/recognized that drinking zero alcohol was the only solution for me that I could make progress. How you go about reconciling it really doesn't matter, but at some point you have to just accept that it IS. And by accepting it I'm not referring to any specific recovery method - just in a general sense accepting that the only possible solution is permanent abstinence.

I look my older son who has a pretty severe peanut allergy for guidance at times. I am not suggesting that our issues with alcohol are allergies, but more so how he deals with his allergy. Which is he simply does not eat peanuts or other foods that might contain peanuts. He doesn't belong to any peanut allergy forms, nor does he spend inordinate amounts of time researching the theory behind allergies to figure out a way to eat peanuts again. He simply understands that there is something about him that is unchangeable when it comes to eating peanuts. So he doesn't eat them..

dwtbd

Having chosen permanent abstinence is confoundingly irrational for my AV.

Becoming a common teetotaler means I freely chose to give up the ‘good’ stuff, too.

MindfulMan

We did a very illuminating exercise in IOP. List the following:

The pros of drinking.
The cons of drinking
The pros of not drinking
The cons of not drinking

Look at the four buckets. What are the common threads? What are the differences?

Doing this exercise as a group was helpful because we were able to arrive at more exhaustive lists, but not essential.

Try it.

I had already taken drinking off the table by the time I got to IOP, but this exercise was one of many reinforcements I got in that program.

Among other things, it shows that what you are giving up as a common teetotaler is dwarfed by orders of magnitude by what you gain.

Some can’t or don’t find it helpful that there are advantages to drinking and using. You are correct, there must be or we wouldn’t have done it or continued to do so. Sure, the AV is strong, selfish and irrational, but why did we choose to follow it and ignore contrary evidence for so long?

daredevil

I’ve done CBA’s (cost-benefit analyses) aplenty. I’ve concluded months ago that the disadvantages of drinking outweigh any benefits, real and perceived--short-term & long-term. I don’t do them anymore, as the point is already salient. But it is a useful exercise.

Wholesome

I read every book I could find on it, went to all kinds of different meetings to try to treat it, went to counselors to try to talk my way into figuring it out, and all the while I kept drinking.... What I found was that with all the talking and reading I never learned how to quit, it just fed this idea I had that it was something that would magically happen to me if only I could it figure out like a puzzle. AVRT was the only information I read about that taught me how to quit. Instead of worrying about my childhood, or my life skills, or self esteem, or past trauma, blah blah blah - I focused only on what happens in my mind when thoughts of drinking come to the surface. It's easy because the answer is always NO.

I never hit a "bottom". I never lost jobs or got in trouble with the law, always paid my bills and had dinner on the table for the family. It was more about what how it was rotting me from the inside out, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. Alcohol is a hell of a drug. It took me in a way that no other drug came close to, brought me to my knees. I used to think I would never break free, that it was just way I was built and that it was my fate to live that way. My AV was deeply ingrained into my belief systems.

daredevil

That was my experience too.
A program for living without alcohol is different than a program for recovery.

tyler

Great post!! I too am very guilty of trying to "think" myself out of my issues. I've always said with all of the knowledge I have on the topic that I'd make a good substance abuse councilor...except for the still abusing substances thing!!

I've heard way too many success stories around here about AVRT to not investigate it more. I know...more research!! I will say that I have come a long way from the 1/8th a day pot smoker (none for the last 2 months and a lot less even before that) and using 1/5th of booze as single serving containers. I just need to find a way to get over that hump for good.

Anyway your post spoke to me. Thanks

JeffreyAK

I thought I was going to "figure it out" too. And with that came a cockiness, I'm not like all those other addicts, I'm smart and I've got all these degrees and I'll succeed where they all will fail. Which meant, I'll figure out how to keep drinking but stop just the negative consequences. Ironic, I couldn't even define success correctly, and at that point I couldn't see that true success was getting alcohol out of my life forever.

Everyone's different, but from what I've seen there are no educational or intellectual barriers to becoming an addict. And erudition may even be a barrier to getting back out of the hole, once you've become an addict.