JeffreyAK

Hope that all works out! We're all different, and perhaps you're exactly right, that's what you need and that's what will work for you. I think a big part of success with any approach is commitment to success, and that includes doing whatever we need to do to help make it a success.

andyh

fixed that for you

I genuinely hope it works out for you. I've been down the medication path myself & it didn't work for me, but I have friends for whom it did.

similar to what Jeffrey said, I think that for a method to work, we have to believe or at least, to misappropriate a phrase, come to believe, that it will, else it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

GerandTwine

I’ll first mention the structural model of addiction that I introduced in my first post on this thread (but without the hands demos). In that model, the only reason anyone ever drinks alcohol is to receive the effect of alcohol on the mind/body. In excess, that is unquestionably a very specific, deeply pleasurable, assault of chemically enhanced stupidity. All other reasons for drinking are excuses to try to minimize negative consequences. Recalling my own past alcohol dependency and addiction confirms this.

So, ingesting a no-pleasure-from-alcohol medication is clearly an attempt at beating the structural model of addiction. I think it’s the dosage period no-pleasure-from-alcohol medications have that gives a magical quality to the period of 24 hours. If you choose to pledge “I will always take my no-pleasure-from-alcohol medication every 24 hours” I suppose that is an alternative to simply pledging “I will never drink again” and living with the residual desire to drink which usually diminishes over time. Your alternative pledge suggests a belief that you are powerless over the desire to drink. I believe you are NOT powerless.

My purpose of posting here is not to “carry forward” AVRT. If that were so, I would be all over the various forums suggesting it. I don’t have time for that sort of immersion into the recovery group movement. I am here to keep Addictive Voice Recognition Technique from getting contaminated and misrepresented on these few forums in SC. And doing that also involves telling the good news about the pledge of permanent abstinence that I’ve learned by studying the long history of drug and alcohol problems.

I am simply helping keep pristine a way to get from addicted to teetotaler. You may believe they are exactly the same, but I believe the result of spending a few minutes per year of just standing there using the Technique of Recognizing the Addictive Voice is quite different than carrying forward a never ending Way Of Life Of Recovery that involves huge ideological shifts into powerlessness, and expenditures of money, and thousands of hours of time - that all sacrifice the future of a healthy family life. This, too, is confirmed by my own past history in addiction and recovery.

I believe it’s a lot easier in the long run to quit one lifetime at a time instead of one day at a time.

dwtbd

AB

Yeah , I don't think it is possible to remove as in totally eradicate desire, mostly because of what 'desire' is, qua desire.

A loose-ish analogy would be thinking about eating some chocolate if you have ever experienced its taste. Wanting or having the desire to experience that taste again would require that you do something about it , yeah ? " I'd like some chocolate, I'm going to get me some M&M s " There's wanting and then there's getting , yeah ?

Eating chocolate means physically putting in your mouth , see a bowl full and grab some or going to the store and buying some, ect. Remembering what chocolate tastes like and wanting to have that sensation again isn't the same thing as literally eating it. Not being able to( none on hand, store closed ect.) or even just setting aside the desire while looking at a full bowl isn't contingent on the desire itself, the outcome is determined by what actions regarding the 'want' for M&M's you either take or do not take, yeah ?

Whether or not you eat M&M's ever again doesn't, I believe, alter the fact that you have experienced the taste of them and when you 'feel' the want , it will be for that specific thing( the chocolate and more specifically the experience of consuming it). The remembered experience can even be recalled and contemplated without any conscious intent of acting on satisfying the desire.

Getting recovered or ending an addiction is when you have made a conscious decision to never again consume x,y, or z and not ever change your mind about that decision, yeah ?

I don't think I will ever forget that I experienced a very deep pleasure in satisfying a desire for intoxication, but I also do not believe that that fact need have any bearing on what actions I will take toward future drinking.

I believe it is not only possible to quit , to decide to permanently abstain, if and while experiencing residual desire, but most probably necessary to do so, consciously.

Deciding to quit , using AVRT , separates You from the Desire, provides a paradigm , a method, a thought filtering process that allows for the identification of the desire and the ultimate plan on how to handle the desire for indulgence "Don't"

Whether or not the desire 'subsides' , the answer/ the Plan to taking any action in regards of satisfying It is always the same, NOPE.

If I adopted the view that I will/can only say "NOPE" after all desire has vanished .. well really how would that work ? Might desire vanish ? By itself ? Maybe , but what happens if it doesn't , I just throw my "NOPE" plan, out ?

lessgravity

I like that - one lifetime at a time. Thank you.

Btw, may I ask what you do for a living? You have a very unique way of delivering your message, had me wondering.

ScottFromWI

It was mentioned earlier in the thread that 12 step programs are off topic in the Secular forums and posts regarding them will be removed without notice. I would reinforce that reminder officially.

I'd also remind people that it's entirely possible to promote/share experiences about what works without bashing what doesn't. That reminder has been shared here countless times as well but i will share it again. We all know the history of those debates and they are not welcome here.

dwtbd

Are you playing favorites here ?
The warning applies to inferences that can or can not be made to GT relating his experience or what worked along side an experience that did not work .
Bashing ? I don't see it, I'm looking for it now that you have pointed it out.

The only way to read that that post is bashing 'a' method , any particular and specific method would be to assume that the term recovery only applies to one particular and specific method.

Stating , from experience, that the philosophy of adopting Recovery as a way of life, didn't/doesn't work is bashing any particular or one
method ?as opposed to simply disagreeing with the philosophy and anything that may incorporate it?

Up thread I said recovery was ending an addiction by making a decision to never use again and never changing your mind, I implied that anything not in that definition was not recovery.

An easy inference to make would be that that statement is bashing, as method, any and everything that is not making that decision , I feel slighted.

ScottFromWI

My response was to multiple posts in the thread. As one user noted further up in the thread, some references to 12 step were made by multiple users. I highlighted GT's response as an example of my second comment.

I'm not here to argue with anyone, just remind people of the rules. Most everyone knows the nature of the arguments that I am referring to as well. MG has explained it many times too.

daredevil

While I don't disagree with you dwtbd, I request that we stay on topic of the merits of medication-assisted therapy as an adjunct to abstinence (or as a deterrent to drinking).

Experiences welcome.

Opinion on the merits welcome (as JeffreyAK & andyh kindly shared).

I'd like this thread to stay open as I would like to periodically check in with updates.

Fusion

Hi Daredevil, to be honest, I think “opinion on the merits” is defunct, because you seem to have already chosen the addiction therapist with the chemical adjunct. I really do hope they work for you. Addiction is horrendous. Take care, Tatsy.

daredevil

Creating a Big Plan, for example, which I have not yet done (and thus have not derived the full benefit of AVRT), and using a chemical adjunct, are not mutually exclusive.

Fusion

I understand Daredevil, yes they can co-exist initially, but there’s no brain rewiring, which seems to be a requisite for combating addiction, whatever program, method or technique is used.

Medication appears to be a chemical cosh, akin to chemical castration. I worry that this century, in place of court mandated AA last century (for alcohol/drug offences) that the powers that be, will court mandate a chemical cosh for alcohol/drug offences. Would that be lifetime, or until the subject proved they could control themselves, absent the corrective medication (with whatever program, technique, support group etc.). The implications frighten me, to be honest.

dwtbd

DD

I know you have the ability to see that alcohol/drinking really isn't that 'big of a deal', so small in fact that abstinence is practically effortless. I know you will come to this realization 'quicker' if and when you make a BP, a course I recommend

The longer you think abstinence is a big deal , the longer and harder you will fight it. Maybe it's been so long ( relative time? ) since I've reaped the benefits of having made mine that I lack a certain level of empathy, almost like I can not feel any longer what believing alcohol consumption as a 'big deal' was/is like.

You do see that around 'here', that makes me a heretic of sorts and worse not a real or never was a "real" alcoholic , lol

I know you have the ability to some day , soon if you want, to empathize with my position. I know you have the ability to be abstinent, if you want. I'm going to bow out now , its your thread , you got this.

daredevil

yes they can co-exist initially, but there’s no brain rewiring

I doubt even the most respected neuroscientists would make such a bold claim.

daredevil

dwtbd,

My reservation with making a BP, to date, has been my reluctance to permanently give it up as a coping mechanism, as maladaptive as it is. The habit of drinking was ingrained for so long, when I was in any mood, for almost anything. I'll admit: it worked when I needed it to.

But life would be much easier, as you said--if I drew that line in the sand, ending addiction and recovery simultaneously.

And it's not even mutually exclusive with going to recovery group meetings from time to time, if I ever find them necessary, nor is it incompatible with chemical assistance.

Fusion

How can a chemical that removes desire/craving , or a chemical that causes one to nearly die if ethanol is ingested, affect that part of the brain that equates drink with pleasure., or that part of the brain that is the great inhibitor of hedonic excess, and recalibrate them.

How can the chemical operate on the brain once the chemical is stopped. Naltrexone sponsors have hinted otherwise, but there are no studies that prove it, once naltrexone is stopped.

I do hope for you, you discover I’m right, and you don’t need to ingest a chemical for life, to stop ingesting another.

MindfulMan

As I've said before, I used everything at my disposal. AVRT kinda just happened, inpatient used the-method-which-must-not-be-named, SMART, psychotherapy. Different methods were emphasized to good effect at different times in my recovery. If I had to pick the method I found most effective in the long run, it would be cognitive groups in my IOP. That gave me the tools to work with the cravings as you described.

My understanding is that aversion drugs are used in conjunction with other recovery methods, that on their own they will buy you time to get sober, and time behind you makes it easier...but you can't take them forever.

I'm at the point where when I got a craving the other day, I could acknowledge it, think about how good it would feel to get a bit of oblivion, look in the refrigerator at two open bottles of wine (my tenants had some leftover which they saved for cooking), and say "Um, no." Walked away and poured myself a glass of cranberry seltzer. Without much of an effort I might add.

I don't drink any more. Period. Cravings are there. They are powerless over me now.

Take a stand, make a decision. Once I got enough time behind me, it's gotten pretty easy. Like nearly effortless. THAT is what some call AVRT.

dwtbd

Ok so two h-words in an hour or so ,heretic and hypocrite, the nonbowing kind.

As intelligent as your posts show you to be, booze is a maladaptive coping mechanism ? Is it ? I hear that a lot ,but never really saw that explained satisfactorily.

I know it as part of the collective AV lexicon , but just being in the lexicon seems to be its sole justification.

I used to use it all the time , to myself, but as way to more booze , a convenient phrase , a vague abstraction that really meant a cognitive plan to drink again.

Coping mechanism, cmon your better than that , no ?

Fusion

Yes, it’s hard to admit, but on reflection, I spiralled down the drinking vortex, lost lots, complained, oh woe is me. But I didn’t, hand on heart, really want to stop drinking, because, you know, it was my coping mechanism.

In reality, it was my destructive mechanism, an internal toddler comfort blanket and it didn’t want to let it go, madness, I know. It’s great grasping power back from that daft, immediate gratification comfort seeker. It’s empowerment and it proactively seeps into other parts of my life, I’ve found.

daredevil

Truthfully, maladaptive coping mechanism is simply a euphemism for enjoying getting plastered. I simply used to like getting drunk (not recently though--just been using it as an escape for a number of things), but when I had continuous sobriety, after about a month, I preferred sobriety.

I suppose that once I get 4 weeks behind me again I’ll prefer it once again.

One thing is for certain. A BP is probably my best bet, and I’ve given this much thought, but perhaps I’ll count up to 30.

The main thing is that I get there again.