GerandTwine

Do you want to try out AVRT?

tomsteve

thats cool. im good with it. you remind me of me a whole lot- the know it all arrogant SOB that would argue to defend my opnions- right or wrong. argue to prove how wrong other people were. pump my chest and say,"i told you i was right!!"
even to the point id tell people,"go ahead and kick my ass. ill get uup just to prove kickin my ass didnt change my opinion."
and proved many times- black eyed and bloodied- i was right.
alcohol finally knocked me out. i was able to admit i didnt know jack **** about jack ****. that helped me learn.
however, without wanting to stop drinking and learn, nobody could do anything.

hope you decide soon you want to stop. i dont know if theres anything anyone can say to help you want to stop just as there was nothing anyone could say to help me want to stop.

its very simple- humility is teachability. it has helped everyone here get and stay sober.

Fusion

Hi Daredevil, many folks have offered their experiences, hoping to assist. I’d like to post some further thoughts. To facilliatate this, I’d be grateful if you’d elaborate upon:

i) why you have to stop; and
ii) why you don’t want to.

daredevil

GT: I can’t make a BP. I wish I could, but I can’t say I never want to drink again. But I know all about AVRT. I just don’t follow it.

Tatsy: in the last week, I drank most days. Including yesterday. I want to stop, but it’s hard.

GerandTwine

AVRT is NOT about never WANTING to drink again.
That wanting is just a healthy survival appetite.
AVRT is about never acting upon that want, like we do with so many other opportunities to satisfy appetites that would constitute a crime. So, you CAN make a Big Plan.

How long can you say you won’t drink?

Are you unable to follow AVRT or do you just not want to follow it?

GerandTwine

The reason I ask is because you asked for some AVRT insight at the beginning of the thread.

Well, it may be best for you to let all the alcohol out of your system and then reengage here.

fini

daredevil,
i keep thinking of your screen name.

maybe you don't dare.

dare to be sober.

JeffreyAK

I didn't want to stop, either, not until the very end when I was utterly miserable and had been drunk non-stop for several weeks. Bills piled, not working and on disability, on the verge of losing everything good in life and, no doubt, life itself. It took me going that far down the hole before I understood that there was no bottom other than the grave, and dammit I was going to climb up no matter how much hell I had to go through to get out. I knew deep down, even through the alcohol haze, that this was it, my last chance before I slipped too far down the hole to ever get out again. It would have been easier to just stay drunk and wash it all from my mind, but I knew that would amount to suicide.

Not everyone has to go that far down the hole before they climb back out and stay out, and I hope you don't. But many people, like me, are so stubborn that they just won't listen to other folks and won't take the action necessary to get out of the hole, until they are so far down that it becomes a heroic effort to climb out.

Marcutah1

After reading this thread again, I think you like drama. Seek professional help in sorting out why before crying out for help or confirmation
then stomping on ones who are truly trying to help.

freshstart57

This seems like a common thought chain. I suggest you take this apart, and find the flaw. Then fix that flaw in your thinking. You seem to think you lack impulse control, but I think there is a error in fact here.

I am leaving this to you, daredevil. Shoot me a pm if I can help.

aasharon90

If alcohol worked for each and every one
of us, we'd all be still drinking and having
a good ol time.

Yes, I absolutely loved my red wine. It
was quicker to drink for sure. HOWEVER,
as much as I still love it, I know it doesn't
love me.

I got me into so much trouble, stopped
doing for me what I wanted it to. It got
into my system and took control of my
heart, mind and soul.

It cause chaos and destruction. Accidents,
and almost took my life.

Enough was enough.

All I wanted to do was get off the merry
go round of insanity and surrender after
detox, make a decision to live or die.

I chose to want to live.

I hung on to dear life and learned,
remained teachable, willing, openminded,
and honest with myself and others to
receive a program of recovery to live
by day after day.

What do you want?

Life or Death?

Death or Recovery?

daredevil

I was able to refrain from going to the liquor store yesterday after I finished what I had, so I have stopped drinking.

Didn’t sleep well, but that’s to be expected.

Algorithm

Difficult to 'get there' if abstinence is contingent on the relative level of the desire to drink, wouldn't you say?

"You have to want to be sober more than you want to drink" is an ostensibly wise saying, often touted as truth, but it really isn't true. In fact, it is Addictive Voice, since it both supports and suggests the possibility of drinking some more alcohol should that condition not exist at any given time.

Consider abstaining from the benefits of drinking, and not from the downsides. Part of the art of AVRT is to always play the Beast's trump card when in doubt. Its main trump card is usually the perceived benefits of intoxication. The Beast is a revisionist, however, and it will change the motivation for indulging as many times as needed.

Not so. See above.

The desire for the absence of the desire to drink in order to abstain, is simply a plan to drink in the presence of that desire.

tursiops999

I know there are many sober people on SR who found this saying helpful, and i respect that. It didnt ring true for me, though. At the time i quit, i still really wanted to drink (or in retrospect, my beast did). But quitting was not about wanting, it was about choosing. Its about picking a side, or it was for me anyway.

daredevil

The desire for the absence of the desire to drink.............that, in a nutshell, is what I seek. Evidence has shown, time and again, with the exception of a period of time until this week that I typically drink in the presence of that desire.

daredevil

Can I ask why you quit tursiops999, and how you have managed to stay quit? Namely, how do you abstain when you still possess that desire?

tursiops999

Hi daredevil. I quit because I began to suspect that rather than helping my stress and depression, alcohol was actually causing it. I could also sense that alcohol had its hooks in me and I didnt like that ... I didn't like the idea of something having control over me, no matter how good it felt.

I'd been thinking about quitting for awhile but hadn't really tried. All of the sudden it was time... I said to myself, that's it, no more, never again. I went to AA that day and participated for more than a year, and taking action like that probably kept me sober, even though sometimes i felt like drinking.

When i left AA i discovered SR, and read about AVRT. It fit my own inner experience of quitting very well, better than the other approaches i had tried, so I read the AVRT books, the online crash course, and all the AVRT threads on SR. I started practicing the technique and it works 100%. When thoughts of drinking arise, I dissociate from them -- i remember that any thought of drinking is automatically not my thought; by definition it is a thought belonging not to me but to the beast (or the addicted part of my brain). Having decided never to heed that voice again, i don't have to do anything further. The thoughts evaporate, usually within seconds, or minutes at most.

I hope that helps? If you are interested, the information is all here in the stickies, in the "permanent abstinence." subforum. It's straightforward, but it's badass, because you'll never drink again. Your beast won't like it one bit.

Wholesome

I know you asked tursiops, but I'm going to chime in.

I still have the desire to drink sometimes. I did in Japan, and I did last summer out on my boat, other occasions as well. My booze Beast might as well be howling for the moon though, because I will never submit to that desire again. The internal struggle is only as hard as I allow it to be. When I engage with those thoughts and take them seriously, it's harder, when I recognize them as AV and see them as simply the old habit formed addicted side of me, I can let them go easily. The desire itself is harmless, although it can be annoying and at times a bit distressful, it's our actions that matter though. I used to fear my AV because it had conquered over me for so long and I felt powerless when the urges would come, like I didn't have a choice. There was a shift in my thinking and I saw through that illusion. I am in control. I am the master of my body and my actions and I can choose which thoughts to nurture and which ones to ignore. Abstinence wasn't forced upon me, I wanted it and I chose it freely.

AVRT taught me the way out. I'm grateful everyday that I came back to SR in 2015 and learned about AVRT, even though it took me 2 more years so actually put it to use. In my real life I had tried everything, I'd been to every kind of meeting out there and read all kinds of books about it, went through talk therapy. I would quit in the morning and be drinking by the afternoon. AVRT was the one thing that made sense and was logical and practical. How To Quit. Period. No stings attached.

daredevil

I did a cost-benefit analysis yesterday, and I realized that hijacking my life for 30 minutes of ‘enjoyment’ (after the first 3-4 ounces of liquor, I don’t even enjoy it) and tempting fate with the silliness of sporadic drinking has no place in my life. It doesn’t align with any value of mine, so I’m putting a permanent end to the silliness.

That said, I can envision someone saying, ‘if drinking sporadically ever does align with your values, will you drink again?’ Is your value system a contingency upon which abstinence depends?

Or, in the alternative, if the cost-benefit equation ever indicates that that 30-minute reprieve is worth possibly hijacking your life and tempting fate, is that a contingency upon which abstinence depends?

Both would be good questions.

I am putting a permanent end to the silliness, with contingencies.

dwtbd

contingent permanence ?