Triggered your comparison to an exorcism is spot on ! I certainly felt it was that powerful. Your observation has given me lots to think about - Thanks!

I feel a horror film night coming on !

I am really having good success with AVRT this time around. The concept of "not an option" is what got me sober for more than 3 years in 2013, but I wasn't really aware of the Rational Recovery approach and need to make it a permanent non-negotiable committment, hence my slip back in 2017.

That's so great to hear Advbike - and I agree the non negotiable decision not to drink is powerful.
Hearing that addictive voice and being able to shut it down really does become easier with practice, although still in early days, I need to be aware all the time.
It amazes me that I was slave to the AV for so long, listening to it and believing it.
Now because I accept alcohol is poison and I have made a decision to never drink it again, I feel free of the need to argue with myself about it. Not having to negotiate and argue and reason for hours and hours every day is a HUGE relief, it used to take up so much mental energy.
The AV may still exist, well I know it does, and it may sometimes be obvious and at other times sneak in via the back door as it were, but I now it only takes a second to close it down.
For me in two decades of unsuccessfully trying to stop, cut down or moderate ( the previous decade I didn't care) AVRT has been very very helpful.

Exactly! The mental energy I expended over a few decades of "moderate drinking" was enormous. And sometimes I was successful, sometimes not. So much easier to make the decision once and for all and move on. There's plenty of other issues to work on, lol.

I am one who can honestly say "There but for the grace of God go I" and mean it. That I never got a DUI, lost my home or a job is a miracle. Although there was plenty of damage to my relationships, of which there were many. That's where the unaddressed issues took their toll.

We should of course live in the here and now but sometimes it is useful to look back and, I agree Advbike, to say ' There but for the grace of god..' is...... well... 'sobering'!
It scares me that I came so close , so many times to a being in a very different present to the one I am in, risking so much so often, gambling with my life and future for what? A drink, a high.
But here I am sober, just over 200 days, and feeling better in lots of ways, and if the AV barks, whines or growls at me to have a drink, I can look back and remember how much I gambled - there is no way I would ever risk it, that is my life, again.

It’s great to hear your success, congrats on permanent abstinence. The best part of AVRT is eliminating the decision to drink. I made the decision to never drink again and never change my mind. That decision was made 4 years ago and I never had to “decide” again, I am simply a non-drimker. Any thought to the contrary is AV and easily dismissed.

It does my heart well to hear people continuing to succeed using AVRT. You people are awesome!!!

I actually have a hard time imagining how a successful recovery is even possible without "a permanent non-negotiable commitment." I think it is one of those common aspects of sobriety that represents the "juice" behind any program. Relapses and failures thrive on negotiations, starting with "Just this one time." "Not an option" applies to more than not just taking that drink. It also must apply to any preliminary negotiation with the AV. Every drink for an alcoholic in recovery begins with a negotiation. You cannot go there. Sometimes, the AV is too persistent to ignore. You can hear it, but to negotiate with it is the death of sobriety.

Any newcomer to recovery needs to understand and embrace a "permanent non-negotiable commitment" to the task and to make both the act of drinking and the act of negotiation off limits.

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Some stripped-down brilliance there, DriGuy. I'm both glad and fortunate that experienced Minds like yours were here on SR over the Years to get me focused on The Fundamentals. Apparently, it's easy to overshoot the Core Basics of Sobriety.

Thank you.

Wise wise words, DriGuy. Thank you….

lol Alcoholics are good at that and undermine success by complicating what is basically simple. The primary core (the very core of the core), is that we must never drink. Yet in the beginning, that remains unacceptable for many of us, and the first thing we do is negotiate with it. When that fails, we try to negotiate that same core with some other newfangled gimmick.

An old saying comes to mind: "What part of 'No' don't you understand?" It's not that alcoholics are actually that dumb. We just have to game the system or something.