Welcome to AVRT-based recovery.
On this page, I’ll walk you through a quick tour of AVRT-based recovery. You will be linked to the various website resources to use on your very short journey to the other side of addiction and recovery.
AVRT-based recovery is an immediate, uncomplicated, private event, and is not a long, melodramatic process of gradual self-improvement. As such, AVRT® is the crown jewel of addiction recovery.
What is addiction?
Addiction is a voluntary behavior (such as drinking alcohol or using drugs) that persists against your own own better judgment. Thus, addiction cannot be “diagnosed” or attributed to you by others, including physicians. It is solely up to you to decide if your drinking threatens or harms others and yourself. You must decide now whether your addictive pleasures are worth the destruction they cause. In other words, you are free to choose between drinking and not drinking — between right and wrong.
If you believe there is nothing wrong with your own drinking/using, then you are free to continue, provided you are willing to accept the likely consequences. If you suspect you have a problem with alcohol and other drugs, however, you probably do have a problem, and you would be very wise to learn how to summarily quit your addiction altogether. The more seriously addicted you are, the more likely it is that you will recover in a very short time by learning Addictive Voice Recognition Technique® (AVRT®), right here.
What is Addictive Voice Recognition Technique® (AVRT®)?
AVRT® is a thinking skill based upon the successful experiences of people who have independently recovered from serious addictions to alcohol and other drugs. Independent recovery is commonplace, occurring in every community many times a day. You know independently recovered individuals yourself, possibly in your own family, certainly in your neighborhood.
You originally possessed a moral conscience with the ability to choose between right and wrong. Addiction washed all that away. AVRT® re-connects you with your original, growing self, as you were before you slid into the swamp of addiction.
Recovery is accomplished through a personal commitment to permanent abstinence called, the Big Plan, backed up by the learned ability to catch yourself in the process of changing your mind. The ability to recognize the AV must be learned because, while in addiction, the AV appears to be you. Only in the context of your Big Plan, may the AV stand out for recognition.
AVRT® is not a form of substance abuse counseling, addiction treatment, occultism, spirituality, or religion. It is not part of, nor is it based upon, any psychological theory, including cognitive-behavioral psychology.
What is the Addictive Voice (AV)?
We all have a noisemaker in our heads that can create imagined sounds, such as music, sound effects, and the spoken language. The AV is the voice in your head that tells you to “Do it!” (drink/use) in a thousand different ways. It is not a devil or other companion on your shoulder, although it may sometimes create that illusion. It is a comprehensive style of thinking that perpetuates your addiction and, worst of all, appears to you to be you.
Definition: The Addictive Voice is any thinking that supports or suggests the possible future use of alcohol or other drugs.
The AV is the voice of your desire for the effects of alcohol and other drugs, a voice you can actually hear with your “mind’s ear.” We call your desire for addictive pleasures “the Beast®,” a word that has both physical and spiritual dimensions. The AV is the sole cause of your addiction. In other words, you cannot take voluntary action such as drinking/using without first thinking about it. Those thoughts are your Addictive Voice, the voice of the Beast.
When you learn to recognize the AV, it is no longer you, but something that is separate from you, something you can hear. After all, no thought called “it” can do anything. Only “I” can execute voluntary behavior with my hands, mouth, and feet.
But I’m a Really Tough Case!
So much the better. The best motivation for addiction recovery is raw fear, although persistent anxiety and depression are also fine motivators. When finally faced with intolerable losses, many addicted people finally take the action they have put off for too long, which is a final declaration, “I will never drink again.” Following that vow, many discover the remarkable ability to catch themselves in the process of returning to alcohol and other drugs. AVRT® summarizes the common thread of success among seriously addicted people who finally get a grip and abandon their addictions. With AVRT®, addiction recovery is always powerfully simple, regardless of how seriously addicted you are.
Although you may not be in the grip of horror, you may see clearly where your addiction is taking you, and you may be sanely alarmed at the extent drinking/using is ruling your life. Regardless of how dire your straits may be, AVRT® will take you over the threshold to life after recovery in as short a time as you choose. Even today!
All I need is to cut back, drink moderately.
We hope you get all the pleasure you hope for, because your pursuit of pleasure is exposing you and others to enormous risks.
You have come to this website because you are a problem drinker, which means that small amounts of alcohol disable your judgment so that, after “just one,” you make the serious error of continuing to drink, which leads to deep drunkenness and grievous, antisocial behavior. Although this has happened to you many times, against your better judgment, you are still seeking a way to continue drinking without getting into trouble. This exactly fits our definition of addiction, a condition for which the only sane and reasonable remedy is to immediately and permanently discontinue the use of alcohol and other illicit drugs.
Yes, I realize that, through the eyes of your addiction, you cannot imagine a satisfactory life without your addictive pleasures. That is the nature of the Beast. Poor thing.
The desire to drink moderately is a bit like wanting to be taller. The only people who want to be taller are people who think they’re too short. The only people who want to drink moderately have already demonstrated they don’t even want to. After all, if you actually wanted to drink moderately after having one drink, would you be a problem drinker? All problem drinkers have the death-defying wish to enjoy addictive pleasures without getting in trouble. The desire to drink moderately is a red flag for anyone having troubles related to alcohol and other drugs.
There is absolutely no difference between an “alcoholic” and a problem drinker. An “alcoholic” is just a problem drinker with a doctor’s excuse. Others would say an “alcoholic” is just a self-excusing ass. Still others point out that “alcoholics” are just problem drinkers who attend AA. Don’t pretend to be one, or you’ll end up acting like one.
A good case in point is the tragic story of Audrey Kishline, the founder of Moderation Management, a club for problem drinkers who yearn to continue drinking without getting into trouble.
Can I use AVRT® along with 12-step recovery?
No. AVRT-based recovery and 12-step recovery are incompatible. They are polar opposites, point for point, and in every respect.
- AA/NA and Al-Anon accommodate addiction; AVRT-based recovery destroys addiction.
- AVRT-based recovery is an individual responsibility; 12-step recovery is group-based.
- In AA/NA, relapses are innocent symptoms of addictive disease; in AVRT-based recovery, the act of self-intoxication is, in itself, immoral conduct.
- In AA/NA, your family is expected to accommodate your addiction; in AVRT-based recovery, you will accommodate your family’s very reasonable demand for immediate, permanent abstinence.
AVRT® brings the exciting discovery that the 12-step program is a sophisticated form of the Addictive Voice, created by and for chronically addicted people. Thus, you may take back your life from both addiction and 12-step recovery, and live the rest of your days free from the undertow of recovery groups and the stigma of addict-identity. Because 12-step recovery undermines your identity and independence, AVRT® helps you to sever from AA in thought and in deed, as you will see in the AVRT Declaration of Personal Independence.
My family expects me to go to AA meetings.
For many years, you defied your family’s wishes by drinking/using. You caused them untold disappointment and misery, and while you were feeling your addictive pleasures, they were frightened and depressed. They cannot trust you, and they are desperate for anything that will stop the insanity and destruction of your addiction.
Because your family loves the memory of you prior to your addiction, they would rather think of you as a pathetic disease victim than see you as the ugly, stinking ass you’ve become. You forced them into the fellowship of addiction, which now wants to harvest you and replace your original family values with recovery doctrines that make your family tree the source of your misconduct. To the injuries you’ve already caused your family, AA now adds the insults of congenital disease and a new core value system.
The recovery group offers your family false hope that you will quit drinking and become one of the family again. Instead, they will be expected to accept the uncertainty of your one-day-at-a-time sobriety, while you systematically uproot beliefs, values and traditions deeply rooted in your ancestral heritage. They will be told that they must comply with recovery doctrines so you will not “have a relapse.” Your recovery program, which we call recoveryism, will be more destructive to the integrity of your family than your addiction has been, even if you stay sober year after year. That is because your recovery program will subvert the deep belief system at the taproot of your family tree.
In order to protect them against the invasion of one-day-at-a-time recoveryism, you must now defy their wishes once again, even if they are directed by a physician or licensed counselor to force you into recovery group participation. As long as you do not drink, you are remaining loyal your family. In a very short time, you will issue them a personal guarantee that you will never drink again, along with an agreement that, as a user of alcohol and other drugs, you are unfit for family membership.
Simply decline any further recovery group attendance or addiction treatment, and tell them that one-day-at-a-time sobriety isn’t good enough for them, nor good enough for you. Review the Declaration of Personal Independence. Direct your famlily to this website, especially the Crash Course on AVRT® for Families of Addiction. They may also call us on the telephone with any questions they may have about AVRT-based recovery.
How do I get started in AVRT-based recovery?
There are four levels of AVRT-based recovery, ranging from free of charge to some very modest charges for goods and services, all leading to immediate, total recovery, in this order:
- You should start with the free materials, including the left column in the site map page. First, review the home page article, Getting Started in Rational Recovery. Then, take the Crash Course on AVRT® and be sure to read the book, Rational Recovery: The New Cure for Substance Addiction.
- The Rational Recovery bookstore also contains a number of excellent AVRT® learning materials.Get the professionally-produced DVD’s and other multimedia productions at the Rational Recovery bookstore. They are possibly the best values in the addiction recovery field, setting forth simple instructions and in vivo demonstrations of AVRT® in real-life practice.
- Subscribe for a few months to the Membership Area of this website. Here, you will have access to a large database of articles and program elements, including the Rational Recovery Discussion Forums. Inside, you can look in on others learning AVRT® and present your questions and concerns. Of first importance, is the Advanced Crash Course on AVRT®, which is a more sophisticated version of the Crash Course on AVRT®, above.
- AVRT: The Course is four days of direct, face-to-face instruction on AVRT-based recovery in a small class setting, which I conduct at the Hilton Garden Inn in Folsom, California. This is a great, cost-effective way to end your addict-identity and resume life as a normal, healthy person who simply abstains for personal reasons. The purpose is total recovery within the four days of direct instruction, so that you will return home knowing in your heart and in your bones that you will never drink/use again. Imagine that!
We are very excited about the outcomes when a key family member also attends the entire course. This allows your significant other to get satisfying answeres to all questions about AVRT-based recovery. Their participation will lay the foundation for eventual reconciliation based upon zero-tolerance for any further use of alcohol and other drugs. Because your significant other is a witness to everything said and done, there can never be a misunderstanding about what was said or done during the four days, nor about the meaning of basic concepts such as addiction, recovery, and zero-tolerance. It is a powerful act of good faith to invite someone you’ve betrayed to this upbeat, pro-family experience.
AVRT: The Course is the obvious path for persons severely discouraged by years of floundering in recovery groups, or by multiple admissions to addiction treatment centers without success. Recovery group disorders are real, and may require strong action to defeat group-based recoveryism.
