This is the introduction to the famous Crash Course on AVRT®, which has been posted on the Internet since 1995. Since then, many thousands of men and women have taken back their lives from addiction and recoveryism solely by clicking through the 28 flash cards which begin at the very bottom of this page, Bullets for my Beast.
To prepare you for the work in the Bullets pages, study this page carefully, as it lays a foundation of health for AVRT-based recovery, which is the polar opposite of the disease concept of addiction which underlies all recovery groups.
Considering what is at stake, many go on from this sequence of instruction to the Advanced Crash Course on AVRT® in the subscription area of this website, where monitored discussion of AVRT-based recovery takes place daily.
The Structural Model of Addiction
© Copyright, 1996, Rational Recovery® Systems,
Inc.
The disease concept of addiction has become quite popular,
mainly because it is the nature of addicted people to dignify
their deplorable conduct. The disease concept of addiction
is pure Addictive Voice, concealing the actual reason people
drink/use while it discourages individual initiative.
The structural model of addiction is unique to Rational
Recovery. This simple idea helps make sense of your addiction
and shows you why you have been behaving so stupidly.
Ridding yourself of disease-thinking can help you recover
from substance addiction.
The structural model presents your addiction as a function
of health rather than disease.
There are no hidden causes for your addiction; you drink
because you love to drink.
You use because you love the way
it feels. Addiction is a natural function
of the human body, based entirely upon the pleasure principle.
Brain chemistry and genetics are irrelevant to recovery. Our 2-part brain model, below, is simple, but
for our purposes, not simplistic.
There is no evidence that "alcoholism" or addiction is a disease or is caused by one. Nor is there
any treatment for addiction, other than voluntary abstinence.
To call abstinence a "treatment," however, is like saying that the treatment for the disease
of long hair is a haircut, a needless complication that
obscures the nature of the problem and the nature of its
solution. When the disease concept becomes part of your
Addictive Voice, you will feel like a victim of circumstances
rather than someone who is responsible for becoming addicted,
for staying addicted and for immediately quitting your addiction
-- right now, for good.
In effect, you have two separate brains within your head
which, among other things, compete with each other. One
is primitive, similar to the brain of a dog or a horse.
This we call the midbrain. It is basically the brain of
a beast, and its only purpose is to survive.
The beast brain generates survival
appetites which drive the rest of the body toward
what it demands, such as oxygen, food, sex, and fluids.
These survival needs are all associated with physical pleasure,
i.e., the better something feels, the more necessary it
seems for survival. Your crazy appetite for alcohol or drugs
springs from the force of life, physical survival through
the pursuit of physical pleasure. Your survival appetite
is aimed at the wrong stuff, to be sure, but the desire
to drink excessively is more a reflection of health than
of a mysterious disease. The desire for pleasure fades among
sick or diseased people, further suggesting that addiction
is a reflection of health rather than a disease process.
In RR, some call the human midbrain "the party center," because of the bond between pleasure and addiction. Of course,
it is often quite stupid (self-defeating) to act on healthy
desires or impulses, as in substance addictions.
It matters not how substances such as alcohol, cocaine,
heroin, and marijuana get mixed in with the midbrain's real
survival needs. Chemically dependent people feel willing do most anything to continue the use
of that substance -- even if it means the loss of everything
else that is important. Addicted
people wish this was not so. The Beast of Booze,
or the Beast of Buzz, is ruthless in getting what it wants.
But there is another brain that sits on top of the beast
brain -- the cerebral cortex. This "new
brain," or neocortex, allows you to be conscious,
to think, to have language,
to control your voluntary
muscles, and to solve abstract problems. Your neocortex
is "you," and you are capable of defeating any
appetite, even for oxygen or food. (Anyone can stop breathing
until unconscious or stop eating until dead.) Your voluntary
muscles (hands, feet, etc.) are "wired"
directly to your neocortex -- to you. Your beast-brain
is essentially a quadriplegic, unable to get what it wants.
We call your desire for the pleasure of alcohol and other
drugs the Beast. It cannot speak, it cannot see, it has
no arms or legs, and it has no intelligence of its own.
But it enlists your thoughts and intelligence, sees through
your eyes, creates strong feelings, and persuades you
to use your hands, arms, and legs in order to obtain its
favorite substance. It must appeal
to you to get alcohol or drugs into your bloodstream.
Although your beast brain has no language ability, it
uses your language and thinking centers to get what it
wants. It is an animal mentality that can talk in your
head. For example, if you wisely decide that drinking
is bad for you, and that you will stop, you will soon
hear that old, familiar voice
telling you why you should continue drinking. You may
even imagine a picture of what you want to drink. That
is your Addictive Voice, expressing the Beast's demand
for alcohol. Addictive Voice is to Beast as bark is to
dog.
There are two parties to your
addiction - you and your Beast. You can easily
recognize your Addictive Voice using the following definition:
Any thinking, imagery, or feeling
that supports or suggests the possible or actual use of
alcohol or drugs -- ever.
AVRT allows you to become acutely aware of Beast activity
and dissociate from it so it can no longer instigate action.
