Addictive Voice

bigshoe · Post by **bigshoe** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 3:19 pm

If anyone has that devil on their shoulder giving them thousands of reasons why they should have a snack or a second helping of something, then you are experiencing the addictive voice. This is something that I discovered when I quit drinking alcohol. It's a technique called AVRT. Addictive voice recognition technique.
The basis is that one makes a "big plan" says that I will never drink alcohol again and I will never change my mind. Then any time you hear the voice saying "you can't say never.. what if (world devastation, trip to france, win lottery, etc.) you can recognize it as your "beast" and simply ignore it. The beast wants to drink, But I don't. The beast can't make me do anything.

Anyways,
When I quit drinking my beast turned to the old familiar: Food. "well, as long as we're not drinking, we can eat whatever we want." It seeks pleasure and wanted all the crap in the world. But I was armed with the knowledge of AVRT and was quite surprised (although shouldn't be) that my lizard brain would go after me like this.

But here's where NoS really comes in and saves the day. Strictness. I have made a big plan here too. I never eat sweets, snacks, or seconds on N days. and I will not change my mind.

What does this do? Stops the battle. Do you fret over having one piece of chocolate? Mental battles over little items won't happen if you remain strict and stick to your plan. Recognize the voice for what it is. Just a pleasure seeking beast. Back to your cave beast! See you on saturday

I'm no expert. I'm new to NoS (again). But now I have my head on straight.
AVRT was developed by Jack Trimpey. He has a great book on quitting drinking and a book about food (that I haven't read- just using the drinking ideas on food). [/i]

AVRT is part of a program called Rational Recovery. They have a website that spells it all out for you and I first heard about it in the secular connections section of the forums for sober recovery.

oolala53 · Post by **oolala53** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 7:46 pm

I have Trimpey's book on strategies to deal with food. It works pretty well with No S. The "beast" is the voice that says to have S's on N days and tells you to go overboard just because of a small fail. I am not always successful fighting it, but it did help at times to have read his book. However, I think Reinhard would call it the voice of very strong habit.

oolala53 · Post by **oolala53** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 10:50 pm

Trimpey called it the Feast Beast.

liverpool · Post by **liverpool** » Fri Jul 27, 2012 11:25 pm

There is a pretty decent book I got called "Brain over Binge," which discusses the addictive voice really extensively. And it meshes very well with what you're saying here. Basically, having firm, sensible food rules makes healthy eating much easier mentally and emotionally.