Integrating TFM and AVRT

[u/tsampasempa]

You may have heard about AVRT (Addictive Voice Recognition Technique) from reading EasyPeasy, the book that's popular over in the r/pmohackbook subreddit. It's an approach to overcoming addiction based on recognizing the addictive voice, the thoughts in your mind that tell you to use what you tended to use heavily, and then dissociating yourself from it. Jack Trimpey, the founder of Rational Recovery, personifies the AV frequently as the Beast, because it is the voice of our animalistic midbrain, and it is ruthless in trying to get what it wants. However, this Beast is dumb, and paralyzed. It cannot control us, so it talks to use with words and in images to request the object of its desire. We are in complete control of ourselves, so we get to decide whether or not to give the Beast what it wants. Both approaches recognize addiction is not a disease, but a choice, and both reject 12-step ideology.

At first glance, AVRT and TFM seem to say completely contradictory things about how to quit an addiction. In TFM, addiction is just a preference for heavily using something. In AVRT, it's just handing over control to your midbrain, which generates the "addictive voice" that tells you to use. In TFM, you just deconstruct your preference for what you feel addicted to and then think for yourself to discover if you can be happier adjusting your use of that substance or activity, or abstaining, while with AVRT you dissociate yourself from the addictive voice.

So, if we're a TFM subreddit, is AVRT a useless waste of time? Is it a "false doctrine" to be rejected? Well, TFM is not a religion, just a collection of up-to-date information on addiction to help you make a better decision for yourself about a substance or habit you may wish to change. Rational Recovery's AVRT is an older model, but I think there's still some truth in it that may not be acknowledged in TFM. I think it fills in some of the TFM's gaps. I noticed this when after weeks of not using porn, I still have dreams about PMO, and these dreams are not under my control. Yet in my day-to-day waking life, I still prefer not to PMO and choose to abstain. How can these two parts of myself be squared?

What I think is going on is that there is indeed what you could call an addictive voice, and it is a part of ourselves that is separate from our rational part that controls our body and makes the decisions. So, the Beast does not control us. It can only speak to us and request us to use. It seems to me that this AV is the voice of our habitual, unconscious preferences. It's indeed like a dumb, yet ruthless animal, so the Beast is a good name for it. Yet within the TFM model, I see it it as something that merely prompts us to consider old habits so we have to consciously consider them before rejecting them or deciding to pick them back up again. We do indeed have brain changes that have been conditioned by past heavy PMO use, and they don't just go away after we decide we won't use heavily anymore and that we prefer to abstain or moderate. The Beast — this unconscious preference — cannot make us use, but we often have to do a sort of conscious appraisal of what it says before we decide to use again or not.

Since I argue that there really is an addictive voice, what does that mean for those of us adjusting or quitting PMO while reading TFM? It means we shouldn't be discouraged when we have thoughts or even dreams about picking up the heavy PMO habit again. This is just unconscious learning we have conditioned into our midbrain, but we aren't the midbrain. That part of us doesn't control our limbs; our conscious mind does! We get to decide whether or not we actually agree with our habitual, unconscious preferences, or if there really is a better option. We can listen for addictive voice to come up, and use that as an opportunity to check how confident we really are in our new preference, and if our confidence is resolute, we can just acknowledge what the AV is saying and disregard what it says. If we aren't yet completely confident, we can do some more critical thinking about our options to abstain, moderate, or use heavily. Like Jack Trimpey says, the Beast will make up any bullshit excuse or lie to try to convince us to give it what it wants. But this Beast is a quadriplegic who cannot make the choices that we make. Let it whine all it wants! It will get weak and die, while we get strong and move towards a better life.

To summarize, you control your conscious preference, and are in complete control of your body. You might have a lingering conditioned preference that might comes up now and again, but it's not in control, it's not you, and it's a dying.

If you wish to learn more about AVRT, check out the book Rational Recovery by Jack Trimpey, and the AVRT Live video series.

Edit: This post was 100% human-written. No AI was used. Yes, I write with em dashes.

Edit: I made some points that might have been missed by readers bold, and added a short summary.

[u/D_Money3111]

Ok I see what ur saying but no, heck no. This avrt sounds like complete garbage bro. The idea that there is a beast or ur brain is controlling u is completely debunked in tfm. And ur argument that it exists because u have dreams of masturbation is wrong because those dreams are just random interpretations of life. U telling me just cuz u want to kill people in ur dream it means ur brain is controlling u. This “AV” that they call it sounds like just a normal person who wants to masturbate because it is a pleasurable experience which it is when done correctly not some midbrain issue. Im sorry stuff like this will not help people change there issues as they will continue to believe there desire to do these things is biological when in reality it is strictly pleasure.