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For several decades, as America' s addiction crisis has brought us to the brink of civil chaos, one simple statistic about addiction has been unavoidable: About 70% of people who get better from alcohol and drug addiction do so on their own -- without getting help of any kind.* These ordinary people are not necessarily less severely addicted, nor are they more motivated than those who get "treatment" -- but they know something that is of strategic importance. These people, who may be said to have had a "rational" recovery from addiction, are also ones who never head of - or simply ignored -- the 12-step rules of recovery as America understands them.
Rational Recovery (R), an empirically-based approach to addiction recovery, has long observed this natural phenomenon of people quitting their addictions and has "bottled it." AVRT(SM) is the descriptive acronym for "addictive voice recognition technique," a therapeutic approach using the principles of Rational Recovery. (For a fuller description of the Rational Recovery Self-Help Network and its theoretical under pinnings, see essay by F. Michler Bishop).
Rational Recovery takes exception to many widely-accepted assumptions about the nature of addiction and recovery. One key assertion of Rational Recovery is that human beings are entirely competent to discontinue the use of intoxicants, and that they may do so quite independently by learning some simple mental skills, drawing on their own natural abilities and native intelligence, When alcohol and drugs are discontinued for a period of six months to a year, many people will resume normal, independent lives, with no need to continue in a recovering mode.
Although AVRT may be included as part of any treatment plan, AVRT may sometimes be thought of as "pre-treatment" in the sense that many people who break the chains of addiction in this straightforward way will be ready to resume normal, independent lives. Others who stop drinking/using, however, will have persistent functional problems, such as poor social skills, marriage and family problems, or emotional problems including anxiety and depression, that will justify treatment. That treatment may take various forms: rational-emotive behavioral therapy (REBT), psychiatric medication, traditional 12-Step-oriented counseling, or any of a wide variety of services. For any of these, AVRT can be used to help "clear the way."
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