The Cure for Addiction

When Jack Trimpey wrote his book ‘Rational Recovery’ in 1996 he claimed on the front cover that his revolutionary alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous was ‘the new cure for substance addiction’.

You turn to the first page and immediately he advises that despite scepticism around the term ‘cure’ you are indeed holding the book that will forever change your thinking about addiction and recovery.

I’m not going to recite the whole book to you and won’t go off on a personal long winded sales pitch about how Rational Recovery will cure your addiction to whatever substance(s) you used / are using but I do want to share a little around what Jack Trimpey states in the early part of his book – I guess it’s up to you whether you explore it further.

Throughout ‘Rational Recovery’ the continuing theme from Jack is very much ‘Are you fully on board? Are you invested? Do you want this?’ and whilst that might scare, annoy or put off some readers he is right to use the type of language he does. Rational Recovery is very much about YOU being accountable and YOU taking control of your addiction by using something called AVRT – Addictive Voice Recognition Technique.

I’ve already shared on this Blog previously my own experience with Rational Recovery. I dipped in and out of it whilst also exploring AA and never got anywhere with the actual technique that is taught by Jack in his before mentioned literature. I was white knuckling my recovery and had difficulty understanding how I could manage my emotions, thoughts and temptations longer term. I was generally ‘ok’ in the now but living my life ‘one day at a time’ unsettled me. I didn’t want this daily noose around my neck.

So anyways, back to Jack. Before you even get to the Contents of the Book he states TEN things about Rational Recovery. I guess like anything, this is to lure you in. Do you like the sound of it? Are you interested to learn more?

1. You can take care of your problems yourself
2. Anyone, yes anyone – can quit an addiction, for good: all you need to do is to decide to quit, then apply AVRT
3. How to apply AVRT – The process is carefully explained, step by step, with simple exercises to get you going
4. Recovery = Secure Abstinence
5. How to eliminate “white knuckling”, the struggle that can wear you down
6. How to unlearn traditional disease concepts of addiction that may be holding you back from recovery
7. With Rational Recovery, there are no relapses, no enablers, no codependents, no triggers, no warning signs and no steps
8. You are a normal, healthy person who simply never drinks or uses drugs
9. The Abstinence Commitment Effect – The return of hope, health, and happiness – a direct result of following your own personal Big Plan
10. You can tame your Addictive Voice – forever!

So there we are. That is the Trimpey ‘pitch’ to you. When I first read the above I still had so many questions about what I was about to invest my energy into. I was struggling with some of the terminology and most of all, I was in the middle of a confusing period of my recovery as I wondered what I was going to do to finally overcome my issues – bear in my I’d only just relapsed after 15 months of sobriety and not following any kind of programme. I’d owned this book already for several months but only ever picked it up here and there and found little motivation to stick with it (I later came to understand that this was in fact my addictive voice).

If you do own the book or decide to purchase it I would advise you to stick with it if you are serious about never using again. The early chapters are largely a sales pitch and a few digs at AA but as I’ve said a few times in the past, you get to the good stuff from P.40 onwards.

I can only speak for me but it’s made a huge difference to my life and I’m excited to continue learning more (as I still haven’t finished the book – preferring to take my time and not overwhelm myself).