Alcohol Rehab

Rational Recovery Model for Alcohol Rehabilitation and Treatment

Rational Recovery is a network of self help groups founded by Jack Trimpey, who himself was addicted to alcohol for over 20 years.

Dissatisfied with the Alcoholics Anonymous point of view that Alcoholism is a disease and believing instead that Alcoholics can stop drinking whenever they choose he decided to found Rational Recovery.

Through the Rational Recovery network self help groups teach a rehabilitation skill called Addictive Voice Recognition Technique, or AVRT.

AVRT can be better understood by thinking of the addictive voice as the thoughts and feelings that support drinking. Along those lines those thoughts and feelings that support abstinence are you. Learning to recognise the addictive voice it becomes ” not you”, it becomes “it”. By thinking that “it” wants a drink, not that you do, you can define exactly what it is that is causing you to drink. You can choose not to listen to “it” by choosing never to drink again.

Recognizing “it” when it pops into your head defeats the short term desire to drink and this habit becomes entrentched and automatic leading to complete recovery. “The only time you can drink is now, the only time you can quit for good is right now.”

I will never drink again becomes, “I will never drink now.”

It is their belief that recognizing and defeating the internal voice that urges one to drink is a significant and powerful technique which an individual can use in their daily life to take control of their drinking problem.

Jack Trimpey is the author of The Small Book and Rational Recovery: The New Cure for Substance Addiction (which has the straighforward subtitle of “Anyone can Quit, Right Now and for Good”

According to the author 40% to 70% of people who recover from serious addictions do so without attending self help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous.

Rational Recovery claims up to a 65% long term recovery rate for alcohol addiction, including many after they had failed to be helped by the 12 step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous.

Interestingly enough an independant study by Marc Galanter M.D. by the the New York University Medical School at Bellvue Hospital found that 74% of those who attended Rational Recovery self help groups for four months were abstinent.

See the Rational Recovery Website for more information.