Gottalife

You really nailed it there my friend. We suffer, or did suffer, from a spiritual malady, an internal condition if you like. Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps we try to maintain fit spiritual condition through self sacrifice and service to others, and we continue to practice these principles in all our affairs. When we fail to do that, the old malady has a habit of returning and we get so incomfortable that it doesn't take much to put that drink in our hands.
I drank because I'm an alcoholic, and for no other reason than I caught the genetic bullet. External factors may aggravate the problem but they didn't cause it.
If someone feels they have to hide from some aspect of life (a trigger) like a social occasion, because it might make them drink, the book tells us he still has an alcoholic mind, there is something the matter with his spiritual condition. The safest thing to do is work with another alcoholic.

If he has had the spiritual experience, he is free to go anywhere free men can go without danger. And when the bad thing happens in his life, he'll feel the pain or grief, but he will deal with it sanely and rationally. Alcohol won't come up at all, he will be safe and protected as in the step 10 promises.

I do however agree that avoiding triggers before your spiritual awakening, and using any other strategy you might learn in rehab to avoid picking up, is wise and may buy you the time to get through the steps. But, simply because of the strange mental blank spot that alcoholics of my type have, avoiding triggers as a means of obtaining long sobriety is doomed to fail.