Originally Posted by Jenses

Funny, that is the exact thing I am dealing with. Not drinking has magnified my underlying urge to escape from myself - which is what drinking has done for me in the past.

Came across the following in a book and it made me stop in my tracks:

When we stop the busyness of the mind and come back to ourselves, the enormity and rawness of our suffering can seem very intense because we are so used to ignoring it and distracting ourselves. When we feel suffering, we have the urge to run away from it and fill ourselves up with junk food, junk entertainment, anything to keep our mind off the pain that is there inside us. It doesn’t work. We may succeed in numbing ourselves from it for a little while, but the suffering inside wants our attention and it will fester and churn away until it gets it.

We run away from ourselves because we don’t want to be with ourselves. Our pain is a kind of energy that is not pleasant. We fear that if we release our diversions and come back to ourselves, we’ll be overwhelmed by the suffering, despair, anger, and loneliness inside. So we continue to run away. But if we don’t have the time and the willingness to take care of ourselves, how can we offer any genuine care to the people we love?

Not sure if that helps, but for me, realizing how uncomfortable I am with myself has been my underlying, primary trigger.