"Recovery" demands that you strive ceaselessly to become a perfectly functioning , perfectly spiritual, and perfectly moral person, and even then failure is considered inevitable. In an even subtler way, there is a movement that pushes the idea that you need a "purpose filled life" to gain the resilience to not be tempted to backslide into use. With recovery ideology, recovery doesn't mean getting over a problem and moving on; it means you will be fighting a lifelong battle that becomes even more challenging when you attach substance use to challenges life tosses at you. In the specific case of "avoiding triggers" the desire for substance use has taken on a permanent condition to be accommodated rather that changed. This is like people with diabetes avoiding all sugar because their bodies can't handle it. That is what recovery means, adjusting your life to accommodate your permanent handicap. The best evidence of this is the fact that recovery proponents regularly compare addiction to chronic diseases such as diabetes, and say the two are alike.
I'm so glad that there are tools and information out there today that challenge these kinds of messages. Because I was lucky enough to discover AVRT here on SR, this ^ has not been my experience, I was able to quit after an admittedly long period of ambivalence, and just carry on with my life. It got to be OVER. But if I thought that to stay sober I would have to devote the rest of my life to recovery and meetings and constant vigilance and endless self evaluation and work and confessions, it would make me miserable enough to drive me back to drinking in no time at all. My AV loves the idea of it never being over and that if I don't do xyz right, then I surely won't be strong enough or perfect enough to resist temptation.
Thanks for the book suggestion Solarion. I've still only read the brief excerpt, but I liked what I read and will pick up the book. What the authors are saying makes a lot of sense to me.