Ken33xx

Airports.

Gotta be careful in airports.

gravity

I go by the AA Big Book philosophy: I drank because I liked the way it felt (couldn't stop once I started of course). Rather than deal with stress, fear and anger (all "triggers") I tried to drink those feelings away. Just made things worse.

The Steps, my sponsor, AA group, and counsellor (for help with panic attacks) showed me how to deal with my triggers in a healthy way. I've been through some tough stuff in my sobriety but alcohol is never an option.

I've been sober for 6 1/2 years now and am living a good, productive, fun life.

I'm a big believer in reaching out for help. You can't fix a problem with the same mind that created the problem in the first place. Chose your AA group, sponsor, counsellor etc. wisely.

Good luck.

ScottFromWI

I drank anywhere, anytime. Pretty much being awake was the only thing I needed to "trigger" my urge to drink. I feel that having a plan for sobriety, and something or someone to access right away to help stop the cravings makes all the difference in the world. If you are in AA it might mean calling someone. If you do AVRT It's recognizing the beast. For some it's CBT. But the bottom line is that triggers are merely thoughts. If you recognize them and act accordingly they can be circumvented.

matt4x4

"Figured out my biggest trigger"
Lemme guess, your thought pattern?

Tom_Leafs

Women are my triggers!

Boleo

Took me a long time to see it but sobriety was my biggest trigger.

Why? Because I was uncomfortable in my own skin without my adult pacifier - booze.

Mirage74

You BB'ers know it says Alcohol was but a symptom. I've never met a alcoholic who drank because things were good all the time.

jdooner

I used to love to drink to celebrate. I drank when I closed a huge deal. I drank when I got my bonuses. I drank when I went on TV and crushed an interview. I drank when things were good and when things were bad and when things were in between.

For me there is no such thing as a trigger. There are life events that make me feel out of balance and as an addict I coped through the use of substances or behaviors that are not healthy for me. I did not know any better. This is where recovery ruins our ability to return to active addiction. Now I know better, which is why any ideation of what it used to be like is a mirage of an oasis. It does not exist its just sand...just like the booze is just a poison. What once was can never be again, for me at least.

dwtbd

Hard to 'un'know something, learning or coming to know something can take a long time and come from different paths, but once learned denying it is to be dishonest with one's self. It's practically impossible to lie to yourself, not that I didn't try believe me I tried.
Accept what you know and go from there.

Mirage74

I drank for any reason too jdooner. I've just identified something that triggers a strong response to drink. It was my solution, for a number of reason too - to celebrate, stress, anger, or for no reason at all but because I wanted to.

I think the idea that I'll ever be completely removed from the idea of taking a drink is foreign to me. It's always a possibility. All we can do is manage today and identify situations that may make us want to seek out our old remedy. I think that's why in AA they say One day at a Time and All we have is a daily reprieve. Can I get through today without drinking? Yes. That's all I need to worry about.

jdooner

Okay, its not about removing thoughts. I am not my thoughts. This means I do not have to act on my thoughts. My thoughts come and go. I have good thoughts and bad thoughts and neither define me. I have tools that I have developed to deal with thoughts. As time progresses I have less thoughts about a drink. I do not obsess anymore about a drink that has been removed through AA's 12 steps. I do however, occasionally get a thought about a drink. For example, I was driving home the other day and a reggae song came on the radio. It reminded me of being on a beach and the next thought was melancholy that I will never sip a drink again on that said beach. That thought I know is an illusion. I am never going to sip one drink on the beach. I let the thought pass and chuckled to myself afterwards.


I do not subscribe to this mindset at all. I am careful with AA not to confuse many of the AAsims or cliches with The Solution. Many sick people wander in the halls of AA and come up with little acronyms and saying. But the Solution, as defined in the Big Book says nothing about living one day at a time. Not one mention.

My intention is to never take another drink again in my life as long as I live in steps 10-12. The trick is to adhere to living this lifestyle. If I drink its because I am consciously making the decision that death is better than life. There are circumstances where this is possible for me and the pain is just too great.

The Living One Day at a Time I believe has more to do with a living in the present mindset and less about just surviving sobriety one day at a time. The latter is no way to live, in my opinion.

I would be what some consider a thumper I guess. I believe AA's program is simple, yet we complicate it. If one follows a a rather simply tool kit of spiritual steps (12 steps) and has a spiritual awakening and lives in steps 10-12 your obsession form alcohol addiction will be removed. This requires abstinence. Everything else in AA to use an AA cliche I tend to leave and only take what I need, which is The Solution, AA's Solution found in the Big Book.

Arbor

Jdooner. Sounds like maybe your also using some rational recovery tools too? Am I wrong?

You also mentioned mediation as a tool to deal with thoughts. Anything else?

Great thread. Great responses.

jdooner

I like Rational Recovery and love the idea of a Big Plan. For me I needed a forklift upgrade to change my way of living and AA's solution is working best. It was not easy to get here though.

I studied RR and gave it a fair shot and parts I really like such as The Big Plan. I think this is brilliant actually. I do not believe that one is limited by their program and I find value in learning as much as possible. I tend to see more similarities between various approaches than difference (abstinence based plans).

I used to think it was a bit like being on a Team though - AA, RR...kind of comical. Its all the same and we are all on the same team and planet.

matt4x4

...........look a gun has a trigger, its humans who pull the trigger, thats why countries with slack gun laws have high death rates.

Mirage74

What's your point?

Mirage74

Good for you jdooner. Do what works for you.

AliceTW

I imagine other people have said this already, but I never found I really had triggers - unless you count "being sober", which was a huge trigger for me to start drinking

When dealing with cravings, in the early days, it helped me to identify the cravings for what they were, to label them in my mind, and move on. That helped me distance myself from them, and made me less anxious to follow them. It also helped me to feel that they were less urgent.

Good luck

Also, I am finding that mindfulness is a very useful tool - I used it a lot in my early recovery days, and am just starting to get back into it for dealing with stress, rather than cravings. Google "Mindfulness".