Guener

One thing that my AV in the past has told me is that there could be significant life events, aka Triggers, that would create a situation in which it would be okay to drink.

I find it hard in my mind to distinguish between what is defined as a triggering event versus just a rationalization to pick up. In fact, I think I used to generate situations in my mind by exercising in negative thinking to give me a basis or purpose to drink. I think that I recognize that now and work hard against falling into this self-trap. This would be categorized as trickery by my AV that I can defeat if I am aware of it and know how to defuse it.

I do understand the the HALT idea, where there are risk factors physically or emotionally can place us in a state of mind where picking up is more attractive, situations that can cause us to listen to the AV without even being conscious of it without self-awareness.

Then there is the idea of anticipation. Maybe I am worried somewhat about this more than anything, because my father's health is precarious, and I could soon be faced with losing him. I do not have a strong association to grief over death, it's just the way that I am. But something tells me that my AV could rear its strongest false arguments when something like this happens, again a rationalization potential. I have strong memories of drinking with my father, "good" ones, that could cause me to reminisce about the days of alcohol and when I enjoyed it. To avoid forecasting a relapse is a warning sign for me to heed.

All of this comes down to planning, I suppose. What will I do when this or anything else that is a significant shock to my current existence is, I believe, something that I could be working on now. I don't fear for my sobriety right now, but it's an awareness I have that is mildly troubling.

I don't want to drink again, and I have to affirm that for the present, without the idea that it's ever okay to pick up again.

Thanks for listening ...

ScottFromWI

I honestly don't think there's a difference - it's mostly just a semantics argument.

The bottom line for me was that my default response to any kind of uncomfortable situation ( Stress, "triggers", etc ) was to drink alcohol instead of facing said situation head on. Stress is a normal part of life for everyone, so I had to learn to accept that i'm simply not going to be comfortable all the time.

fini

triggers to me are things, events, recollections, feelings, associations that result in a reactionary "gottaDRNK!!!" response.
as far as drinking again, i consider them irrelevant.
they can, though, give me good pointers about where and what "my issues" are, or what i need to explore further.
rationalizing how i will behave, what i will or will not do, is quite separate from all that.

MindfulMan

Make a list of all the times in your life where you faced a stressful situation and drinking helped to resolve it.

Oh, wait, there aren't any.

Admit to yourself that no situation, none, zero, is a reason to drink. Cravings are nothing but cravings. Acknowledge that you're having one, then move on. Don't try and fight it.

This all gets easier as you get more sober time.

DriGuy

I like the part about planning and anticipation. People make plans to leave a party if temptation becomes overwhelming. And it's one of those bits of advice that works.

Granted, you can't plan for every situation, and some triggers are stronger than others. Some are unforeseen. But you are making plans for a big one, facing grief, and I think you are doing something important.

It seems like you have a good sense of where your vulnerabilities are, and more important, you know that you have vulnerabilities. I think you are aware enough to make that critical choice about reaching for a bottle when the time comes.

Another thing I've learned about grief from loss, is that grief can be lessened with forethought. Tell your father how important he is to you. Tell him how grateful you are for the things that he has done to make you happy. Tell him you love him. Whatever. Leave as few loose ends that you might regret never sharing with him. Maybe you already have these bases covered. I'm not sure what else you can do. You will face grief, but I think you're going to be OK.

Oh and one more thing. Accept your grief. Don't run from it. Face it full on. Wallow if you want. Facing it full on is intense, but it seems to make it pass faster.

plop

For me, there are no triggers, there are just excuses. I realized that as long as I felt there were triggers, I kept the back door open – I kept thinking that in certain situations it would be okay to drink, it would be okay to have the drinking option just in case.

Naturally the drinking option is never okay for those who cannot drink in moderation.

Being triggered is learned behaviour that needs to be unlearned. When you have a long hard look at it, you see that it is only a habit. It's just that it has become second nature, so it feels like a natural reaction, but it's not.

And as Scott said, it's important to accept that we are simply not going to be comfortable all the time.

dwtbd

I bet if I stole, kicked puppies for fun or routinely cheated on my spouse and I stopped, I may miss aspects of it.

But I don't do any of those things and I don't miss the not doing.

I don't drink , I used to, so there is that.

Missing or not missing has very little to do with the actual doing or not doing.

DriGuy

That's true. I never thought about that before.

Guener

I am not sure that I completely agree with the idea that an addictive behavior can be unlearned, only that it can be suppressed. For example, why people pick up again after long-term sobriety suggests that the response is not eliminated: the first drink does, or does it not (?), predicate a physical response and emotional reaction that, for an addict, leads to the next drink or use. I guess this argument depends upon whether or not one holds that addiction is in fact has a biological basis or not. For the latter point, I don't think emotions can be unlearned, only our responses to them can be made, and given that a drug produces an emotional response that is, it is posited, produced chemically in the brain, how can it be permanently undone? So, it seems to me that addictive behavior is more than strictly habitual response to stimulus.

dwtbd

Given what you say here , you would need to parse out what is meant by 'addictive behavior' and in what way that is separate or not separate from 'addiction'.

The lowest 'resolution' solution to an addiction to alcohol is to never drink again, and developing a strategy to ensure the goal.
AVRT ( great threads on these ideas in the Secular Recovery forum and associated subforums) is the technique I resonated with.

Experience of emotional responses viewed through the lens of a chemical/biologic determinism , says actually very little about a normative response.

Drinking doesn't necessarily beget more drinking, more drinking certainly does. No more drinking begets nothing in regards to drinking.

DriGuy

There's a lot of muddy water in the understanding of addiction, and people define the word "addiction" in different ways. There's a combination of opinion, myth, and hard data that helps muddy the water further.

If addiction is a habit, it can be unlearned. If addiction is defined as a biochemical reaction to a substance that causes withdraw symptoms in it's absence, then it cannot be learned or unlearned.

Psychological dependence is not a biochemical addiction, but it sometimes called an addiction, and to complicate it further, it is often present along with physical addictions.

Triggers aren't addictions, but they a play a secondary role. However, the behaviors they elicit can be unlearned. The psychology of behavior modification therapy revolves around this very understanding. Although there has been an ongoing and contentious debate for years between behaviorists and humanists on the effectiveness of either form of therapy. I ignore the debate because it strikes me as mostly professional jealousy. I think both approaches have merit.

Addictions can (and usually do) come as a combination of psychological and physical dependency. To me, picking up that first drink after a long abstinence seems wholly a product of the psychological. We are humans. As bright as we are compared to dogs, our minds to not function in perfect order. We think they do, but they don't. We think stupid things, and we behave with stupid responses to the stupid things we think.

We have little control over our thoughts, but much more over our behavior. This is were choice makes a difference, where we can consciously choose a behavior (don't drink) that is contrary to our thought and break the connection. This is what learning does. There is a philosophical debate that humans do not have choice, but I don't want to go there, and anything philosophical I'd like to avoid.

However, once the drink is consumed, the physical dependency kicks in, probably in the skin crawly irritability (or whatever it's called) that I and other alcoholics have experienced from drinking. At this point, triggers are not necessary to keep the merry go round going.

My opinion is that emotions can't be avoided in a healthy way. But like you, I believe our responses to them can be changed. This is what happens in learning starting in early childhood socialization.

But when we get into brain function, I can't think of an area of biology where so little is known. It's an area we know so little about we can't even debate it effectively. How do electro chemical responses in synapses become thoughts? Our knowledge base there is near zero. In spite of the new advances in neurology, where we know that chemistry does create thoughts, we don't know how that huge leap happens.

But from what I have read, learning and the subsequent behaviors create new neural pathways and combinations of pathways that create new thoughts and responses. And there's a lot of ways this might happen in that huge area called "lack of knowledge" in what we know about brain function.

Some of this stuff is so lacking in hard data that it can easily become a philosophical topic driven by opinion. I feel like I'm standing on not the firmest of ground right now. In fact, alcohol treatment and it's theory are heavily influenced by philosophy. AA is philosophy, not hard science. In fact, the science of psychology is strongly influenced by philosophy, and much of our understanding and beliefs about alcoholism are philosophical and psychological in nature. We now know more about it than Bill Wilson, but not much more, and we are still mired in philosophical traps fumbling about with the best of intentions.

It's lucky that some of us are still alive today. LOL

ScottFromWI

Be careful that you don't overthink this ;-). A big part of my recovery was simply accepting that I am the way I am when it comes to my issues with alcohol. I searched for the "WHY" for years, but mainly in hopes that I could then fix it and start drinking like "normal" people do.

plop

To be clear, when I talked about unlearning, I was talking about being triggered, not about addictive behaviour in general, and I was also assuming that at the moment of being triggered I am sober, so my possible biological addiction doesn't come into play, at least not as strongly as it would after I've had a drink.

At the moment there are a lot of people on this forum being worried about the holiday season. There's going to be alcohol available and they're probably going to meet relatives they'd rather not meet. They know these things trigger them. Obviously it's good they know their triggers, but it also sounds like a learned pattern of behaviour to me.

But I'm just rambling. Basically I agree with what you and DriGuy have said.

JeffreyAK

That's pretty much how I view triggers - things (events, places, people, times of day, a song, a smell, whatever) that provoke an involuntary urge to drink. I haven't had one in many years, so they are a temporary phase for at least some of us, but they used to come up now and then. The worst by far came from taking a big sniff of hand sanitizer from a little bottle I was going to throw out at work. It bowled me over, I was shaking and scared because I was suddenly filled with a strong urge to leave work early, go buy a bottle of booze, and get drunk for the first time in 6 months. Within seconds, the urge passed, but I freaked out over it for an hour afterwards.

It sounds like that's not what's going on, though - it's an anticipation of an event that *might* be triggering, or might not, and starting to wonder if that event might be enough to give you permission to drink? I think it's great you recognize that in advance, and to me that means it might be a good time to plan things out. What will I do if X happens, in order to protect my sobriety, how will I organize my time, what escape routes do I have in place, etc.

I used to go to a lot of meetings, mostly Lifering meetings but also a drop-in outpatient group at the rehab I went to. I almost never go anymore, but occasionally, a few times a year, I'll pop in to my old outpatient group, run by the same awesome lady. It's partly just to say hi, but partly so I always feel I can pop in any time in the future, in case something does arise that I need support for. I can't predict what will happen in the future, my wife gets sick, my cat dies, etc., but I can protect myself a bit now so that if something does happen in the future that gets me fixating on drinking, I have support if I feel like I need it.

Guener

Thank you to all of you for giving such well thought out answers and advice. I am at a point where I've been giving a little deeper thought to what drinking does to us a various levels, all of it deleterious, and it is meaningful to me to spend some time considering those aspects. I do have to not drive myself crazy with worry over finding the answers, but as a curious person I enjoy the time in reflecting. Keeping my focus is still my first priority.

DriGuy

Yeah, I'd love to understand it all too. A counselor loaned me a book about alcohol addiction 20 some years ago that explained what little chemistry was known. It's an interesting subject, and I felt like it helped me. Someone here recently posted something about how alcohol releases dopamine into the system, but eventually destroys the dopamine receptors (or something like that), which helps explain why in the last days of my drinking when no matter how much I drank, I could never get that good feeling that I wanted so much.

When you informally survey the literature about alcoholism, it seems to be heavily weighted with opinion and philosophy. Such is the nature of most self help literature. You might find more factual information in scientific journals, but something tells me the actual knowledge base there is somewhat limited.

In the end, no matter how much you actually know about the subject, it comes down to drinking or not drinking. If you can't drink sensibly, in moderation, then you can't drink without consequences, and you've only got one more alternative; Don't drink. As alcoholics we wasted our time looking for the unicorn, that alternative where we could drink to our heart's content, and there would be no consequences. No one has yet found that unicorn, but a small number (I hear figures like 5% of alcoholics) learn to suck it up and find happiness within their special limitations by not drinking.

For reason's beyond my control, I can't drink like a normie. It's not so bad to live within your limitations. For reason's beyond my control, I can't be an NBA star either, and I've learned to live with that quite well. I can survive without alcohol, and at the same time I can reap all the rewards that come with the good life. It's a bargain when you think about. You get rewarded for something you don't have to do. Find that in the job market!

LaceyDallas

DayTrader

For a long time I suffered under the delusion that if only I could figure out what was causing me to drink, I'd be able to stop and or control it. I refused to take the responsibility for my actions. I mean, it just HAD to be something that was MAKING it happen.

After waaaaaaay too much research I came to the conclusion that as far as "triggers" go for me, there was really only 1 - the state of consciousness. I'd drink when I didn't want to after a good day, bad day, good date, bad date, lonely, with people around, when I was hungry, right after I'd eaten, when I was tired, when I was fully rested, when I was happy, when I was sad, when I was feeling depressed, when I was feeling elated, when I was feeling not much of anything and I'd think a drink would at least let me feel SOMEthing......etc etc etc..... Any said "triggers" were way too varied to be of any use for me. Besides, I sure as heck didn't feel like living my life in some quasi-definsive role 24/7 - always worried about what might take me out next.

Once I discovered the type of alcoholism I have and that there was a solution for it all I have had to do is focus on being in line with that solution and the drinking, the "triggers" and the rest of that stuff has fallen by the wayside as a result. As an added bonus, it has been both simple AND enjoyable.

NYCDoglvr

Two weeks ago I held my beloved dog in my arms as he took his last breath. The pain is excruciating, the loss tremendous. But I was glad I was sober so I can mourn him because he deserves it. So glad I was present for his life, all of it, even the end.

The thing is, nothing gets so bad a drink won't make it worse.

Ken33xx

I went so far as to once consider hypnotism thinking it might help me to cut back on my alcohol consumption. But in the end it's just best that I don't pick up that first drink. I like to leave it at that.

About the only theory I somewhat subscribed to is genetics. Alcoholism runs through my family history so this might well be a factor.

When walking though an airport I notice the people drinking at the bar and I notice the huge bottles of JD while shopping at Costco. There's a slight trigger but I just keep going.

I know what happens when I drink. I don't drink because I enjoy the taste. I drink to get loaded. The same with drugs. Can't just have a few hits of a joint. I need to keep going.

Drugs/alcohol and the triggers/craving are no longer a battle I wish to participate in.