keeppushing

Hi all! Trying to improve my plan and I'm looking at creating a list of potential triggers (done) and responses (done). The responses are all very similar. So after thinking deeply about it, it would seem to me that all triggers are basically low discomfort/frustration.

Examples: fight with spouse, bad day at work, anything going wrong, any of the HALTs, missing out (friends at bar, family party, etc.).

Thoughts?

KP

lilgolden73

I have so many triggers in general that make me wanna drink! Hang in there!

OfEpiphany

Anger/resentment was a big one for me.

strategery

Having something good happen can be a trigger for many people too, so it isn't always discomfort or frustration.

leviathan

As I understand it, its all of those with the addition of those that are pure habit.-surroundings, smells, etc.

Also, for some of us (myself for sure), there is the desire to use during "good times". Celebration is a trigger for me and I'm pretty sure that this is pure habit. I had alot if good times before the bad times, part if me resists letting that go.

But its gone. All gone.

bluedog97

Yea, any cause of discomfort I would consider a trigger. I think that's a good idea to write them out, maybe it will take away some of their power. I've tried journaling and it helps get racing thoughts that cause discomfort out. The idea is not to pick up a drink over them.

SweatyHands

There is also high level activation. For instance, I have serious anxiety, sometimes to the point of dissociation, when I feel that I am totally powerless in a situation. I used alcohol in those situations not as a means of numbing myself to the discomfort, but as a way to pull the real me out of the equation, and to put the "drunk me" in. It is a psychological game of playing a different persona, to which I am completely committed, in order to continue functioning in a situation where I feel threatened. Speaking as someone training as a therapist, I am on the fence as to whether or not I buy into multiple personalities. That being said, the drunk version of me is an almost entirely different individual. I used to think that I was just using the drink as a self-medication tool, and on some level, that is still true, but equally as valid is the process of me "leaving," and the other guy "coming in."

Soberwolf

As soon as you hear your AV take action

biminiblue

I would say that at one point alcohol was so ingrained in every thing I did that there were very few thoughts I had that did not involve my next drink. Sure, it was a good way to numb out the negative events of life, but it was equally a way to pass time, to celebrate, to procrastinate, to inspire, because it was rainy, because it was sunny, because it was a day that ended in Y. I thought of alcohol as the highest, best thing I could ingest. It gave me SuperPowers. According to me.

The thing I had to change was my thinking. I had to direct my thinking to other things. At first it was a thousand times a day, then it was a hundred, then once, now I go long stretches without thinking of a drink. It's a long process to unravel all this.

Worth it.

Fly N Buy

Happy, mad, glad, sad - any day ending in the letter y - birthdays or anniversaries, funerals or weddings.......the list is endless.

Triggers were simply excuses for me. If I was mad, I'd drink at them - I'll show you, I'll hurt me!

I didn't need many reasons for the insidious insanity to begin again. When a sober alcoholic picks up the first drink, that is indeed insane.

Resentment are poison to alcoholics. I had to deal with those for sure and as anger crops up deal with it immediately.

Those are my thoughts - It's good to understand the potential pitfalls, but at the end of the day we choose to pick up or not. No one forces us......

NoelleR

Back in the day, the term trigger was not used; it was the answers to the question 'why did I drink/use;' 'what are the reasons.' The answers to those questions were not the why's or the reasons; they were excuses. The only trigger was Roy Rogers' horse.

(o: