bringmeback7693

....it's just a wine glass, you can just as easily drink cranberry juice out of it as you can wine.

It's just a billboard- look at all the other billboards around you advertising fast food and law services. You don't give those a second glance.

It's just a bar- there are plenty of other restaurants around. And bars serve plenty more than just booze.

The characters on TV probably are drinking apple juice or grape juice.

Yes, a beer on a hot day may look refreshing. Key word "A BEER." ONE BEER. You can't do that- it's not an option for you.

Plenty of people are drinking, but plenty of people are also at the gym and working and picking up their kids and living lives that don't revolve around alcohol.

Just because you see alcohol doesn't mean you have to drink it. Just because others are drinking doesn't mean you have to.

Cissy

Thank you for this. I needed to read it.

Branches

Good post. I like my wineglasses. I make myself non-alcoholic mocktails in them. It made me feel more triggered to think of not ever using them again than to put some Perrier and OJ and ice cubes in them and sip that.
It feels like everybody drinks when you tell yourself you "can't." When you tell yourself you "don't, " you'll notice plenty of people drink iced tea or soda when they're out to dinner.

RDBplus3

For me,
I was the 'trigger'...

Now, after 'the miracle', what seemed to be triggers, are not...
as long as I do the work and keep in 'fit spiritual condition'.

RDBplus3 ... Happy, Joyous and Free ... from being the trigger

Radix

This is very relevant to me. It got to a point where I somehow forgot that plenty of people go for days without drinking, and that's actually normal. I had somehow come to a point where I thought normal was drinking after work, drinking with dinner, drinking to the very moment of bedtime. You know the drill.

I thought normal was working a drinking plan into every social activity, every vacation, every birthday party. You know that drill, too.

Probably if someone had taken me by the shoulders and said, "THINK about it, Radix, what do you think normal really is? Is it this? I may have thought about it and realized that my drinking wasn't normal. It wasn't like I was delusional. I would have been able to tell you that many people don't drink at all, and most others don't drink daily. But... I forgot that.

I forgot what normal is. I thought it was me.

So yes, when I get triggered by seeing people drinking, I just remind myself that for every person getting silly in the bar right now, there are literally dozens of others elsewhere, not drinking, enjoying themselves; and if you could magically ask one of them: are you happy right now? They'd say, of course, why would you even ask that?

Thanks for posting.

gypsytears

Good post thanks!