I’m starting to think everything is a trigger
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: France
Posts: 3,040
I’m starting to think everything is a trigger
suns out, it’s raining, I’m happy, I’m sad, excuses I think rather than triggers, but today I won’t drink and take each day as it comes please god
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,429
By the end of my drinking everything was a reason to drink....no exaggeration.
The early sober days were heard - but they got easier, and I stayed true to my commitment not to drink again.
If I can do it, with the help of people here, so can you Mummyto2
D
The early sober days were heard - but they got easier, and I stayed true to my commitment not to drink again.
If I can do it, with the help of people here, so can you Mummyto2
D
Member
Join Date: Oct 2018
Location: New Mexico
Posts: 1,339
I am one of those persons who has to be careful of "analysis paralysis".
It's fine to reflect on why I don't drink, but to get into that internal conversation on a non-stop basis for a long length of time tends to make me just think obsessively about drinking per se, and that's not a good place for me in early recovery. It can lead to romantic notions of what it was like to be able to pick up or leave me feeling somewhat melancholic about being an alcoholic. So, when I catch myself in my head I try to put it aside instead of ruminating about the basis of being alcoholic. Or, sometimes I post those thoughts here in some detail and get feedback, usually to include some recommendations not to let myself get into the hole of trying to construct grand theories about how I should be now.
It's hard, when you have an analytical mind not to wander too deep, I know, but sometimes we just have to relax those mental muscles and strengthen others.
It's fine to reflect on why I don't drink, but to get into that internal conversation on a non-stop basis for a long length of time tends to make me just think obsessively about drinking per se, and that's not a good place for me in early recovery. It can lead to romantic notions of what it was like to be able to pick up or leave me feeling somewhat melancholic about being an alcoholic. So, when I catch myself in my head I try to put it aside instead of ruminating about the basis of being alcoholic. Or, sometimes I post those thoughts here in some detail and get feedback, usually to include some recommendations not to let myself get into the hole of trying to construct grand theories about how I should be now.
It's hard, when you have an analytical mind not to wander too deep, I know, but sometimes we just have to relax those mental muscles and strengthen others.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2018
Posts: 60
Mummyto2 you've drank for a long time I'm sure, those feeling of drinking are the most natural to you. Its learning to think differently in the long run but for now busy yourself,
A gratitude list helps - its made me so grateful to be sober.
Its snowing where I live (Yes really!) and I'm grateful for that, just to be alive and sober. These small things will start to mean so much to your life.
Sending hugs x
A gratitude list helps - its made me so grateful to be sober.
Its snowing where I live (Yes really!) and I'm grateful for that, just to be alive and sober. These small things will start to mean so much to your life.
Sending hugs x
Ocean Lover!
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: You know nothing Jon Snow - UK
Posts: 2,604
Try keeping a notebook with you and each time you get what you feel is a trigger write down what emotions you are feeling (sad, lonely, offended, criticised, hurt, etc) After a few weeks you will notice some trends in certain emotions that you feel more than others. It’s those emotions that you are wanting to medicate against as aposed to really wanting a drink. Once you can identify what those trigger emotions are you can begin to tackle them at the root xx
Member
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: New England
Posts: 1,224
I can be over analytical. I believe every problem has a cause and a fix. But I found myself becoming exhausted analyzing every trigger, planning every urge, reasoning every pick up. it was just too much without addressing the the solution.
I can't drink.
So I just started with the question every time I had the crave, "what will happen if I have that first drink?"
Doesn't matter what the trigger was, the result would always be the same if I drank. The obvious conclusion to my question is that I can't drink. Now, I don't.
When the internal argument became too noisy I picked one action that would brake the urge. I would do it impulsively. I go for a vigorous bike ride. My bike is 30 years old and hadn't ridden it in 25 years. When the noise in my head got too loud for me to "work it out", I dragged it out of the back of the shed, inflated the tires, blew off the dust and started pedaling. Now, I ride for fitness and pleasure. It has become my therapy against the drink.
Addiction is not logical, especially to an analytical mind. Keep it simple.
For me, it's simply "I don't drink". If the urge pushes, I ride or exercise. Last line of defense I just eat. Yummy, delicious and spicy food.
(Thanks to sautochik for his post about how he beat his addiction. That's what brought me to pull out the bike)
I can't drink.
So I just started with the question every time I had the crave, "what will happen if I have that first drink?"
Doesn't matter what the trigger was, the result would always be the same if I drank. The obvious conclusion to my question is that I can't drink. Now, I don't.
When the internal argument became too noisy I picked one action that would brake the urge. I would do it impulsively. I go for a vigorous bike ride. My bike is 30 years old and hadn't ridden it in 25 years. When the noise in my head got too loud for me to "work it out", I dragged it out of the back of the shed, inflated the tires, blew off the dust and started pedaling. Now, I ride for fitness and pleasure. It has become my therapy against the drink.
Addiction is not logical, especially to an analytical mind. Keep it simple.
For me, it's simply "I don't drink". If the urge pushes, I ride or exercise. Last line of defense I just eat. Yummy, delicious and spicy food.
(Thanks to sautochik for his post about how he beat his addiction. That's what brought me to pull out the bike)
Member
Join Date: Nov 2018
Posts: 5,169
As alcoholics, we just drink and drink and drink because we are addicted. Addiction is actually the only trigger that affects us. But we start to imagine everything in our environment as triggers, because we are always drunk or between drunks, so we start making strange correlations like "Every time I see a cat, I want to drink."
What we are not seeing is that we want to drink all the time. Virtually, anything that happens to us, good or bad, happens when we are planning our next drink. Cats, promotions, setbacks, and life itself all start to look like triggers, because everything that happens, happens in our default mental state. We start making correlations that never occur to normies whose mental environments don't revolve around our addiction.
I don't know if this is helpful. It's just what popped into my head while reading this thread.
What we are not seeing is that we want to drink all the time. Virtually, anything that happens to us, good or bad, happens when we are planning our next drink. Cats, promotions, setbacks, and life itself all start to look like triggers, because everything that happens, happens in our default mental state. We start making correlations that never occur to normies whose mental environments don't revolve around our addiction.
I don't know if this is helpful. It's just what popped into my head while reading this thread.
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Posts: 16,945
Drinking was an all day, every day affair form me. I don't actually believe that individual "triggers" have anything do do with my addiction to be honest. Certainly there are stressors or events in my life that made my emotions go up and down, but the real crux of the problem was that I used alcohol as a way to hide from facing life up front.
And you are right Mummy - it's definitely about trying to change your patterns and routines. Avoiding obvious drinking situations like bars or blowout drinking parties is a good idea of course, but the stress and other "triggers" of every day life are unavoidable. So we must learn to change how we deal with them as we can't eliminate them completely.
And you are right Mummy - it's definitely about trying to change your patterns and routines. Avoiding obvious drinking situations like bars or blowout drinking parties is a good idea of course, but the stress and other "triggers" of every day life are unavoidable. So we must learn to change how we deal with them as we can't eliminate them completely.
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 8,674
Hey Mummy - glad you are sharing.
Great comments above. This "topic" led this over-thinking alcoholic to come to a succinct conclusion: there is no such thing as a trigger. Or, the only trigger is ME.
My dad used to say that my insistence on the whys and wherefores of my drinking was just a plan to keep drinking. He was spot on, turns out.
I forget if you are working a program like AA - concrete action is certainly something that helped me learn the new habits and accept and own that the choice to drink is always, always mine. Someone has probably mentioned this before but HALT is a tool that is useful - asking ourselves if we are actually
Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired
rather than thinking of something/someone/someplace a "trigger" we can ask ourselves what's really going on? And often, that's just flat because we WANT to drink.
Keep going. You are on a good path.
Great comments above. This "topic" led this over-thinking alcoholic to come to a succinct conclusion: there is no such thing as a trigger. Or, the only trigger is ME.
My dad used to say that my insistence on the whys and wherefores of my drinking was just a plan to keep drinking. He was spot on, turns out.
I forget if you are working a program like AA - concrete action is certainly something that helped me learn the new habits and accept and own that the choice to drink is always, always mine. Someone has probably mentioned this before but HALT is a tool that is useful - asking ourselves if we are actually
Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired
rather than thinking of something/someone/someplace a "trigger" we can ask ourselves what's really going on? And often, that's just flat because we WANT to drink.
Keep going. You are on a good path.
Giving up is NOT an option.
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: Western Wisconsin
Posts: 7,808
Originally Posted by ScottFromWI 
Drinking was an all day, every day affair form me. I don't actually believe that individual "triggers" have anything do do with my addiction to be honest. Certainly there are stressors or events in my life that made my emotions go up and down, but the real crux of the problem was that I used alcohol as a way to hide from facing life up front.
And you are right Mummy - it's definitely about trying to change your patterns and routines. Avoiding obvious drinking situations like bars or blowout drinking parties is a good idea of course, but the stress and other "triggers" of every day life are unavoidable. So we must learn to change how we deal with them as we can't eliminate them completely.
And you are right Mummy - it's definitely about trying to change your patterns and routines. Avoiding obvious drinking situations like bars or blowout drinking parties is a good idea of course, but the stress and other "triggers" of every day life are unavoidable. So we must learn to change how we deal with them as we can't eliminate them completely.
I realized pretty early on that "trigger" is just another word for "excuse." I could justify drinking, because life was so hard, or so I thought. Or there was something to celebrate. Or because I'd gone a few days without a drink. Or because someone else near me was drinking, etc, etc. Really, anything was an excuse to drink for me. I had to realize that nothing outside of my own head could make me drink. That was all on me. So I knew I had to change my thinking, and learn to deal with all of the situations I had "drank at" in a different way, and change the default from drinking to something else, depending on the situation.
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