I don't buy the "trigger" thing
 

Life itself is a trigger. Can somebody help me out here? I'm over the "I drank because______________". Am is missing something?
(Insert BS here)

:headbange

I think that the trigger thing applies to people who are in genuine recovery and may avoid certain situations or places where they feel they may be tempted to drink.
But "I drank because..."bills came in the mail, the dog barked at me, my a$$ is sore (from alcohol-related digestive problems), it's Friday the 13th, etc. is just quacking. LOL @ "insert BS here."

Hugs. It's irritating isn't it. They don't drink because something happened. Although I can accept that when X happens, they find it more difficult to NOT drink. So it's more a failure of will maybe? But the fact is that they have to see it in those terms. Even though it's blindingly obvious to everyone watching.

In my case, certain scenarios are bigger triggers or associations than others. It's important for me to recognize those scenarios and avoid them at all costs to maintain my sobriety. I don't ask my BF (who does not have a problem with drinking) to understand (and he doesn't), but I do ask him to respect the way that I deal with my alcohol problem (and he does) ... including avoiding triggers. Believe me, they are real :)

My AH admitted the other day in counseling that sometimes he drinks just b/c he is bored. While I was extremely frustrated...(really,,,you are bored), I was at least relieved not to hear an excuse.

Grrrrr.....

big difference between EXCUSE and trigger. when in active addiction, everything in the mind and body is primed towards using, whatever the drug of choice is. imagine you are an alcoholic and trying to get thru one football game when every other commercial is people drinking beer and having fun. or you're a crack addict and it's a baseball game - Diego is up to bat, looking for a BIG BASE HIT, and with the CRACK of the bat it's going going gone.

maybe it's a certain road, a certain moment of the day, a deja vu thing. trust me, unless you been there, you don't get it.

now saying i am drinking because......is different. that is the addict coming up with some cockamamie EXCUSE in order to drink. good day,bad day, traffic, weather, couldn't find a paper clip....

not every using event is caused by a trigger. often it's just what the addict does at the time.

Life indeed is a trigger but there are numerous situations which increase the probability that someone may. HALT hungry angry lonely tired seem to be almost universal triggers

:thanks Anvilhead ... well said :)

In my opinion:
"I drank because...." translates to "I am in denial".

I drank because I was an alcoholic. I don't drink any more because now I am an alcoholic who works a program.

Uh...alcoholics drink because they are alcoholics. Period.

It is true that they will drink when 'triggered,' but they will also drink when not triggered.

The thing about the 'triggers' is that we all have them, and we all have things that we do either to work through them in a healthy way or things we do to try to repress them and escape them.

For myself, if I'm not going to work through my response to a 'trigger' in a healthy way, then I usually go to either some kind of binge-thinking or binge-controlling strategy for avoidance, escape, denial...whatever. The reason that I do that is because I have a very powerful and quick mind, and I really like the effect produced by binge-thinking. In other words, binge-thinking tends to allow me to escape or feel like I have power over whatever the presenting problem/issue/trigger is and, just in general, make me feel good and 'in control'.

For alcoholics, they have bodies that react to alcohol differently than the bodies of non-alcoholics and, thus, they really like the effect produced by alcohol and alcohol works for them in terms of allowing them to feel like they've escaped and have power over whatever their presenting problems/issues/triggers are.

So, I tend to look at it like this: We all (human beings) have things that get to us. We all either deal with those things in a healthy way or we act out. The way in which we act out depends on what (we mistakenly believe) works best for us. So:

I act out because I am triggered; My acting-out behavior-of-no-choice is binge-thinking because binge-thinking 'works' for me.

The alcoholic acts out because he/she is triggered; His/her acting-out-behavior-of-no-choice is drinking because drinking 'works' for him/her.

freya

I think your "I drank because BS" pretty much sums it up.

I'm with Freya: the only proper way to complete that sentence is "I drank because I'm an alcoholic."

What are the thoughts regarding the "excuse" of triggering as a contol mechanism? Example - rAH can be around drinking with others (coworkers, friends, neighbors) but I am forbidden to partake? Not really a big deal to me although would like a drink once in a while (margarita with Mexican food).

I dont know, but it really gets to me when he can go next door and hang for an hour with them totally blasted and apparently have no issues.

edit to add - it isnt just alcohol. It is other thing too. It is like jealousy or something. I cant do or have anything he cant. I hope I am making sense.

I don't think I've ever thought of triggers in terms of active addiction before reading this thread. :blindfold:duh:

For me triggers have always been like recovery quicksand; you're totally taken off guard & stuck in panic mode until you relax & slowly work yourself through it. Lol, but seriously it took me forever to not relate the term to alcoholics exclusively/specifically and to see that things in my world were triggering me into codie relapses - often on a regular schedule (hellllllo Mr. Credit Card bill, has it been a month already?? :react).... that Codie Relapses are in fact real & that for some of them at least, I could develop strategies to avoid/work around/change the way I react to them.

Is that a trigger or resentment? Honest question. Does it even matter? I personally think it does in my case, but I have been wrong a time or two. :lmao Does it depend on the personal reaction to the situation?

For me - it was a trigger. The credit card thing is a pretty simplistic example of one of my personal triggers - so mundane & easy to overlook. My mood would sour, I would grouse around dragging everyone around me into the same funk all the while avoiding opening the damn statement until I couldn't put it off any longer. I hated opening it & being shocked over & over again at the charges AH would run up and the anxiety of the balance being so much higher than expected combined with the anger at how utterly stupid it was to be so financially irresponsible - plus it was like a road map of his dysfunction - which stores, bars, restaurants was he overspending at?? ugh!!

For months after he started recovery & after I had taken the credit card away, I would STILL trigger when the damn statement arrived... always sure I'd find something I wasn't looking for. So I switched to paperless statements & started monitoring my account online instead. By changing the way I approached it, I stopped freaking out every month, removing my trigger as well as I could.

I think it's important to note that "triggers" and "I drank because....." are two different concepts. Having triggers is very natural and said alcoholics must learn coping skills for such concepts.

No alcoholic/addict should be sharing triggers with loved ones. They are things for him to recognize, but to describe them to someone else turns them into an excuse.

If someone finds something that is a trigger, it make it it MORE his fault for drinking/using---not less! A trigger is a danger sign and he should run in the opposite direction. If he does not, then he is even more culpable for the relapse.

All of this in my opinion.

I'm glad you aren't buying triggers, I'm not selling any. When I was actively drinking, breathing was all that was really necessary. When I am sober there are certain people, places, and things that I associate with having a drink, and the thought pops into my head. I tell the thought to get stuffed and move on to the next thought. Its nothing more than that...

as an alcoholic, i drank because i drank. i'm learning that all the excuses in the world are just that - excuses. there are situations i don't put myself in as i don't want to trigger a craving, but that is very different to triggering drinking.

i would drink because i was bored, because i was celebrating, because i was feeling down, because i was angry, because the sun was out, because it was raining - you get the picture!

we make the choice to put that drink to our lips. we may not understand how we got there, but i remember clearly starting a relapse and making a very deliberate decision to take that drink.

i work a program now so i don't make the decision to take that first drink. it's not easy to acknowledge my alcoholism, but i must remember it to keep myself sober.