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**tea** · February 19, 2008, 06:11 PM

HOW DO I FIGURE OUT WHAT MY TRIGGERS ARE?(LOOONNNGG)

Hi Lilly, I think this is a how long is a piece of string question, for me my trigger is not really a thing but a time, some call it the witching hour, mine is 9pm so I try not to be sitting watching tv at that time itching and obsessing. Others will follow I'm sure with some advice but just wanted to say hello and to respond.

Lxx

**Croft** · February 19, 2008, 06:14 PM

HOW DO I FIGURE OUT WHAT MY TRIGGERS ARE?(LOOONNNGG)

well, this is a good question and you should definatley seek the answer.

My triggers are many. As soon as you drink, think about what motivated you to drink. What made you think, "Gee I need a drink?" Or, "gee a drink sounds good"

Here are some examples:

Having a glass of wine with dinner
Cooking - do you have a glass of wine when you cook
Stress can be a trigger - do you use alcohol to deal with stress? Do you catch yourself saying, "What a terrible day at work, I think I'll have a gin and tonic."
Working out can be a trigger. After a particularly hard workout do you reward yourself with a cold one?

As far as the Kudzu goes - If I were you instead of waiting for a magic trigger I would just take it 3 times a day. Get up in the morning, line up the pill parade and take them. Then do it again at noon and again with dinner or before you go to bed.

If you start to feel yourself craving I think the best defense is to jump on this site and get on chat if you can.

If you are still struggling you might try someting stronger like Topo.

Hope that helps

**rapala** · February 19, 2008, 06:54 PM

HOW DO I FIGURE OUT WHAT MY TRIGGERS ARE?(LOOONNNGG)

I have two young kids myself (boys who do get on each other and do the wrestling or fighting...) I wrote down things that got me "started towards the beer".

4pm when the oldest gets off the bus, and 4pm, and the thought of another night of fighting about homework... and 4pm trust me I have lots of triggers

triggers (for me personally ---better known as excuses)

I don't do the three day at a time , I try to do the one day at a time ( I have yet to go more than several days without having 'a couple' .... I am now on day three which is huge for me, but I got rid of all the beer in the house, Today on my way home I avoided my trigger gas station and instead made ***excuses*** why I shouldn't refill the fridge.... since today is day three I am now on the one hour at a time....

writing down the triggers and then looking at how to stop them helps me bit... I figure my boys won't wrestle so much if I am interacting with them ... I hope homework will go better without smelling like a beer bottle and being too busy drinking to care if it really gets done the best it could ---

triggers suck unless you don't let them win, and then you feel that you did something good!
deb

**lukalee** · February 19, 2008, 06:59 PM

HOW DO I FIGURE OUT WHAT MY TRIGGERS ARE?(LOOONNNGG)

Hi Lilly, I think that is the question for anyone who drinks, and finding the answers is what we seek. Everyone needs to find their own program.
I think you have already found some of your triggers, now it is time to find ways to get around those, like taking a walk, reading a book, beating the crap out of a punching bag.
If there was a simple answer, we wouldn't be here.

**lillyatter** · February 19, 2008, 07:57 PM

HOW DO I FIGURE OUT WHAT MY TRIGGERS ARE?(LOOONNNGG)

well,you guys are all certainly right.everything you all have to say makes sense to me.I sure appreciate your responses ! Deb-it sounds like we have about the same exact situations going on as far as the two boys and the 3 pm and on stressful hours ...sure helps to know your not alone:l .And you are so right-when we give them our full (SOBER :h )attention they ARE amazingly less annoying and surprisingly:enjoyable and wonderful:H !!!My kids are out of town for a few days w/ their grandma and am hoping to get my self under control a bit. today is the 3rd anniversary of my moms passing (she commited suicide) and i am feeling particularly bleak.Tomorrow,however is my hubby and my 10 yr wedding anniversary and i think that that along wih my 2 beautiful children is reason enough to pull myself up and get myself out of his awful rut. Thank you guys all for being here for me today when i really needed it :l
Rebecca

**Thankful** · February 19, 2008, 11:10 PM

HOW DO I FIGURE OUT WHAT MY TRIGGERS ARE?(LOOONNNGG)

Lillyatter ~ yes, triggers are different for everybody. But one thing I want to point out is that albeit triggers are bad, they don't all derive from bad situation or stress. I realized that a football game was a trigger for me. About 3 wks ago, a big game was on (I was alone) and when kick off commenced I decided I wanted a beer. But I behaved and grab a non-alcohol one. No big deal, it's NA. The surprising thing was that 3 hrs later when the game ended, that can sat there almost completely full! I didn't really want a beer, but the idea of the game placed my head to the habitual frame of mind. I never realized that "game time" was a trigger. If it had been a real beer, I would have consumed 6-8 in that 3 hr timeframe. Another trigger for me is too much caffiene. Caffiene = anxiety = stress = alcohol = calm. I now know I have to cut back on caffiene. I have other triggers, but no reason to go into them all. But now that I know what to look for, I can make better decisons on how to cope. Being prepared is a huge help in the battle.

The point is, when the moment strikes and you want a drink, take the time to try and figure out why you want the drink. Is it stress? Did something just trigger a habit? Is it always the same time of day? If so, why that particular time? What can you change?

This doesn't have to be as overwhelming as it sounds. Just take it one day at a time. It might take days or weeks to figure out all your triggers. And that's ok, as long as you learn from them.

I hope this helped. Good luck!

Love, Me
:l

**satori** · February 20, 2008, 04:22 AM

HOW DO I FIGURE OUT WHAT MY TRIGGERS ARE?(LOOONNNGG)

Lilly,

I think the important thing is simply to become able to RECOGNISE the triggers.

What I mean by that is - many of us have triggers - and they set us off on the drinking spree without us being able to realise it is happening - because we are mostly not mentally "present" duriing the process.

The trick is to firstly identify your personal triggers - and then find a way to make sure you don't allow them to operate without your knowledge.

You need to

see or feel the trigger as it FIRST begins to operate
Recognise that the trigger is being pulled
Step back mentally and rationally make a decision as to whether this is going to lead to drinking or not
Follow thru the decision.

The difficult bit is recognising the trigger arising.

I would thoroughly recomment Buddhist insight meditation - if you have several years available for practice!

I have been doing it for a long time - but - still them triggers get pulled.
Thankfully not the drinking ones any more!

It is the day to day stuff I find I still have not yet got a handle on - I find it difficult to follow the process described above when someone cuts me up driving for example.
It happens so quickly that the "decision making" bit gets bypassed and I go from OK to highly irritated in a heartbeat.

Luckily the urge to drink is a more gradual process for me - and I have time to feel the urge arise - and make the correct decision every time.

Love :l

satori

xxx

**greeneyes** · February 20, 2008, 06:40 AM

HOW DO I FIGURE OUT WHAT MY TRIGGERS ARE?(LOOONNNGG)

Satori, I really admire you and am thankful for your posts. They are quite helpful to me. Just wanted to say thanks.

**Sunbeam** · February 20, 2008, 07:58 AM

HOW DO I FIGURE OUT WHAT MY TRIGGERS ARE?(LOOONNNGG)

Hi Lilly,
I think there is another line of thinking that can counteract those illusive triggers. Think of all the reasons not to drink: The things in your life that will get better, the reasons you hate drinking, etc. I like to think by writing things down, so maybe you want to list all the triggers, list the movtivators. A two column format can be effective, because even though the triggers are many, the motivator list will be longer.

**satori** · February 20, 2008, 08:11 AM

HOW DO I FIGURE OUT WHAT MY TRIGGERS ARE?(LOOONNNGG)

Hiya Greenie!

Judging from your other posts - you are beginning to get a handle on this stuff yourself.
You have recognised that one of your triggers is the knowledge that there is drink easily available in the house.

I was talking earlier about seeing triggers arising, and how difficult it can be to do this in daily life - you need a fairly "quiet" mind and a fairly high degree of "awareness" going on in everyday life to be really successful.
As I said in my earlier post, I can't yet get a handle on many mundane day-to-day triggers for anger or whatever.

However, I DID find out somewhere in my MWO journey to somehow give a high mental priority to alcohol related thoughts.

Now - I am not sure how I was able to do that - but it got to the stage that if an AL thought tried to slip sneakily into my brain - it somehow got this great big mental FLAG attached to it - one that said

"OK Satori - this thought is one you REALLY have to look at".

Perhaps it WAS just that I had truly decided that I had had ENOUGH of it all - I had fully realised that if I didn't stop - I would end up prematurely dead, and the old subconscious was operating to help me out - I just don't know.

Or - it MIGHT just be that years of practicing with awareness in daily life was finally paying off (on important issues at least).

I will have to think about it a bit more - it would be good if I could figure out how it happened so I could export the knowledge to all of my MWO buddies!

(Yep - we Buddhist types spend a lot of time with our heads up our a**es thinking about stuff like this - don't we! :H )

Have a great day

Love :l

Satori

xxx

**satori** · February 20, 2008, 08:18 AM

HOW DO I FIGURE OUT WHAT MY TRIGGERS ARE?(LOOONNNGG)

dowjbw;275824 wrote: Hi Lilly,
I think there is another line of thinking that can counteract those illusive triggers. Think of all the reasons not to drink: The things in your life that will get better, the reasons you hate drinking, etc. I like to think by writing things down, so maybe you want to list all the triggers, list the movtivators. A two column format can be effective, because even though the triggers are many, the motivator list will be longer.

Hiya dowjbw,

I don't think we have "met" yet - welcome!

Yep - writing down the "pros and cons" of drinking is a great way of becoming aware / motivated - I never met anyone here that didn't have a much longer list of reasond NOT to drink.

Strange how we all kept ignoring the obvious for so long - over 20 years in my own case!

Satori

**rapala** · February 20, 2008, 10:40 AM

HOW DO I FIGURE OUT WHAT MY TRIGGERS ARE?(LOOONNNGG)

I agree with the writing down the cons and the pros...

Rebecca, I made it thru the night N/A and did not really have any problems with the boys... it also helped me to read and call friends who support my goal...
sorry about your mom.. I am sure she would want you to beat this!!!

Happy Anniversary to you! today is another day to stay sober don't you think? -deb

**lillyatter** · February 21, 2008, 04:03 AM

HOW DO I FIGURE OUT WHAT MY TRIGGERS ARE?(LOOONNNGG)

Thank you all sooo much for your thoughts.. and yes ,Deb,,she would want me to beat this,as it was her problem,too (her name was also Deb,weirdly enough) and I PLAN to.You guys are all a wonderful help ....I plan on posting a lot more in the next few days when i don't have my (supportive) hubby sitting right next to me,you all are so helpful...Does anyone else here feel selfish posting on on and on about their own situation when we all know that we all have really tough situations going on?I hope everyone here is doing well tonite!:l

**satori** · February 21, 2008, 04:08 AM

HOW DO I FIGURE OUT WHAT MY TRIGGERS ARE?(LOOONNNGG)

Hey Lilly,

Don't worry about being selfish!

In the early days, you should be posting post about your own issues / struggles/ questions.
Those of us who are a little further along the road, and who dont have such urgent problems any more, are happy to be able to offer any help and support to newer members we can.

After all - others before us did the same for us!

That is the beauty of this wonderfyul place.

Love

satori

xxx

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