I walked past my nieghbors being loud tonight with company (live in apt.) and it kinda made me want to be out having a good time with my drinking friends....but then I really thought about it and the consequinces....no, I really cant just have a few and good time, I get blasted and dont remember......no, no, no, not what I want

My drink of choice was wine. When I go out to dinner and watch a couple at the table or tables around get a bottle of wine served, it makes my mouth water....

Most of the slipalogues (new word) I've ever heard happened just that way. Some set out deliberately to drink, but most didn't. The most typical scenario was that the person was in a social situation and someone said, "Have one." Habit kicked in and there was no second thought whatever to contradict the idea that it was OK.

If I were to avoid all my triggers, I'd have to give up breathing.

I know it sounds crazy but AA dances are even a trigger for me. The loud music and dancing with the lights and the disco ball! lol. The first AA dance I went to when it was time to go I looked at the table and there were 6 empty soda water cans on the table that I had drink in a very short time didn't even realize it!!

That's gotta be rough, McC, especially cuz they serve water in wine glasses also.

Nemo- I hear ya and it's something I've been thinking about all afternoon and evening. Just another part of this obsession I will learn to live with. It just really threw me off today and that really bugged me that it threw me off. Disturbed me that I could let something so simple have an impact on me. I guess it was the actual physical action of opening the fridge specifically for a beer and forgot I am not drinking. I guess that's what bugs me the most. I forgot I am not drinking. Just a mindless habit.

WooHoo,

What I assumed when I first got sober was that if I ever picked up a drink again, there would be a warning in the form of an urge, a feeling or a thought. In other words, there would be some alarm going off between my ears that I'd be aware of and have the resources to counteract one way or another.

During my first few years of sobriety I lived not too far from a rehab hospital that had two open meetings per week. Part of what I wanted to hear were the stories told by the patients, the majority of whom had relapsed after anything from a few months to many years of sobriety.

I would sit on the edge of my chair and listen when they talked about what had gone on in their lives in the weeks, days and minutes before they picked up the one that had brought them to that hospital. Like the helmsman of a fragile boat in a treacherous river, I wanted a chart drawn by experienced skippers to tell me where the rocks & reefs were and how to mind the channel buoys.

Over time I collected the all information I was after, which was that even though there was rarely any mental debate going on in the moments just before they picked up, in every case there was similar pattern of weeks, months and sometimes years of gradual slacking off from whatever program they were using. Some described taking the drink as the punctuation at the end of a long sentence, while others were more explicit in describing how they had actually set out to create a complex set of circumstances in their lives that stressed them out so much that having a drink was simply the logical, next right thing to do.

Perhaps the more amazing thing is that almost none of them were vague about their stories. In most cases they could describe in vivid detail the thoughts and emotions they'd had at each turn in the road that had led them back out. That's why I still have a problem with the term "relapse" when it's used in the same sense as cancer, etc.

Because even though there was no mental defense against the drink itself, there was a sorry saga of choices which each person fully recalled feeling uneasy about as they'd made them. The mere fact that they remembered and retold those decisions so clearly and unequivocally as the turning points-- all that made a much stronger impression on me than what was going on with them in the minutes before they picked up.

when i was in rehab 4 2 months i started buying packs of 24 cola ,luckily staff realised i was starting a trigger b4 i did ,good luck

AS far as I am concerned the only 'trigger' there is for an alcoholic to drink is being in unfit spiritual condition. Nothing more, nothing less.

Spiritual condition can change quickly sometimes and it's not always easy to stay fit at all times and keep up with changing situations and therein lies that window....... like what happened to me on Monday.

Thank God I changed my mind about what I was doing.

Wow, you just reminded me of the early days, when I could NOT have canned pop in the house!! The sound of that pop-top was a HUGE trigger for me, cause I drank beer all the time! And like you, the fridge was a trigger too ~ having to open it drove me mad! LOL It's not funny actually, but I can laugh about it now. YOU will be able to down the road a bit too.

There were so many triggers. I had to change my route home from work so I wouldn't pass the liquor store. I had to change my "procedure" when I got home, cause usually the minute I got home from work, I'd grab a beer before taking off my coat! So, I'd have to make sure I took my coat off first, and stay away from the kitchen when I got home. LOL. Don't worry ~ you'll make it. Just keep doing the next right thing. Lee

4:30 in the afternoon is a trigger. So is mowing the lawn.

My workbench in the garage sometimes has me romancing the drink, because I always had something stashed out there! And I've actually fallen down while mowing the lawn. Real proud of that.

there is only one trigger for a alcoholic and its being powerless. Until that is solved we remain prone to keep drinking and or drugging. Wasnt till I went thru the 12 steps and recovered that i found the power i needed to stay sober thru anything thats my exp for over 7yrs now. THat is why our founders wrote " we admited we were powerless" in step one they found that if we seek god thru the rest of the steps we would no longer be powerless and could have permanent sobriety

My husband didn't even slow down when I quit and I thought that may be my trigger.
NOT at ALL!
In fact, it was a constant reminder of why I decided to quit in the first place because he got awfully stupid when he drank and it's funny how we don't even see that when we are participating.

krm krm where for art thou krm
i thought krm was deleting these