
Alcoholism Support Group
Alcoholism is the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages, even when it is negatively affecting your health, work, relationships and life. If you think alcohol is causing you to lose control, it's time to seek help. Our group is a safe place to vent, check in, get back up if you fall, and reach sobriety.

nodp2day
Are they actually things that cause one to use or are they just more excuses. Another instance of refusing to be accountable for ones own decisions.
Posts You May Be Interested In
-
A friend sent this to me..As far as I can see, grief will never truly end.It may become softer overtime, more gentleand some days will feel sharp.But grief will last as long as Love does - ForeverIt's simply the way the absence of your loved onemanifests in your heart. A deep longing accompaniedby the deepest Love some days. The heavy fog mayreturn and the next day, it may recede.Once again, it's...
-
Today is my 25th birthday, to my somewhat lack of surprise I can see already no one really seems to care. I've always been the kinda person to make sure that everyone I Care about feels appreciated and knew somebody had their back. I can count 4 times this year when I Went out of my way to make sure a "friend" felt good on their birthday, especially if they got left hanging. Its early in the...
Any alcoholic who has been through the programme of recovery in AA knows that they don't exist.
I don't mind the idea of identifying a trigger so that I can avoid it - or to avoid a sequence of issues several steps in advance. If I do this, I'm much less likely to have a drink.
If I am suffering from untreated alcoholism I will drink without the need for anything to cause it.
If I am well nothing will cause me to drink.
It is about my internal condition not about external events.
I do understand what you are all saying, but I think we're playing games with semantics here. I would agree that there is no such thing as an event that will FORCE you to drink, but there are old events that led you to drink in the past and they could tempt you in the future.
When I first quit drinking, I could not go into a particular Convenience Store after work because taht's where I always bought my beer. It was a "trigger" so to speak, and going in there for a can of soda was too much for me to handle. I had to change my behavior. Call it what you will, but avoiding it helped me until I was stronger.
The only triggers I've had are the ones I pulled and shot myself in the foot.
Imagine my surprise when I learned that it was my own right arm that kept getting me drunk! I had never accepted responsibility for my choice to drink. I blamed others. The way they talked to me, or treated me. And God help whoever said something that struck a chord of truth about me! I used to say,"if you were married to that SOB, you'd drink too!". That was the best I could do at the time. My first spiritual awakening was when the "thought" came to me for the first time that no one else was responsible for me choosing to drink but ME.
I'm so grateful for the people in AA who loved me enough to be honest with me. There were plenty of people who would stroke my hand and tell me what I wanted to hear. They were loving me to death, although, not intentionally. Triggers? Life was a trigger LOL
External foces don't make you drink, but there is nothing wrong with avoiding the things that were likely to make you drink in the past.
Jacker, only speaking for myself but having worked a program of recovery there is only one chain of events that would lead me to picking up a drink. That is me failing to do what I need to do to keep myself spiritually fit and therefore internally well. If I failed to do that i have absolutely no doubt that i would drink.
While I am in that condition all sorts of things have happened and havent lead me to a drink. If I wasnt in that condition, anything and nothing would lead me to a drink.
For me it was a good idea to avoid high risk situation in early recovery until I dealt with that internal condition, which is why it was important for me to deal with it quickly - up until that point i was always at risk. But managing the external world would never have worked as a long term solution for me.
In my first year, I refused to go down the soda aisle cuz that's where the mixers were. I didn't want to tempt fate! Call it precaution or trigger or whatever, I just didn't want to do anything I thought might "trigger" the craving.
I cannot agree with saying there is nothing wrong with avoiding the things that used to make you drink in the past.
Nothing ever "makes you drink" apart from yourself and avoidance is fear based.
I do not fear wet places or associated things that I used to use as excuses to drink in the past. If I did, I would know that I had not recovered.
Get an alkie to write a list of triggers and they will have a long list. they consult it to see if anything they are going to do that day, or any place they're going to be that day might be a trigger. Their life gets ruled by the list.
if life happens and something on the list happens to them, they check their list 'Oh shit, that's a trigger and down they go for a bottle of vodka. As far as I am concerned trigger lists are a menace - they are dangerous.
these discussions are on here all the time and I tell the same story:
When I go speak to local high school students I ask them what they think causes alcoholism, they come up with very similar lists - they are all wrong! I explain about the 3-fold illness - I tell them it's an internal thing and has nothing to do with external factors.
Then I ask them 'if it was about bad stuff happening that causes me to drink what do you think would happen to me if something bad happened in my life?' They say 'You'd get drunk' I say 'My husband died, I got cancer - I didn't drink therefore alcoholism has nothing to do with external triggers - yes?'
'YES' they chorus in unison - these kids get it what is so hard for people on here??
There is NOTHING - no trains of circumstances that can 'trigger' drinking in me. The ONLY thing that can 'trigger' drinking in a recovered alcoholic is failing to maintain a fit spiritual condition.
if you still believe that you are alcoholic and drinking can be 'triggered' by walking down the liquor aisle in the supermarket or something else of a similar nature, I invite you to work Steps 1-12, you will then achieve the same freedom that I and several others on this site have!