When you are struggling with addiction, you will face stress and trials, particularly in the form of triggers. Triggers will always exist in some form or another, but their severity and the skills you have to control them can change when you get treatment for addiction and learn healthy coping skills.
What are Triggers in Addiction?
Triggers in addiction are things that remind you of your addiction and can cause significant mental or emotional distress. Triggers can take the form of internal or external stimuli, but no matter the form they take, they can place you in such a distressed or overwhelming situation that you have a strong desire to use drugs or drink again.
Examples of Common Triggers in Addiction
There are many types of triggers in addiction, each based on your history of addiction and lived experiences.
Mental Health
Sometimes, your triggers and addiction can be related to mental health. For many people, high levels of stress or anxiety can be a trigger.
If you are feeling anxiety-based triggers in addiction, you can take steps to manage your anxiety through proper planning or scheduling.
For example:
- Travel: If you have upcoming travel even if that’s something as small as going to a new doctor’s office for an appointment, you might plan ahead by looking up the route on your phone or even driving in a few days beforehand so you are comfortable with the route, with the parking lot and the parking situation, and you won’t feel as stressed the day of.
- Work: If you have an upcoming work obligation and you know that you will be very busy the second week of the month, you can plan ahead by making a list of the things you know you will have to do that month, like appointments, phone calls, and support group meetings, and try to plan them before or after the busy week at work.
Other times, you might need to face those fears slowly instead of immediately reacting by turning to drugs and alcohol to quell or otherwise diminish your feelings. This can look like:
- Meditation: Where you acknowledge the emotions that you are feeling or what it is that you need most
- Worst-case scenario: Where you actively set aside time to think about the worst-case scenario and have a plan for what would happen if that scenario came to pass
Stress, anger, or depression can also coexist alongside anxiety as triggers in addiction.
People, Places, Things
For others, triggers are things like people, places, or things that have a direct correlation or strong connection to addiction.
For example:
- Paraphernalia: Paraphernalia related to drugs or alcohol, something as simple as seeing a bottle of liquor or smelling certain drugs might be triggers.
- Places: For some people, triggers an addiction take the form of places, like a neighborhood where you used to get high or a town where you would go to buy drugs. This could even be something as simple as a restaurant or a local bar where you would go with your coworkers after work and drink. You might have to avoid these places entirely during the initial stages of your recovery.
- People: In some cases, your trigger might be people with whom you once did drugs or drank regularly. This could be people who dealt you drugs or friends with whom you got high. In this case, seeing them or being around them could be enough of a trigger for you that you might feel the urge to drink or use drugs again.
No matter your addiction triggers, you can learn how to control your emotional and mental responses, improve your self-care and mental health, and avoid the strong desires you might have to drink or do drugs again.
Getting Help with Ritual Recovery
Ritual Recovery offers addiction treatment in Asheville, where you can learn healthier coping skills to apply to situations where you are triggered, internally or externally. With our flexible outpatient programs, you can find facilities and housing options that offer innovative approaches to recovery.
We provide versatile services that help you focus on your long-term health and wellness in a collaborative, creative way. To that end, your time spent with our upscale center will teach you how to improve your mental health so that anxiety or depression doesn’t trigger you. We will work with you to develop personalized coping skills so that people, places, or things don’t cause a relapse.
Let us help you maintain your long-term sobriety today.
