One of the strategies that helped me most to get sober was to identify my addiction triggers. Whenever I felt an urge to take a drink, I’d try my hardest to figure out what had caused the craving.
Sometimes, I couldn’t come up with an answer. A lot of cravings, especially during the first few weeks of sobriety, really do seem to pop up out of nowhere.
Other times, however, I was far more successful. Even cravings that initially felt random often had a clearly identifiable cause.
Discovering these triggers was important for two reasons:
First, it allowed me to address the underlying cause of my craving, rather than dwell on it (and risk a relapse).
Second, it helped me to avoid the triggers, and as a result, reduce the number of cravings that I experienced.
This can all sound a little vague when speaking about it in the abstract, so in today’s newsletter, I’m going to share some of the specific triggers that I identified, and the steps that I took to address or avoid those triggers.
This is my personal list, so not every trigger is going to apply to every person reading this. However, I think that by focusing on the real cravings that I experienced, this will be more helpful than a bland, generic list.
I hope that even if you aren’t experiencing the exact same triggers as I did, my list will still help you think about how to respond to your cravings.
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