When we are trying to better our mental health and avoid behaviour that negatively influences life, triggers are the stimuli that pull us toward self-harmful actions or thoughts.
We receive stimuli from our environment through our five senses: smell, sight, touch, hearing and taste. For people with addictions and other mental health challenges like post-traumatic stress disorder, navigating a world of triggers can be a raw, unsteadying experience.
Triggers can be external and obvious, like a gambling addict seeing the multi-coloured flashing lights of a casino, or internal like self-harming feelings of isolation, hunger, anger or even boredom.
A useful acronym when dealing with internal triggers is HALT, which stands for hungry, angry, lonely and tired. These four physical and emotional states are when, behavioural science has proven, we are particularly vulnerable to triggers that lead to relapsing into self-destructive behaviour.
At a starting stage in my path away from alcohol and the bad health choices that piggyback on that addiction, triggers were everywhere. Across most cultures in the world, alcohol is a cornerstone in the social architecture of life. It’s discouragingly everywhere.
For me, walking through a liquor store or bar was the “ground zero” of triggers. Like throwing a lit match toward a can of gas in a wood-framed house, predictably, things would go very wrong, very fast.
Eventually there comes a time when we get support and strength from community services, friends or family, to build a better life on the ashes of our previous one. Everyone deserves a chance for redemption and a restart. No one should be told otherwise.
A crucial part of my personal recovery was cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). I was made aware that the urges triggers spark, almost like a living organism, have a life span and eventually fade to an ineffectual state.
Urges are like big waves in the ocean, they seem frightening and powerful initially but eventually dissipate and become harmless. Also, like a cresting ocean wave, with tools from CBT, we can surf the edge of an urge until it is gone and confidence is gained from that success.
Confidence attained facing triggers and urges without relapsing is evidence that accumulates until we eventually reach a behavioural tipping point. Hard work starts to pay off and sobriety and its accompanying benefits such as good health, relationships and hangover-less mornings become normalized.
The process can be slow and if a trigger results in a relapse there is no failure or shame, only a learning experience and opportunity to reassemble ourselves stronger, smarter and carrying more wisdom with us.
Eventually we grow strong enough to tell our strategies and stories and hopefully pass on something helpful to others along the long and winding road toward mental health.
Robert Skender is a qathet region freelance writer and health commentator.
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