Examining Triggers

 

Recovery from addiction is one of the fiercest battles that we can engage in. The battle is waged on two primary fronts: the heart and the mind. If we are going to live in sobriety we have to learn to think in new and healthy ways. We have to undo the old ways of thinking and learn new ways of thinking. "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." (Romans 12:2) If we are going to be transformed so that we are no longer slaves to addiction, we need to have our minds renewed.

In the previous post I told how I would use Scripture as a weapon to help fight off the intrusive, lustful thoughts that often came with the addiction. This has continued to be a great tool in my ongoing efforts to combat the addiction. Throughout Scripture we are encouraged to meditate on Scripture and memorization is a key part of that.

Even while I was quoting Scripture, many times the unclean thoughts continued to assault me, and I would succumb to the temptations time and time again. Memorizing Scripture helped, but I needed more tools.

When I got into therapy and Twelve Step groups I learned about triggers. I had teenage students a few years back that would make jokes about people being triggered and becoming angry or upset over silly things. You may have heard of "trigger warnings" on certain college and university campuses warning more sensitive students that controversial or potentially offensive material is being presented. While this idea of "triggers" has entered the cultural mindset, I want to be clear about what it means in recovery.

A trigger is any situation, event, thought, idea, or emotion that leads to us feeling urges to act out in the addiction. The trigger sets up a chain of events in our hearts, minds and bodies that makes us feel a strong desire to indulge the addiction. An important part of recovery is learning to identify those triggers and avoid them as much as possible.

Recently, I heard of a friend in recovery slipping back into harmful behaviors because he saw some nudity in a movie. For him, that movie was a trigger. I may get triggered when I see an attractive woman in a swimming suit. You may overhear someone telling a sexually explicit story and feel triggered. Someone else could be driving by a strip club and feel triggered.

As far as sex addiction goes, these triggers are all fairly obvious. If we want to stop obsessing about sex, then we want to avoid exposing ourselves to sexual content as much as possible. If we have struggles with certain locations: bookstores, massage parlors, public restrooms and so on, we will want to avoid those places as much as we can, along with neighborhoods where we know former acting out partners live.

The internet is always a minefield for sex addicts. If I am going to watch a TV or streaming show, I have found it necessary to limit any MA or R rated content, or make sure I read reviews before I watch something. If it has sexual content, I avoid it. Some of us may say, "I am an adult, and I can watch what I want!"  Do what you will, I just know that sort of thinking led me to some very dark places on the internet and eventually to a Federal Correctional Institution. Just because we are "allowed" to watch something does mean that it is healthy or safe for us to do so. Just as alcohol is safe for most people, but it is deadly for alcoholics, sexual content is treacherous for sex addicts.

I have had to be careful with image searches in the past as well. It is all too easy to let those go from legitimate, wholesome searches and drift into pornography. There have been times when I had my smartphone locked up so that I could not get on the internet at all, and only had safe apps installed. If I wanted to add an app, I had to go through a program friend or sponsor who would have the password.

These are hardly exhaustive examples of triggers. Our goal should be to examine our acting out patterns and identify the situations and the environments that lead up to the acting out episodes and try to prevent and avoid those situations in the future.

All of this is developing our defenses. We are building our walls and putting our armor on. Recovery is about changing our behavior, and ultimately about changing the way that we think. If we want to change our minds this way, then we need to do away with those things that are poisoning our minds.

The triggers I have briefly discussed here are primarily surface, or more external triggers. There are also many internal states or conditions that can become triggers as well. We will look at those next time.