Category Archives: Triggers

Triggers & Relapse Prevention

Posted on by under Desire, Miracles, Psychic Change, Relapse Prevention, Triggers

     I know I’ve said this before, but it’s important…

     If an addict is honest with himself, he will admit that triggers don’t exist. Breathing, waking up, the fact that we’re alive – these are the only triggers. Everything is a trigger, or rather, nothing is. We don’t need a reason to use. Triggers are flimsy excuses that allow us to avoid taking responsibility for relapsing. The truth is that so long as we suffer from the mental obsession, anything could be a trigger. The overwhelming thought to use will come for any reason or for no reason at all. So avoiding triggers is a useless endeavor. You cannot escape the mental obsession. The only way to free ourselves from triggers is to undergo a psychic change that fundamentally restores our minds, hearts and spirits.

     That’s why relapse prevention is a joke. It assumes that triggers actually exist and as such, treatment amounts to avoiding people, places and things that make us want to use. Sorry, but that’s not a solution, which is a shame given this is the only thing MSM (Mainstream Treatment Methods) has to offer – to remain an insane drug addict and pray that you don’t bump into one of your triggers. That would make it pretty tough just to get to work…

     Hmmm, can’t go that way because I pass by the liquor store… but I can’t go the other way because I pass by the park I used to get high at and that’s a trigger of mine also… Gee, I guess I’ll have to just lock myself up and throw away the key…

     Is that a solution? Nope. How about becoming free to go anywhere on earth that we so desire? Is that possible for even the most beat up, hopeless drug addicts? Yup, sure is. As soon as you get out of detox, find a recovered individual to take you through a Step process (as its laid out in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous). Be completely honest, thorough and fearless (99% = ZERO). Go to any lengths. Don’t give up. If you really want to change, if you really want to grow spiritually, if you really want to be free, then God will free you.

God, please give me the power and willingness to go to any length to get better…  

Reasons Don’t Exist

Posted on by under Action, Reasons, Spiritual Problem, Spiritual Solution, Therapy, Triggers

     Just like triggers, reasons don’t exist either. The choice to use is a selfish one. Nothing makes us want to use. Regardless of what’s happened to us or how miserable we are, WE choose to use and therefore WE are the reason. Nothing else and nobody else is the reason. This is why therapy is useless for a drug addict. Finding reasons why we use just gives us excuses to keep using.


     Wanh… I’m sad, angry, depressed, hurt, abused, victimized, blah, blah, blah… so I HAVE to use. See, now you know why I do what I do. You would do the same exact thing! Wanh, wanh, wanh…  
     Drug addicts use because they are selfish and want to use. Go ahead, send them to a therapist to work out their emotional issues. Trust me, once they’ve got it all figured out, they are going to go get high. Addicts don’t need a reason, nor the resolution of a reason, to use. I’m telling you that even the happiest kid from a loving family will turn into an addict for no reason at all. He becomes an addict simply because he chooses to pick up and use over and over again until he or she is broken. It’s that simple.
     And it’s the same even if we have been hurt. Plenty of people have been hurt and don’t mutate into hopeless drug addicts. And once we become addicts, you are spinning your wheels trying to talk it out of us. We need to go from being insane (missing chip) to sane again (chip re-inserted), and the truth is that no amount of talking and no amount of medication can accomplish this. Addicts need nothing short of a psychic change via a spiritual experience. We need to replace our addiction with something as powerful as the addiction itself.
     Reasons allow us to sidestep responsibility, and believe me, if you give an addict a chance to avoid it, they will. Regardless of whether the reasons we discover and give to ourselves are true or not, drinking and using drugs is wrong if we have lost control. Instead, we should be told that we no longer have the right to use, no matter what happened to us, no matter how we feel or how we (with dramatic emphasis) ache so.
     I’m not saying therapists can’t help people, I’m just saying they can’t help drug addicts – the most manipulative, deceptive, dishonest, selfish and pathologically infantile group out there (besides borderlines and narcissists, or sociopaths). And we need to especially watch out for psychiatrists. Believe it or not, they actually have the balls to prescribe drug addicts more drugs. Great solution. What an absolute joke. See you in the next life after you overdose.
God, help me remember that if my problem is spiritual in nature, than so must be my solution… 

Triggers Don’t Exist

Posted on by under Addiction 101, Conventional Treatment Strategies, Therapy, Triggers

     Why does the mainstream treatment community tell us that relapse is part of recovery when it has nothing to do with recovery? Newsflash: It’s not okay to relapse. Doctors, therapists, social workers, and so-called addiction specialists blindly recite the false text book mantra that “relapse is part of recovery.”

     Why?

     Because they simply don’t know anything else. The sad truth is that millions of professionals out there don’t actually know what addiction is (spiritual ailment) or how to treat it. Why is it okay to relapse when relapsing means another long and destructive cycle of lies, theft, sadness, pain, heartache and damage to countless others?

     Treatment ‘experts’ say that triggers exist for addicts and alcoholics, and as such, treatment revolves around avoiding people or places or things that trigger us. Ah, you gotta be kidding me. First of all, triggers don’t exist. Flimsy excuses. Being alive is our only trigger. Nothing makes us want to use. We want to use ALL THE TIME.

     Secondly, what sort of solution is that for a drug addict? So my solution involves desperately trying not to bump into this person, or walk by that place, or keep all drugs and alcohol out of my sight? If that is my only hope then I should just lock myself up and throw away the key, because I am doomed.

     This sort of information is actually dangerous. To tell an addict that it is their triggers that make them use is to basically eliminate any personal and moral responsibility they might assume, which might then trigger them to go get better (pun intended). Furthermore, to teach an addict that it is someone or something outside of themselves that makes them go drink or pick up is unbelievably irresponsible and stems from pure ignorance. WE are the only reason. We drink because we like drinking and because we are selfish beyond belief. Nothing makes us want to drink. Our only trigger is breathing.

     If I buy this notion and take this advice about triggers, then I basically have prevented myself from recovering. The world will forever be a dangerous place for an addict. I will be walking around subject to relapse at any point in time. I am cursed to struggle and fight through each day to stay sober. I will forever crave drugs and alcohol and fend off urges day and night. Mainstream treatment tells us that there is really no hope, that the addict or alcoholic never really gets better, and thus we never can truly recover.

     That is complete and total bullshit.

     We can recover fully and forever. We can live utterly free from any urges or desires to drink or use. We can become free and happy men and women. And this freedom means we can walk by any store, down any block, or sit there and stare at a medicine cabinet full of juicy meds. This means we can hang out with anybody, regardless of how fucked up they still are. This means we can have wine in the house for guests. This means we can even buy our friend a bag of dope just to get his ass to detox or treatment.

     But Charlie, how can you say such things?!?!

     Because we can deliver ourselves from our insanity. Or rather, God can deliver us. We can grow new minds and remain permanently free from the mental obsession to drink or use drugs. We can travel, work, and enjoy life without having to drag ourselves to five meetings a day until the day that we die. We don’t have to merely live “in recovery”.

     We can become RECOVERED.

     Personally, I took Steps to recover. I am now a free man. And the same can be true for any drug addict or alcoholic out there. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Don’t feed yourself a bunch of excuses. Don’t let yourself off the hook. And always remember:

     Triggers don’t exist.

God, help me to remember that nothing outside of myself is responsible for my drinking or drug use…

Triggers

Posted on by under 1st Step, Relapse Prevention, Triggers

     Triggers? Ah, no.

     Conventional treatment programs and addiction “specialists” tell you to write down your triggers, as if there is some reason – some person, place or thing that makes us want to use. So, what makes us want to use? Um, let’s see, NOTHING. How about everything? The truth is that nothing makes us want to use. Once you turn yourself into an addict, that’s just what you do. You use. It’s a reflex. 

     Oh, there’s painkillers in your cabinet? Huh. I think I’ll swallow all of those, thank you very little… not like you really needed them or anything… definitely not more than I do.

     So the experts tell me that all I have to do to stay sober and, by implication, to then go and have a great life, is to avoid my triggers. Just avoid all of the people, places and things that make me want to use. Okay, by the way, if I have to avoid this street, that park, this store, that friend, this TV show, that asshole… then I basically can’t go anywhere. Sorry, but I’d rather be free. To be clear, I don’t recommend that you go hang out in a bar the second you leave detox. What I’m saying is that if triggers do exist for you, than you’re not okay. Avoiding everything that makes me feel like using in NOT a solution.

     Remove the obsession and there is no such thing as a trigger. It’s not easy, and it will require the power of God, most likely. 

     Addict’s will try to blame anything and everyone for the reason they have to drink like pigs or get jammed out of their fucking minds. Let me help out a little bit: Nothing makes us want or need to use. We use because we love using. We use because we love drinking and we love drugs. I use because I’m too much of a child and a coward to walk through my feelings of pain, boredom, discomfort or depression. I’m too much of a wimp and a shithead to grow up and maybe do some real work on myself. I’m too much of a fear-driven loser to change. Truly, we addicts are simply babies who don’t want to grow up.

     I’ll take a line from my book – Addicts should suck their thumbs so people can identify them.

     At some point we cross over that invisible line, break our bodies, acquire this allergy, and once that occurs, every time we start using, we can’t stop. It’s that simple. Trust me, I don’t drink and get high because of my family, my friends, my anger, my depression, the nutjob babysitter who bathed me in an inch of cold water and sang Puff the Magic Dragon with her b.o.-ridden boyfriend, my alcoholic and withdrawn father, the guys who jumped me in college, the borderline girlfriend who made me want to stab my eyeball with a sharp object… and the list goes on forever. No one makes us want to use. And the dope doesn’t fly through the air and force itself up my nose. That’s a good one – It was right there in front of me! Anybody woulda’ done it!

God, help me to always remember that nothing makes me use other than myself…