Triggers: Cues that can Threaten Recovery
“I’ve been triggered. I have not relapsed, but I have spent many sessions sitting and talking about how triggered I am: you know, like having to search [my son’s] room and take drugs out of it and throw them in the garbage and be right in the midst of it.”
“My son was [living] in the tents, and I had to go down and I found him and drug him out and all that stuff. It was really difficult to do, and lots of times like when I first started taking him to treatment, I’d run into people that I was in treatment with that had failed again. It was like going back 20 years and doing it all over again.”
“I got my nursing license back in 2021, which was really exciting and when I went back to nursing, I had to do some urine tests and some documentation and stuff. I had gone through bankruptcy; I was on welfare for a period of time. I was at the end of my leash for any sort of money. So I was like OK I’ll take it, it was a part-time job.”
“It was the scariest thing in the world. I was going back to the hospital where my addiction started. It was hugely triggering: the same people, places and things. I came to find out I’m working with some of the nurses that I worked with before, which was scary. I thought, all these girls are gonna know everything, and they’re gonna tell everybody. But at that point in my recovery, I had done so much, and I wore my story on my sleeve. I told it to the people that earned the right to hear my story. I shared it with some struggling clients and patients that had their own addictions and that was an amazing experience.”
“I have to learn to stop myself. That was my first inclination: as soon as something went wrong, I needed a drink [as soon as possible]. As my kids were asleep, I needed to drink. So my strategy was kind of like, “OK let’s wait and see if we can go one hour after the kids go to bed before you have your first drink, and then let’s see if maybe you can go two hours.” Just kind of stretch it out. One hour was manageable. I did manage one hour, two hours. I did try.”
“I would’ve never gotten sober without Sophia. When you first get sober, you’re alone, you’re bored, there’s nowhere to go. People don’t just sit at Tim Hortons waiting for a friend. When you’re first sober it’s very dangerous to go out in the world. You can’t just go to the bar, or the friend’s house you were at last year.”