Addiction and the Dissolution of Triggers
With my observations and experience in regard to addiction, I have come to believe that “triggers” as a single event or phenomenon are not as "real" as we believe them to be. Our society has a tendency to put too much emphasis (and the wrong emphasis) on time, past, present, future, and also on dualities. We often mistakenly divide complex phenomenon into two sides, seeing such processes as either black or white, and try to distinguish a solution by choosing one side or the other. Often, these problems, especially of the social or mental kind, are far more complex and we do ourselves and our loved ones a disfavor by not realizing the truth of this.
Triggers in regard to addiction might fall under into this trap.
It seems too easy, to me, to look back in hindsight and pinpoint the exact cause of a relapse, much like deciphering the cause or meaning of a dream. The brain is incredibly complex and I am not sure that the individual is ever meant to truly understand its processes and inner workings. I believe the same is true when it comes to the causal factors of decisions and the ultimate unfolding of our lives.
I think this can be explained more scientifically as well. If we think about addiction in relation the mental accounting barrier I believe we can be more tangible and scientific about this sentiment.
It has occurred to me that there is some relation to relapse/addiction and the type of barriers that might be in our way of getting to our drug or bad habit of choice. Without specifically quantifying the “weight”, it seems to me that if getting to our drug is relatively very easy, especially compared to some “clean” alternative, then it would be very difficult to succeed in staying clean. This suggests a complexity that worrying about a single trigger doesn't quite recognize.
We can think of the path between staying clean, or relapsing, from either side and so we can either work to put barriers in front of getting to our bad habits, or we can think of giving ourselves a clearer path to keeping busy in a positive way etc. (ie dealing with BOTH the black or white perspective).
Then in regard to hindsight, or looking for the single point/cause for failure, we could see that a “trigger” is really sort of a red herring from this perspective-just blaming the one thing that we are fixated on as the cause for failing, rather than seeing a bigger picture.
In the simplest and quickest perspective, we would be thinking of, and speaking of, more physical type barriers, such as getting rid of dealer's phone numbers, or relocating further away from our networks. I think we should remember that the complexity of the brain, and security of this nature, are such that change in this manner takes time, and so there might be complex solutions for creating such “positive” barriers in the brain that would take some significant amount of time to develop (ie there is likely different levels of addressing this problem/solution).
The obvious beneficial implication to be realized here is that we can work to create lasting change, in which physical triggers such as seeing a needle (for a heroin addict), WON'T put the recovered addict in danger of relapse, and it seems to me that this would speak to the fact that there ARE in fact many addicts that do finally quit and have great success over time, yet we cannot seem to perfectly identify what the specific factors for lasting stability and success are.
If we could alleviate the problem of triggers with this kind of method of increasing the barriers to relapse, then we could eliminate the possibility or probability of these types of “single points of failure” we call triggers.
addiction has at least two components. the "soil" and the "crop" if you will. the soil is the underlying substrate which allows the addiction to form. the soil is usually a dietary lack or overabundance. the "crop" part is the trauma. many people experience trauma, not all of them form an addiction. i experienced much trauma as a child and was unhealthy. i developed multiple addictions. when i became ill, i set about to rectify my health. as a result my addictions no longer had any hold on me. often these must both be present for the addiction to exist. sometimes there are other physiological problems that can cause complications, such as TBI, these can often, also, be mitigated with diet. psychological triggers, may not subside completely but without the underlying condition will be within the person's ability to control. if the underlying condition is not rectified, the addiction cannot be changed with any amount of psychology. short of behavioral pain conditioning.
Ya I get this, it speaks to the complexity of the problem also. I have some other thoughts that I am brewing, and have written about somewhat before. Basically we all have to justify our past, sort of explain it to ourselves, and when things happen that we cannot make sense of, and especially that don't rely jive with the reality that our peers subscribe to we output sort of an "error". This locks us in a sort of purgatory. This is one reason I think group therapy with other addicts with similar problems would be helpful. Most people can't relate to this kind of problem, and this creates a barrier to fitting in socially. Trauma, in many forms does this, since even if we are familiar with trauma, we each try to forget it in order to normalize ourselves in our daily lives.
Thx for commenting!
i have found that by learning the Trivium method, i was able to clear up much of the contradiction that allows me clear sight when trying to find error and deceit. eliminating the purgatory of confusion or cognitive dissonance. when people disagree with the logical outcome of the processed facts then there is an error or a deceit. one of us is mistaken or not being truthful, sometimes with ourselves. sticking to the process forces the truth out. trauma or no. thank you.
I checked it out. You might find something equally as valuable in what Bruce Lee taught as an extension of Jiddu Krishnamurti. Difficult at first to accept, but approaching life with no centre, no method. I have written about this, some on steemit. Cheers!