I was struck by this critical observation by SpringerRider and thought it merits its own post:

Do not see your upticks as failures or setbacks. These are deeper triggers rising to the surface. Remember, when you first start, anything is a trigger. Things like air and daylight are enough to make you drink. As you knock these high level triggers down through the process of extinction, more deep rooted and often more powerful triggers will surface. Don't let it scare you away. It is the Sinclair Method working for you as long as you follow the golden rule.

I have noticed this myself but wasn't fully aware of it until I read this comment by SR. Triggers come in all sizes, from relatively small to profoundly mountainous. For me, a relatively small trigger is 5 PM on any day of the week -- cocktail hour. This is roughly the time I have historically started drinking (before TSM) on the weekends and always on vacations. During my non-drinking days of Sunday to Wednesday the thought of drinking always crossed my mind at around 5 PM (unless it's a Sunday, hangover recovery day where I swore off alcohol for 24 hours). Since before TSM I routinely didn't drink a few days a week at 5 PM, this trigger was on the very minor scale for me. And yesterday, when I took an AF day, I noticed that 5 PM came and went and I didn't even think about drinking -- it did not cross my mind. And this happened to me on a non-hangover day where I was feeling fine and it NEVER would have happened pre-TSM. This is strong evidence to me that TSM is working for me and that one of my minor triggers has been extinguished since starting TSM.

Now let's move to the other side of the trigger spectrum -- the profoundly mountainous trigger for me -- the knock down, drag out fight with GF where after years together, the words, "It's over, this isn't working" are uttered. I have either said or heard these words roughly five to ten times in my life where a significant, long-term relationship is over. This is probably my biggest personal trigger and when it comes up, my urge to climb into a bottle is insurmountable. It happened to me when I complained that I wanted to get drunk but couldn't get drunk enough on naltrexone two weeks ago. Something on this level also happened to SR when his beloved daughter was facing multiple hours of surgery. These huge triggers will be almost impossible to extinguish. I am pretty sure that even if I were to go AF for years with zero cravings, that when a relationship ends that I will have a huge urge to drink heavily.

In between the minor triggers and the profoundly mountainous triggers are all of the other daily triggers that we will have to defeat on our TSM journey. For me, some would be a Friday afternoon, any party, a feeling of accomplishment, a feeling of sadness, a feeling of loneliness, a feeling of a job well done, etc., etc. Some of these triggers, depending upon how ingrained they are in my psyche, will take longer to extinguish than others. As I said, a relatively minor trigger for me, 5 PM, has already been extinguished. I'm sure there are several other triggers for me personally that have been extinguished since starting TSM that I'm not even aware of. Just one example of "other triggers" would be whatever goes through my head after the first drink. Pre-TSM I'd have the first drink and the second drink could not come fast enough: "Where the hell is that waitress??" Since starting TSM I have not once impatiently waited for the following drinks to arrive the way I did before starting TSM. This is more evidence to me of trigger extinction that I'm not even really aware of at a conscious level.

The moral of the story for me is that the process of TSM is probably a rollercoaster ride because of the varying degrees of triggers that we are facing on a daily basis. We extinguish a few of the minor triggers and are very happy with our noticeable success. And then, inevitably, a larger trigger comes along and hits us in the head that may take quite a bit longer to extinguish than the lesser triggers. We then defeat a few of the higher level triggers by drinking through them on naltrexone. And then we defeat those higher level triggers and incorrectly assume that we are in the clear. And then a profoundly mountainous trigger rears its ugly head and we completely fall of the wagon. It would be easy to conclude that TSM isn't working after an encounter with a mountainous trigger leads to a huge binge. However, upon further, deeper reflection, it simply was a mountainous trigger that had yet to be defeated. And the failure to defeat this mountainous trigger should not blind us from the fact that we have already extinguished several lesser triggers, some that we are consciously aware of, but many that were eliminated without us even being aware of it. In other words, TSM is still working for you, even though you were not yet able to defeat that one ultimate trigger and do not lose sight of the fact that hundreds, if not thousands of lesser triggers, are being extinguished routinely during TSM. We are aware of some of them but most are probably extinguished at a subconscious level. As I see it, extinguishing varying levels of triggers is manifested by the non-linear, rollercoaster ride of TSM. And if we are patient and are loyal to the formula, NALTREXONE PLUS DRINKING = CURE, we will inevitably be victorious in our quest to defeat The Beast.

An addendum that just crossed my mind during my jog: As SR said, when we first start TSM, anything and everything is a trigger: the sun, the air, being awake, etc. These are the tiny, smaller triggers. It is possible that when we first start TSM, we are extinguishing the tiny, daily triggers, i.e., the weakest triggers that we have learned during our lifetime of drinking. We easily defeat these lesser triggers during the honeymoon phase and falsely think that we are cured. Then "The Beast" steps in and says, "hell no" and introduces the bigger triggers in its effort to make us continue drinking. We then face the bigger triggers that take more time to extinguish because they have been conditioned longer and are more forcefully entrenched in our psyches than the weaker triggers, like the sun and air. As we progress on TSM, we defeat the medium-sized triggers and again start to see lower drinking levels than pre-TSM. At some point again The Beast returns with the mountainous triggers that have been conditioned in our psyches for an even longer period of time and it will take even longer to defeat these mountainous triggers. (An example would be SR declaring victory, only to have one last mountainous trigger -- his concern for his daughter's health -- extinguished.) When we finally slay the mountainous triggers, we can safely say that we are cured...

Just a theory that makes sense to me...

Nick
Thanks for posting about triggers. It's important information that I easily forget -- that triggers are being extinguished all the time without our knowledge. Like you, my major trigger is 5pm. That hasn't seemed to change much, except I do find myself going longer (some days) without taking that first sip.

And I agree completely that the end of a relationship is a trigger that will never be extinguished. So sorry to hear about your g/f. We are here for you if you need to unload.