OVERCOMING TRIGGERS
With summer months upon us, we asked these clean and sober individuals with different lengths of recovery time how they deal with situations that may trigger them to drink or use
BY PAULO MURILLO
MY SOBER FAMILY
“Dealing with triggers is definitely about keeping the people close that I trust. Feeling lonely and being in isolation, is a recipe for a relapse. I keep people close whose advice I trust, and know that I can talk about anything with. It’s people that I can call at three in the morning whenever I experience something. I experience triggers surrounding death, grief and loss, which is difficult for me to deal with, and unfortunately, that’s something we can always depend on in life. I definitely keep my sober family close to me… I’m very close to my parents and both of my younger siblings back home… So, I just keep certain people very close to me for certain things that I may experience in life.”
—Jordan Harris, sober since May 18, 2025.
FOCUS OUTWARD
“I really do not get triggered anymore, weirdly, and I’m not always completely around all sober people either, but I do talk to people that do get triggered. Newly sober people reach out to me and ask me for advice and the biggest advice I give them is what my sponsor always tells me, which is instead of focusing inward, focus outward. Focus on something or somebody else. Be of service… Pride is coming up, and I enjoy pride now more than when I was out there, because when I was out there, I was always too high or low to even do pride. So now, I enjoy it.”
—Jimmy Williams, sober since December 12, 2022.
CALL A SPONSOR
“Triggers are a tough one… I did get triggered at a pool party and the first thing that I did was I ran away from it. It was basically a hot tub full of boys, and I was overwhelmed. What I did was I ran to 12 step meetings. That was what they taught me to do. Tragedy also triggers me. I lost a boyfriend to addiction. It was a terrible situation. He was having a psychosis. He triggered a fire alarm and he broke into my closet and got my firearm and he pointed it at a cop and they shot him to death… The way I dealt with that, thank God, was I called my sponsor, because all kinds of things ran through my head. I needed a drink. I needed relief. But rather than do that, the contrary action was to call a sponsor, and the program of recovery surrounded me. They showed up for me… Service is what gets me out of trigger, because it’s not about me anymore, I lean in to my sobriety and my support.
—Paul Hancock, sober since August 10, 2016.
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