How to spot your triggers

If you want to reduce, or stop, your drinking understanding the ‘triggers’ that make you think about drinking can help you stay in control.

Have you ever looked back on a situation where you drank alcohol when you didn’t plan to, or drank more than you intended, and wondered why it happened?

It could be down to your ‘triggers’ – feelings or circumstances that can set off unwanted behaviour and cause you not to stick to your intentions.

The UK Chief Medical Officers’ low risk drinking guidelines recommend, that if you’re going to drink, it’s safest for both men and women to drink no more than 14 units a week, spread over three or more days with several drink-free days, and no bingeing.

What are triggers?

Triggers are different for everyone – and being affected by them is human nature. We’re all subject to a range of thoughts and emotions that can influence the choices we make, and any of these can affect your drinking behaviour.¹

Getting to know what yours are, and how to work round them, can be a great way to stick to your plans and achieve your goals.

Internal triggers

Your emotions and the way you feel can act as internal triggers. These can include things like feeling:²

Angry
Anxious
Bored
Celebratory
Excited
Happy
In pain
Frustrated
Lonely
Low mood
Self-defeating thoughts
Stressed
Tired, low energy

Drinking alcohol affects the balance of chemicals in your brain³ – it can change the way you feel, in a positive or negative way. Anticipation of these effects can be a trigger for drinking for some people,⁴while some others drink to try to cope with negative feelings.^5,6

But even if drinking temporarily gives you positive feelings, or curbs negative ones, it won’t help in the long-run because alcohol is a depressant.^7,8,9

If you feel a strong, often uncontrollable, desire to drink alcohol and you prioritise drinking above important things in your life like family or work, you may be dependent on alcohol.¹⁰ This type of drinking is very harmful to your health, and you will need medical support as soon as possible to safely cut down and stop drinking.

External triggers

There’s also the complexity of everything around you – like your physical environment, the culture of the place you live, and your interactions with the people in your life.¹¹ These can act as ‘external triggers’ towards a desire to drink. You might notice:

Adverts
A lack of non-alcoholic options when you want something to drink
Being alone, or eating alone
Other people offering you alcohol
Places you associate with alcohol, like passing a bar
Social situations – such as a party or a restaurant, or going on a date
Special offers
The sight or smell of alcoholic drinks
Things you associate with alcohol, like particular foods

Habits and routines that are part of your life can play a part too.^12,13

Examples of external triggers based on habits and routines include:

A particular time – like a Friday, or the end of the working day
After having an argument
Celebrating something
Eating your evening meal
Having a snack
Having an open bottle, or buying a certain amount of alcohol
Meeting with particular family or friends
Preparing food
Watching television

Add in these factors and it’s clear we live in a world where we’re constantly subject to a whole range of triggers that can knock plans off course.

Ways to stay in control

Being aware of your triggers is the first step towards being able to control them.¹⁴ You could try making a list of your triggers, so you know what to look out for.

Having several drink-free days each week is a good way to cut the amount you drink.¹⁵

Once you have an understanding of the triggers that can prompt you to feel like drinking alcohol, there are things you can do to stay in control and avoid drinking when you don’t want to.

Avoiding your triggers can be a particularly effective first step if you are just getting started with reducing your drinking. Other tactics for dealing with your triggers will be easier to stick to once you’ve managed to build up some good habits.

Do something else instead

Finding different types of rewards or distractions – other than drinking alcohol – can help when you are faced with things that normally trigger you. This technique is known by psychiatrists as ‘response substitution’.¹⁶

Apart from alcohol, what else do you find comforting? It could be a treat or an activity that helps to take your mind off things.

Building new habits

Choosing something you really enjoy will help you build new habits – research has found that having an expectation that something will be enjoyable makes it much more likely that it will be enjoyable.^17,18

The repetition of switching a negative habit for one with either a neutral or positive outcome will build up over time and can make a huge difference to your lifestyle, health, and happiness.¹⁹

After a while, drinking less will lower your tolerance to alcohol – meaning you don’t need to drink as much for the same effect, reducing your risk of becoming alcohol dependent.²⁰

Find out more about ways to stay in control of your drinking