The Word Trigger Triggers Me

Here it is again - that word RESPONSIBILITY

If you’re a new Subscriber to DARE TO BE DRY, hello! I’m so happy to have you here. I invite you to explore below to learn a little bit more about me and find links to some of my earlier essays that connected with readers:

DARE TO BE DRY is sobriety focused. But you don’t have to have ever had a problematic tango with alcohol to be here and feel resonance. This is the space where I get curious and invite whatever parts of me want to step up that day. For decades I spent so much time and energy doing. Writing reminds me of the importance of simply being. It slows me down. I’ve learned I don’t like the pace in the fast lane. 

• My “hero post” explaining what my heart wants from this space and what it DARES TO BE

• One of my most vulnerable essays letting you know I Was That Kind of Drinker

• I love writing about parenting - it teaches me so much. Here are two of my favorites: Preparing to Launch and Trusting the Mother in Me

If anyone reading this spends time worrying about our youth and our teens, particularly our teenage boys, and wonders if they are paying close attention and wonders if they feel things deeply; I have evidence that, indeed, they do. Even when and even though our youth spend so much time tied to their devices, from time to time, they do look up and notice a lot.

Two weeks ago, on what would have been my father’s 77th birthday, I shared an essay I wrote as a tribute to my dad, who we lost in 2020. Click below if you missed it:

At the end of the essay, I linked in audio from a voicemail I saved from my dad. It was the first message I received on my phone after slogging through my first marathon (in the pouring rain, I might add). I heard it minutes after crossing the finish line. As sweat smeared tears of pride streamed down my face, I listened to my dad’s congratulatory cheer.

Last week, my son came home from a trip to the mall. “Mom, I bought you something. Close your eyes.” I do what I’m told, and, in my lap, he places this:

My kid read my essay. My kid has the biggest heart. My kid misses his Pa and knows how much this gift would mean to his mom who is still grieving. Our kids - they notice. They care. They are going to help get this country back to where it needs to be (IMO).

I’ve been thinking a lot about the pulse of anxiety and how it has the ability to filter in and out of my days. Filter in and out of my veins. How some days I feel it beating like heart palpitations. And on others, it’s low grade. Just below the surface. Barely visible, sometimes lurking and ready to pounce.

Lately, I am spending a lot of head space on owning things that are mine. On naming my role in things. Being honest with myself enough to recognize how I am contributing to things that seem sticky. Things I once convinced myself were someone else’s “doing.”

Many people who read what I write are on sober journeys. And even if you’re not, I think this will track. In sober circles there is a lot of talk about triggers. People or events or memories or conversations that can trigger you to “want” a drink or to numb out.

For me, personally, I am trying to eliminate that word. Because the word trigger is triggering me. It is keeping me stuck.

One of my biggest lessons in sobriety, one that has afforded me tremendous freedom, is accepting my responsibility in it all. That even though it is not my fault (alcohol is an addictive substance that when drank often over time will make you addicted) it is my responsibility. It is my responsibility to face, own and clean up my messes. And do better, now that I know better.

And none of that is a guarantee when you remove alcohol. Because getting sober does not simply mean not drinking.

I wrote at length about this responsibility piece here when I asked Do You Have a Thing?

In my mind and in my body, I think I need to reframe it. Instead of, how or will this person or this interaction trigger me, I want to instead ask, how can I respond or not respond? Seems subtle, but that changes it for me. It shifts to me holding myself accountable. It moves me out of victim mentality. How can I not overrespond like I may have in the past? This feels like taking more accountability to my role in the interaction. This feels more integral to the person I want to be.

We all have a limit and our own capacity tank. Some days my tank feels limitless. I can hold more opposing views. And then there are other days when, for various reasons, my tolerance and threshold for opposition (what I internalize or view as opposition), is quite low. I have been working very hard on noticing when I feel activated and pausing first to assess my role in it. Before I walk the line, and sometimes eventually cross the line, of over responding, I do an internal check-in. So that I don’t fall prey to impulsive reactions that can feel familiar if I let it. The familiar way of pushing my view and exerting my stance on to someone else. There is a lot of dopamine that can surge when you live that way.

The other day, someone in my sober circle shared this reframe. Instead of saying, don’t just stand there, do something. Change it to, don’t do something, just stand there.

I can’t adequately explain how much this has helped me since I heard her say that.

I have been able to pause more. React less. Think more. Project less.

When something someone else does or says activates something in me, it’s on me to hold it before kicking at it or punching energetically at the words.

There’s a certain maturity in letting discomfort stay a while. Or at least sit on you for a hot minute. Even when it feels suffocating. Chances are, that loss of breath that you are experiencing has more to do with you than the person who made you uncomfortable.

This is all a delicate dance I am trying to learn which involves speaking my needs in a way that is not reactive. In a way that is considerate and thought out. In a way that does not diminish my wants yet also gives space to the other person who I may have in the past categorically assumed can’t see it the same as me.

I guess what I’m saying is I am in a season right now where I am really curious about making the unconscious conscious. And doing so requires a slow pace and a much quieter volume. This is me trying. And staying with the pitch and tone of it all and resisting any urge to increase the volume to a level where I am over speaking. Because when I do, I’m drowning out another voice. Just because it might be singing a different song. There’s room for two melodies. I want to find harmony. Life is one long soundtrack.

This looks like being ok with not landing in a resolution during a really hard conversation. Being ok with putting a pin in the dialogue while locking eyes warmly, and saying, let’s revisit this.

I’m doing this with my teenage son. I’m doing this with my spouse and some friendships that have felt a bit heavy lately. And more than any anything else, I am doing this most frequently with myself.

A permission slip to myself: Allison, you don’t have to have all this figured out. When you feel secure and strong and content on a Tuesday and then wake up Wednesday, feeling shaky, you don’t need to exhaust yourself grasping for reasons why that might be.

When I’m activated now, I encourage myself not to pathologize it. Separate the feelings I have in my body with the labels I am slapping all over the experience. Peel off the labels of assumptions I’ve plastered over this other person I am having an exchange with. Sometimes this happens just from watching a movie or reading a book. Listening to someone speak on a sobriety meeting. What does the way their words are landing on me mean about me? My ego. My life experience. My intolerances.

When I allow access to the motherboard of my mind and not hook on worry over any the defragging moments that inevitably will pop up, it feels like a superpower. What I am working towards is harmonizing how I hold my opinions and judgements (of myself and others). By harmonizing I mean not falling for the compulsion to ruminate and sit through all the reruns in my mind between what happened in that scene with so and so. Pulling up my directors chair and internally shouting “CUT”. Let’s leave that clip on the cutting floor. No need to pick it back up. It won’t get me closer to the truth of my story. So why give it airtime?

My daughter took this picture from the backseat of my car. I am obsessed. When things feel hard, just look up.

CHIME IN:

~Do you live on ruminate street? Do you cruise around in the neighborhood of re-runs?

~How do you lay things to rest? How are you with examining your shadow side? Do you even think about this stuff?

If you're a writer on Substack and have been enjoying my work, please consider recommending DARE TO BE DRY to your readers for essays from a sober focused woman and mom who is waking up to life here in mid-life, daring to speak up as a woman in recovery who is writing about recovery of self, turning down the noise of the world, reclaiming desire and walking into each day with intentional living.

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