One of the most important parts of being able to deal with an addiction is knowing what our triggers are. Once we figure those out, we can start to reprogram ourselves with "new habits" that we insert into the place of the "old habits" when we sense those triggers or cravings.
For instance, a young girl bites her nails down to nibs and to the point that she can't use her fingers anymore because of the pain. Upon, tracking her data she realizes that she was bored and therefore started biting (and didn't even know it). But as she started to pay attention to the fact that she was bored, she began to figure out her cue and then inserted a new behavior...get up and go get a glass of water.
Another example, a young successful business man ends up drinking and has created such a bad habit of it that his wife has left him. He doesn't understand why because he provides for her every need. Upon figuring out his triggers, he realized that his anxiety kicks up every time he's about to close a huge business deal. In order to deal with the anxiety he heads to the bar to kick one back and take the edge off. But it has come to the point that anytime he feels anxiety he automatically heads to the bar. Now, he recognizes his anxiety and instead of heading to the bar (old habit) he has inserted a new habit of calling his accountability partner/sponsor that he met at Celebrate Recovery.
We ALL have habits that we wish we didn't have. Some are worse than others and some are downright dangerous. And we can change these habits, but it takes knowledge of what we are doing. By inserting a new habit into the spot of our old habit we can use the same cues as before and still get the same reward. The reward for the alcoholic was not the getting drunk (because no alcoholic says I like the hangover) but rather the temporary release of the anxiety feeling.
With that understanding, you can use
recoveryBox to
track what your triggers are. Don't confuse the cue verses the trigger. For the alcoholic, the trigger was not "closing the deal" but rather the feeling of anxiety. The cue was waiting for the closing of the business deal. We can't change the cues in life - they exist everywhere. But what does that cue trigger? Realize that feeling and then insert a new habit.
When you text/email your accountability partner, they can clearly see how to relate your triggers with your lights. It will be obvious to link together your triggers with habits. Your habits are being tracked by the light system. An accountability partner can help you see that triggers linked with red/yellow lights mean you are using healthy habits while green lights mean you have replaced bad habits with new ones.
While I know not everyone uses all pieces of recoveryBox (because there are a lot), they really do work together.
I encourage you to use the light system in conjunction with the trigger tracking system. Help yourself and your sponsor figure out the puzzle to your behaviors by providing as much information as you can.
As always, if you have questions about how to use the recoveryBox app, please email! Be supported!!
