Understanding triggers

A trigger is any stimulus — internal or external — that prompts a craving. Identifying yours is the load-bearing first move in recovery; you can't manage a pattern you can't see.

Internal triggers

Triggers that come from inside.

Emotional

The biggest category for most people. Specific emotions or emotional states that consistently produce cravings:

• Stress
• Anxiety
• Sadness or low mood
• Anger
• Loneliness
• Boredom

Boredom is underrated — for many users it's the single largest trigger, more than acute stress.

Physical

Body states that lower your resilience:

• Fatigue or sleep deprivation
• Hunger
• Pain
• Hormonal shifts

Sleep and hunger compound: a tired, hungry person makes worse choices than a rested, fed one. This is why the check-in tracks sleep quality.

Cognitive

Thought patterns that escalate into urges:

• Negative self-talk ("I'm worthless")
• Rumination (replaying the same thought repeatedly)
• Rationalizing ("just this once won't matter")
• Catastrophizing ("nothing will ever be good")

Cognitive triggers are where thought reframing exercises pay off most directly.

External triggers

Triggers from outside.

Environmental

Places, times, or situations linked to past behavior:

• Specific locations (the bar, the gas station, your old apartment)
• Times of day (late evening, post-dinner, mid-afternoon slump)
• Specific situations (Friday after work, Sunday morning)

Environmental triggers respond well to changing the environment — see building healthy habits on cue modification.

Social

People or social contexts associated with the behavior:

• Specific friends or family members
• Peer pressure or "everyone else is doing it"
• Specific events (parties, work happy hours, family gatherings)

Social triggers are the hardest to address because the relationships often matter to you. Tools: scripts for declining, accountability partners, recovery-friendly social activities to substitute.

Sensory

Sights, sounds, smells, or tastes connected to past behavior:

• Visual cues (advertising, packaging)
• Specific smells or tastes
• Background sounds (music, ambient noise from a specific context)

The Focus extension's blocking is largely a sensory-trigger intervention.

Compound triggers

Most real cravings are stacks. "Friday evening, after a hard week, alone, with a bottle nearby" is four triggers reinforcing each other. Single triggers usually pass; stacks compound.

The check-in's multi-select trigger field captures this — log all the triggers, not just the strongest.

How tracking helps

Over weeks, the Progress page shows:

• Which triggers appear most often. Often surprising — many people overestimate "stress" and underestimate "boredom".
• Which triggers correlate with your highest-craving days. Frequency and intensity are different metrics; tracking shows the difference.
• Which triggers cluster with which others. "Sunday evening
  • alone + tired" might be three logs for one underlying pattern.
• Which triggers are decreasing as recovery progresses. A positive trend even if absolute numbers are still high.

Using your trigger data

Once you know your patterns, three concrete moves:

1. Avoid what you can. Some triggers are avoidable — don't keep alcohol in the house if Friday-evening drinking alone is your pattern. Some aren't. Distinguish the two.
2. Prepare for what you can't. For unavoidable triggers, pre-plan coping responses. See coping strategies and the safety plan.
3. Add friction. Time Vault and Focus extension are specifically designed to interrupt trigger-to-action chains.

Common pitfalls

Next steps

• Coping strategies — what to do when triggers fire.
• Building healthy habits — how cues become routines and how to shift them.
• Daily check-ins — the source of trigger data.