Source: https://sober44.com/tools/drinking-triggers-quiz/ Sober44 is a free alcohol-free tracker app for iOS and Android: count sober days, see money and drinks saved, plan a taper and follow health milestones. Get the Sober44 app: [App Store](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6790916681?pt=120576754&ct=sober44.md&mt=8) · [Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ehmtech.drinking&referrer=utm_source%3Dsober44.md) # Drinking Triggers Quiz Rate how often 16 everyday situations lead you to a drink, from stress and boredom to parties, the end of the workday and how your body feels. You get your top triggers, how they split into internal and external, and an if-then plan for your top three. It isn’t a diagnosis. _Interactive tool: open [the web page](https://sober44.com/tools/drinking-triggers-quiz/) to use it. This Markdown copy has the text only._ **Track it day to day.** A quiz is a snapshot of what you remember. For a couple of weeks, note each urge: when and where it hit, who you were with, what came just before, how strong it was and what you did. Keep it to a line or two. Then check which triggers keep repeating and whether your plans held. This quiz isn’t a diagnosis and isn’t medical advice. It shows patterns in what you told it, not how much you drink or whether you have a drinking problem. ## How the drinking triggers quiz works Each answer scores points: 0 for Never, 1 for Sometimes, 2 for Often and 3 for Almost always. A situation you skip counts as Never. Your top triggers are the situations with the most points, and when two tie, the one that comes first in the quiz ranks higher. Only situations you rated Sometimes or more make the list, and the top three get a plan. Each type’s share is its points out of the most it could score: 15 for the five emotional situations, 12 for the four social ones, 12 for the four habit-and-time ones and 9 for the three physical ones. Rate all five emotional situations Sometimes and that type gets 5 of 15 points, which shows as 33%. Because each type is measured against its own maximum, the type with the most questions doesn’t come out on top just by having more of them. The internal share is your points from feelings and body sensations as a share of all your points. External is the rest: people, occasions, routines, times of day and the sight of alcohol. Eight situations sit on each side, so neither one starts ahead. The 16 situations and the scoring are written for this page; it isn’t a published or validated test, and it can’t diagnose anything. It doesn’t measure how much you drink either. For that, the [drinks per week calculator](https://sober44.com/tools/drinks-per-week-calculator/) adds up your week in standard drinks. The four types draw on two public frameworks. NIAAA’s [Rethinking Drinking](https://rethinkingdrinking.niaaa.nih.gov/tools/worksheets-more/handling-urges-drink) describes external triggers as “people, places, things, or times of day that offer drinking opportunities or remind you of drinking,” and internal triggers as thoughts, emotions and physical sensations. Marlatt’s relapse-prevention model, as summarized in NIAAA’s journal by [Larimer, Palmer and Marlatt (1999)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6760427/), lists high-risk situations that include negative emotions, conflict with other people, social pressure, positive emotions such as celebrations, alcohol cues, testing your personal control, and cravings. In Marlatt’s analysis of people who had received inpatient treatment for alcohol problems, negative emotions and conflict with others together were the triggers for “more than one-half of all relapse episodes.” Social pressure, including just being around people who are drinking, contributed to “more than 20 percent.” Those figures come from a treatment sample, so they aren’t rates for drinkers in general, but they suggest the emotional and social situations are the ones to watch. ## Internal vs external triggers: avoid some, cope with the rest NIAAA calls external triggers “more obvious, predictable, and avoidable than internal triggers,” so the first move with those is to steer around them. Its examples are simple: “At home, keep little or no alcohol,” and “Socially, avoid activities involving drinking.” If turning down an invitation feels bad, NIAAA’s advice is to remember that you are not necessarily talking about “forever.” Internal triggers go wherever you go, so the plan is to cope when they hit. NIAAA’s ways to cope with triggers you can’t avoid: - Remind yourself why you want to change. - Talk it through with someone you trust. - Distract yourself with something healthy you enjoy. - Challenge the thought: “just one” can easily lead to more. - Ride it out. An urge “will soon crest like an ocean wave and pass.” - Leave the situation, quickly and politely. Your split shows which kind of plan to lean on. If 60% or more of your points are internal, the quiz calls it mostly internal and points you toward coping plans. At 40% or less it’s mostly external, and changing or skipping the situation does more. In between, you’ll want some of each. The 60% and 40% cut-offs are this page’s own rule of thumb, not a published threshold. For more examples of each kind, including why a good mood can be a trigger too, see [common drinking triggers and how to spot yours](https://sober44.com/blog/common-drinking-triggers/). ## Turning your top triggers into if-then plans An if-then plan, which researchers call an implementation intention, ties a cue to a response you’ve picked in advance. The example in a 2022 review is “if I am offered an alcoholic drink, then I will ask for a non-alcoholic drink.” The plans in your results follow the same shape, one for each of your top three triggers. The evidence for them is modest. [Cooke, McEwan and Norman (2022)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10087331/) pooled 16 studies and found that forming an if-then plan led to a small drop in weekly drinking and no change in heavy episodic drinking. The effects got smaller over time, and plans made online, the way you make one here, showed no clear effect. So treat your plan as a first draft: put it in your own words, and come back to it once you know which triggers keep turning up. In Marlatt’s model, what happens next depends on how you respond to the situation. People with effective ways to cope “have confidence that they can cope with the situation,” and that confidence makes a slip less likely. It’s worth running through your plan before you need it. If people are your main trigger, NIAAA’s [drink refusal tips](https://rethinkingdrinking.niaaa.nih.gov/tools/worksheets-more/building-your-drink-refusal-skills) are a good start: “Keep your response short, clear, and simple,” and “Have alcohol-free drinks always in hand if you’re quitting.” It also suggests the “broken record,” where you give the same polite no each time you’re asked. If stress tops your list, [box breathing](https://sober44.com/blog/box-breathing-for-alcohol-cravings/) is one way to spend the ten minutes in the stress plan. ## Track your triggers for a couple of weeks A quiz runs on memory, and memory leaves things out. NIAAA suggests “tracking and analyzing your urges to drink for a couple of weeks.” Its [urge tracker](https://rethinkingdrinking.niaaa.nih.gov/sites/rtd/files/document/Drinking-Urges-Tracker-NIAAA.pdf) has a line for each urge: the date and time, the situation or trigger, what the urge was like on a 1 to 10 scale, how you responded and what you’ll do next time. Keep each entry to a line or two, since NIAAA notes that going over an urge in detail can set off another one. Marlatt’s model asks for the same kind of ongoing record, and the [NHS](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/alcohol-use-disorder/) suggests keeping a daily diary or trying a drink tracking app. This page is general information, not medical advice. If you feel shaky, sweaty or sick when you go without a drink, or you need one soon after you wake up, talk to a doctor before you cut down. The NHS says withdrawal symptoms are a sign your body is dependent on alcohol, and that “it can be very dangerous to stop drinking suddenly if you’re dependent on alcohol.” Confusion, hallucinations or a seizure are an emergency: call 911 or your local emergency number. In the US, [SAMHSA’s National Helpline](https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/helplines/national-helpline) is free, confidential and open 24/7 at 1-800-662-4357. If you’d rather keep the log on your phone, [Sober44](https://sober44.com/#download) has a craving log: rate how strong the urge is and, if you like, tag what set it off as Stress, Social, Habit, Boredom or Other. The Cravings screen turns those tags into a trigger breakdown and shows the hour your cravings peak. You can also set a craving support reminder for the time they usually start, on the days you choose. An “I drank” check-in asks for the trigger too, and a craving never resets your sober count. The free version logs up to two cravings a day; the paid Pro subscription removes that cap. ## Frequently Asked Questions Common questions about drinking triggers quiz ### Is this drinking triggers quiz a diagnosis? No. It shows patterns in the situations you rated. It doesn’t measure how much you drink and can’t tell you whether you have alcohol use disorder. The 16 situations are written for this page and aren’t a validated test. If you’re worried about your drinking, the [NHS](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/alcohol-use-disorder/) suggests seeing a doctor or an alcohol support service. Signs it lists include finding it hard to stop or control your drinking and getting withdrawal symptoms when you try to stop. ### How is my result worked out? Each answer scores 0 to 3, from Never to Almost always, and a situation you skip counts as Never. Your top triggers are your highest-scoring situations, with ties going to quiz order. Each type’s percentage is its points out of its own maximum (15 for the five emotional situations, 12 each for the four social and the four habit-and-time ones, 9 for the three physical ones), so a type with more questions doesn’t win by count. The internal/external split is your internal points as a share of all your points. ### What is an if-then plan, and does it help? An if-then plan, or implementation intention, links a cue to a response you pick in advance: “if I am offered an alcoholic drink, then I will ask for a non-alcoholic drink.” A 2022 meta-analysis of 16 studies found that forming one led to a small drop in weekly drinking (d = −0.14) and no effect on heavy episodic drinking, and the effects faded over time. Plans made online showed no clear effect ([Cooke et al., 2022](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10087331/)). Treat the plan here as a starting point and come back to it. ### Why does it ask when I have my first drink? Time of day is one of the external triggers NIAAA lists, so knowing your riskiest hour lets you plan something else for it. The answer doesn’t change your score. If your first drink usually comes soon after you wake up, talk to a doctor before you cut down. The NHS lists needing a drink when you wake up as a sign of alcohol-use disorder and warns that stopping suddenly can be very dangerous if you’re dependent on alcohol. ### What if every answer is Never? Then none of the listed situations leads you to drink right now. If something else does, note when it happens and what came just before. [NIAAA](https://rethinkingdrinking.niaaa.nih.gov/tools/worksheets-more/handling-urges-drink) suggests tracking your urges for a couple of weeks to spot what sets them off. For examples beyond this list, see [common drinking triggers](https://sober44.com/blog/common-drinking-triggers/). ### How do I keep track of my triggers day to day? Write down each urge soon after it happens: when and where, who you were with, what came just before, how strong it was and what you did. Keep it to a line or two. In Sober44, logging a craving lets you rate its strength and tag it Stress, Social, Habit, Boredom or Other, and the Cravings screen shows which trigger comes up most and when cravings peak. The free version logs up to two cravings a day. Logging a craving never resets your sober count. ### What should I do if a plan doesn’t work and I drink? One drink doesn’t undo what you’ve learned. Look at what set it off and adjust that plan. [Larimer, Palmer and Marlatt](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6760427/) describe how blaming a slip on personal failure can lead to more drinking, while seeing it as a gap in coping with one specific situation helps you plan better next time. In Sober44, an “I drank” check-in restarts the sober timer but not your check-in streak. Here’s [what to do with your sober date after a slip](https://sober44.com/blog/should-you-reset-your-sober-date-after-a-relapse/). ## Related Tools - [Alcohol Taper Schedule Calculator](https://sober44.com/tools/alcohol-taper-schedule-calculator/): Turn your drinks a day, a target and a date into an alcohol taper schedule with a daily drink target. A planning aid for cutting back, not medical advice. - [Quit Drinking Plan Generator](https://sober44.com/tools/quit-drinking-plan-generator/): Pick a quit date, reasons and triggers to get a printable quit drinking plan with a dated prep checklist, your first weekend and an if-then plan per trigger. - [Alcohol Calorie Calculator](https://sober44.com/tools/alcohol-calorie-calculator/): See the calories in beer, wine, spirits and mixed drinks from pour size and ABV, split into alcohol and carbs, with weekly, monthly and yearly totals. - [Alcohol Money Investment Calculator](https://sober44.com/tools/alcohol-money-investment-calculator/): See what the money saved from not drinking could grow to if you invested it, at 1, 5, 10, 20 and 30 years, with a figure adjusted for inflation.