What is an "external trigger" for behavioral addiction?

What is an "external trigger" for behavioral addiction?

Marc Kern (Addiction Expert, Director of Addiction Alternatives) gives expert video advice on: How can time be a trigger for behavioral addiction?; Will I ever be cured of my behavioral addiction?; What skills do I need for a successful recovery from behavioral addiction? and more...

An external trigger for behavioural addictions is nothing more than a stop light. It works in the same way. When we drive our car and we notice that the light has turned red, we know in our brain that that means we have got to bring the car to a hault and it's external, it's outside of us, it brings about a notion in our brain that says we're supposed to stop or we're going to get a ticket or get into an accident. In the behavioural addiction field, it's not quite as obvious, but there are lots of triggers in the behavioural addiction field such as seeing pornography if that were your addiction. Advertising is nothing more than external triggering. What do you see on TV around six o'clock? Pizza commercials. What are those? External triggers. It's a way that a medium or methods have come to be associated with certain behavior. And for an addict, it's much more complex.