Author: James Anderson

Relapse Prevention: Strategies to Avoid Triggers

12-step programs, such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Cocaine Anonymous (CA), and Narcotics Anonymous (NA), provide additional guidance and support for people in recovery. The final stage is succumbing to temptation and engaging in drug or alcohol use again. This could involve going to a bar or liquor store, contacting your dealer, or retrieving your old stash.

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Some warning signs of a potential relapse, according to Gottlich, could include secretiveness, disengaging from treatment, and being overly arrogant about sobriety. A relapse prevention plan is used to help keep a person from using a substance after they have decided to quit. It is one of many tools used by individuals recovering from a substance use disorder.

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Keeping that list on you at all times is important because it is a readily available resource you can use by quickly calling someone safe. Focusing on your senses will help you gain self-awareness and increase mindfulness, which will help you accomplish daily tasks, overcome unhealthy thoughts or feelings, feel more in-control and less overwhelmed, and reduce the risk of relapse. In a meta-analysis by Carroll, more than 24 RCT’s have been evaluated for the effectiveness of RP on substance use outcomes. Review of this body of literature suggests that, across substances of abuse but most strongly for smoking cessation, there is evidence for the effectiveness of relapse prevention compared with no treatment controls.

Addiction Treatment (Rehab) Guide

In collaboration with the individual, document their potential triggers, early warning signs and coping skills on a relapse prevention plan. This plan should reflect what you have discussed together and worded in a manner that is easy for the individual to understand. Writing it down so that they can take it home and easily access it will increase the likelihood that they will use the plan should they need it. Positive social support is highly predictive of long-term abstinence rates across several addictive behaviours. Among social variables, the degree of social support available from the most supportive person in the network may be the best predictor of reducing drinking, and the number of supportive relationships also strongly predicts abstinence. Further, the more non-drinking friends a person with an AUD has, the better outcomes tend to be.

Cognitive Behavioural model of relapse

Oxford English Dictionary defines motivation as “the conscious or unconscious stimulus for action towards a desired goal provided by psychological or social factors; that which gives purpose or direction to behaviour. Motivation may relate to the relapse process in two distinct ways, the motivation for positive behaviour change and the motivation to engage in the problematic behaviour. This illustrates the issue of ambivalence experienced by many patients attempting to change an addictive behaviour. Motivational Interviewing provides a means of facilitating the change process7.

How Do You Make A Relapse Prevention Plan?

  1. Review of this body of literature suggests that, across substances of abuse but most strongly for smoking cessation, there is evidence for the effectiveness of relapse prevention compared with no treatment controls.
  2. The most common triggers for many recovering alcoholics and addicts are hunger, anger, loneliness, and feeling tired.
  3. Emotional awareness encourages you to check in with yourself before taking action, reminding you to stay mindful of your current state.
  4. Understanding relapse, triggers, and treatment are important steps toward relapse prevention.
  5. Although there are some triggers that many people experience, individuals might experience very specific triggers that are unique to them.

Role-playing the plan increases an individual’s confidence in using it effectively and increases the likelihood they will access the plan when they need to. It also allows you and the individual to troubleshoot unforeseen difficulties and adapt the plan as needed. Enter your phone number below to receive a free and confidential call from a treatment provider. In a study by McCrady evaluating the effectiveness of psychological interventions for alcohol use disorder such as Brief Interventions and Relapse Prevention was classified as efficacious23. Doing so will help you quickly identify and deal with them before they become too overwhelming. You can also find ways to replace old habits with healthier activities.

It can be helpful to write down one’s daily activities by tracking them with a smartphone to bring more awareness to what you are doing, thinking, and feeling. Miller and Hester reviewed more than 500 alcoholism outcome studies and reported that more than 75% of subjects relapsed within 1 year of treatment1. A study published by Hunt and colleagues demonstrated that nicotine, heroin, and alcohol produced highly similar rates of relapse over a one-year period, in the range of 80-95%2.

Resource Box 3. Relapse Prevention Tool: SOBER Brief Meditation

A thorough and comprehensive relapse training approach includes developing an individualized prevention plan. It also provides a person with education about relapse, helps him/her develop an individualized approach to issues of relapse, and incorporates skill building exercises to ensure they are prepared to cope with relapse, should it occur (1,2). A crucial step in relapse prevention training is to help the individual practice strategies and coping skills so that they are confident they can use them effectively the next time they experience a trigger or early warning sign. A relapse prevention plan includes various strategies and techniques, such as identifying personal behaviors, to help reduce the risk of a relapse following treatment for substance use disorder. One of the most critical predictors of relapse is the individual’s ability to utilize effective coping strategies in dealing with high-risk situations.

A high-risk situation is defined as a circumstance in which an individual’s attempt to refrain from a particular behaviour is threatened. While analysing high-risk situations the client is asked to generate a list of situations that are low-risk, and to determine what aspects of those situations differentiate them from the high-risk situations. Seemingly irrelevant decisions (SIDs) are those behaviours that are early in the path of decisions that place the client in a high-risk situation.