Coping Tools & Triggers
People, places, things, and emotions that spark a sudden urge to use are collectively known by this term.
What are Triggers?
A chance meeting in Akron, Ohio, between a New York stockbroker and a local surgeon struggling with alcohol directly led to the creation of this global organization.
What is Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)?
This concept involves manufacturing logical, plausible, but entirely false excuses to make behavior, choices, actions, etc. "acceptable".
What is Rationalizing (or Justifying)?
This chemical messenger is the brain's primary "reward" neurotransmitter, which gets flooded during substance use.
What is Dopamine?
This term describes the uncomfortable, frustrating, and sometimes painful physical and mental state a body goes through immediately after it stops getting a substance it was dependent on.
What is Withdrawal?
This "HALT" acronym warns individuals in recovery to check in on themselves when they are experiencing these four vulnerable states.
What are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired?
This secular, science-based recovery fellowship uses cognitive behavioral tools and stands for "Self-Management and Recovery Training."
What is SMART Recovery?
This defense is at play when someone admits they crossed a boundary but treats the fallout like a minor scratch, telling others, "People are completely overreacting, it's not that deep."
What is Minimizing?
This term describes the brain's ability to adapt, heal, and rewire its pathways after long-term substance use stops
What is Neuroplasticity?
Known by the acronym PAWS, this clinical term describes the long-term, roller-coaster wave of emotional and neurological symptoms—like mood swings and brain fog—that can persist for months after the physical detox phase is over.
What is Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome?
This cognitive strategy instructs individuals to mentally fast forward past the initial high of a craving and vividly picture the negative consequences, guilt, and aftermath that would follow a relapse
What is playing the tape through?
This type of support group is specifically designed for the family members and friends of individuals struggling with substance use.
What is Al-Anon (or Nar-Anon)?
This thinking error forces a person to see everything as a total success or a total failure, leaving no room for a normal day with its ups and downs.
What is Black-and-White Thinking (or All-or-Nothing Thinking)?
This specific area of the brain is responsible for decision-making, impulse control, and judgment, and is highly impacted by SUD.
What is the Prefrontal Cortex?
This term describes the early, temporary phase of sobriety where a client experiences intense feelings of joy, optimism, and an artificial sense of ease before reality sets back in.
What is the Pink Cloud?
This mindfulness based technique instructs individuals to sit with a craving, observing its physical rise, peak, and eventual fall without fighting it or giving in.
What is urge surfing?
This specific step in the 12-step process requires individuals to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of themselves.
What is Step 4?
This dangerous behavior pattern involves hanging out around old triggers or unsafe environments just to prove to yourself that you are strong enough to handle it.
What is Testing Control (or testing yourself)?
This powerful medication acts as an opioid antagonist, meaning it can immediately reverse an opioid overdose.
What is Naloxone (Narcan)?
This dynamic occurs when a person completely stops using substances but replaces them with a highly intense, obsessive pursuit of a new behavior like working, gambling, or exercising.
What is Cross-Addiction (or Trading Addictions)?
This cognitive intervention involves identifying an unhelpful or distorted automatic thought, disputing its accuracy, and replacing it with a more balanced and realistic alternative.
What is Reframing (or Cognitive Reframing)?
Getting clean on Groundhog Day in 1950, a Scottish immigrant named Jimmy K. went on to co-found this distinct global 12-step fellowship in Southern California in 1953.
Narcotics Anonymous (NA)?
This term describes someone who is completely abstinent from substances but still acts with the exact same dishonesty, anger, and chaotic behavior they had while using.
What is a Dry Drunk?
This physical and psychological state occurs when a person suddenly stops using a substance their body has grown dependent on.
What is Withdrawal?
This phrase describes a quick, temporary moment or one-time mistake where a person uses, which is different from a full-blown return to active addiction.
What is a Lapse (or Slip)?