The Stages of Relapse
Relapse is not a sudden event but unfolds in these three main stages.
What are emotional, mental, and physical relapse?
A brief window when your brain starts to revert to automatic behaviors before you even notice a craving.
What is a Micro-Moment?
subtle shifts in mood like low-level anxiety or boredom increase vulnerability by creating these.
What are emotional triggers?
Skipping meetings, avoiding supportive people, or visiting old using spots are examples of
What are behavioral triggers?
This stage involves neglecting self-care, skipping meetings, and bottling up emotions, often before thinking about substance use.
What is emotional relapse?
This term is used for a deliberate action like clapping your hands or changing rooms to break an automatic sequence.
What is a pattern interrupt?
The acronym HALT stands for these four states that can set up for a setback.
What are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired?
The release of this neurotransmitter in response to triggers can fuel cravings before you even realize it
What is dopamine?
This is the final stage of the relapse process, when actual substance use occurs.
What is physical relapse?
The lesson refers to these as the brain's automatic preparations for habitual action, before you're even aware of a craving.
What are preconscious decision points?
Remembering only the good feelings about past use, while ignoring negatives, is described as this.
What is Euphoric Recall?
Modifying behavior to enable secrecy or isolation does this to addiction circuits in the brain.
What is reinforce?
The stage where the brain produces cravings, rationalizations, and bargaining.
What is mental (cognitive) relapse?
Using a pattern interrupt in a Micro-Moment can do this to the relapse chain.
What is break or disrupt it?
This all-or-nothing thinking trap, mentioned in the script, can push someone toward giving up after a slip.
What is the Abstinence Violation Effect?
Early body cues like jaw tension or shallow breath are warnings from this part of your nervous system.
What is the sympathetic nervous system (SNS)?
The process of relapse is described in the lesson as being gradual and predictable, not caused by this.
What is a dramatic crisis or sudden event?
This type of deliberate behavior can help reroute your neural pathways away from old patterns.
What is intentional self-regulation?
The lesson calls the brain a "hostile negotiator" during this stage, when rationalizations and distortions are strongest.
What is mental relapse?
Activating this system with deep breaths or grounding exercises restores calm and blood flow to the logical brain.
What is the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS)?