Recovery IQ
In recovery communities, this person guides a newcomer through the steps and shares their own experience.
Sponsor
This "feel-good" brain chemical is released during pleasurable activities and is hijacked by nearly every addictive substance.
Dopamine
In the Stages of Change, this is the stage where someone is "sitting on the fence", they know there might be a problem but haven't committed to doing anything about it yet.
Contemplation
This is the only step that specifically mentions the word "alcohol" (or the substance by name).
Step One
"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable."
This A&E reality show followed professional interventionists helping families confront loved ones about their addiction and offer them a chance at treatment.
Intervention
This syndrome, common in the first 1–2 years of recovery, causes mood swings, poor sleep, anxiety, and random cravings long after detox is over.
PAWS
Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome
When the brain adjusts to a substance and requires more of it to get the same effect, this is known as what?
Tolerance
Relapse prevention starts with identifying these — the people, places, emotions, and situations that create the urge to use.
Triggers
In this step, members share everything from their moral inventory.
Step Five
This legal substance kills more Americans every year than alcohol, car accidents, HIV, illegal drugs, and murders COMBINED.
Tobacco (acceptable: nicotine, cigarettes, smoking) — approximately 480,000 deaths per year in the U.S.
This approach to addiction accepts that not everyone is ready for total abstinence and focuses on reducing dangerous consequences.
Harm Reduction
When someone suddenly stops using a substance their body has become dependent on, the uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous physical symptoms that follow are called what?
Withdrawal
Relapse is often described as a process, not a single event. Name the three stages of relapse in order.
Emotional → Mental → Physical
This tradition is the reason you'll never see a celebrity AA spokesperson on TV.
Tradition Twelve
Before getting sober and becoming Iron Man, this famous actor was arrested multiple times in the late '90s and early 2000s for drug-related offenses and once fell asleep in a stranger's bed.
Robert Downey Jr. — He has been in recovery since 2003.
This term describes someone who stopped using substances but hasn't done any real recovery work, no therapy, no meetings, no lifestyle changes. They're sober but still miserable and acting the same way.
Dry Drunk
This 'stress hormone' floods the body during withdrawal and early recovery, which is why people in early sobriety often feel anxious and on edge even when nothing is wrong.
Cortisol
In the Stages of Change, this stage comes between Contemplation and Action, when a person is making a plan, lining up resources, and getting ready to take the leap.
Preparation (acceptable: planning, determination)
Often described as the step that separates talk from action, going directly to people you've harmed and making things right.
Step Nine
In the famous "Rat Park" experiment, researchers found that rats in a social, enriched environment mostly ignored drugged water. This led to the idea that the opposite of addiction isn't sobriety — it's _____.
Connection (acceptable: community, social connection)
When someone has been sober for a while and starts thinking 'I've got this, I don't need meetings, a sponsor, or a plan anymore,' they've fallen into this dangerous mindset.
Complacency
This part of the brain — responsible for decision-making, planning, and impulse control — isn't fully developed until around age 25, making younger people more vulnerable to addiction.
Prefrontal Cortex
In the Stages of Change, this is the final stage, where new behaviors have become second nature and the person has strong confidence they won't return to old patterns.
Maintenance
The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous was first published in this year, just four years after AA was founded in Akron, Ohio.
1939
This common over-the-counter pain reliever (NOT aspirin or ibuprofen) is the #1 cause of acute liver failure in the United States — responsible for more cases than alcohol.
Tylenol / Acetaminophen