Neuroscience of Addiction
This neurotransmitter is most associated with the brain's reward pathway and is heavily implicated in addiction.
Dopamine
This is Step 1 in AA/NA.
"We admitted we were powerless over [our addiction] — that our lives had become unmanageable."
This DBT skill involves naming and describing a feeling without judging it.
Mindfulness / emotion labeling
What does the acronym HALT stand for? (common relapse triggers)
Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired.
This term describes treating thoughts as facts.
Cognitive distortion
This almond-shaped brain structure is responsible for processing fear and is often hyperactive during withdrawal and craving states.
The amygdala
This term describes when someone is sober but hasn't done the internal work — physically not using, but emotionally/behaviorally still "in it."
Dry drunk (syndrome)
This grounding technique uses the senses — naming things you can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste.
5-4-3-2-1 grounding
This term describes the chain of small decisions and thought patterns that happen before an actual relapse — often invisible to the person experiencing it.
Relapse process / relapse chain / "the relapse before the relapse"
This Brené Brown concept describes the courage to be seen as you really are, even with the risk of judgment or rejection.
Vulnerability
This part of the brain, responsible for decision-making and impulse control, is often the last to fully develop and the first to be impaired by substance use.
The prefrontal cortex
This step involves making a list of people we have harmed and becoming willing to make amends.
Step 8
This skill involves checking whether a thought matches the actual facts of a situation, rather than just how it feels in the moment.
Fact-checking thoughts / cognitive reappraisal / "looking for the evidence"
This term describes a person, place, or situation that increases craving or risk without directly causing use.
A trigger
This term, from Eastern philosophy, refers to the idea that all things — including pain and craving — are temporary.
Anicca / impermanence
This term describes the brain's reward system becoming less responsive to natural rewards (food, connection, accomplishment) after prolonged substance use.
Tolerance / reward deficiency
This concept, central to Al-Anon and CoDA but relevant across recovery, describes an excessive emotional or psychological reliance on another person.
Codependency
This term describes pausing between an urge and an action — even 10-15 minutes — to let the intensity of a craving pass.
Urge surfing / riding the wave
Name the three stages of relapse identified by Gorski's model.
Emotional relapse, mental relapse, physical relapse
This term describes the stories we tell ourselves about how a situation, person, or day "should" go — and the dysregulation that follows when reality doesn't match.
Expectation scripts
This nerve, often referenced in trauma and regulation work, runs from the brainstem to the gut and plays a major role in the body's ability to shift from "fight or flight" to "rest and digest."
The vagus nerve
This is the difference between Step 4 and Step 10 — name what makes them distinct.
Step 4 is a thorough, one-time moral inventory of the past; Step 10 is an ongoing, daily inventory in the present.
This DBT skill involves fully accepting reality as it is — not approving of it, just acknowledging it — in order to reduce the suffering that comes from fighting against what you can't change.
Radical acceptance
This term describes the belief that "I've been sober long enough, I can handle just one" — and explain why it's a cognitive distortion.
Euphoric recall / testing control — distortion because it minimizes past consequences and overestimates current control
Name the four attachment styles studied in attachment theory.
Secure, anxious (preoccupied), avoidant (dismissive), disorganized (fearful-avoidant)