Relapse Prevention
This is any person, place, thing, or situation that causes an individual in recovery to crave substances or engage in behaviors that may lead to a relapse.
What is a relapse trigger?
This first step in the 12-step program involves admitting powerlessness over addiction and acknowledging that life has become unmanageable.
What is Step 1: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable"?
This is the study of human strengths, positive emotions, well-being, ad factors that contribute to a fulfilling life.
What is Positive Psychology?
This cognitive distortion occurs when someone believes that a single mistake or lapse means they have failed entirely, which can increase the likelihood of relapse.
What is all-or-nothing thinking?
What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?
The letter "M."
These are essential for your recovery and can include healthy habits like eating well, exercising, and getting enough rest to stay resilient against relapse.
What are self-care practices?
This step involves taking a fearless moral inventory of oneself, recognizing behaviors and patterns that have contributed to addiction.
What is Step 4: "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves"?
This thought is one that considers both the positive and negative aspects of a situation, allowing for a more realistic and fair perspective rather than focusing solely on extremes.
What is a balanced thought?
This is a common cognitive distortion where you assume that just because something negative has happened, it will always happen in the future.
What is "overgeneralization"?
What has a heart that doesn’t beat?
An artichoke.
This concept refers to the tendency to underestimate the risks or consequences of relapse when feeling confident in sobriety, which can lead to complacency and eventually relapse.
What is "addiction amnesia" or "complacency"?
In this step, individuals are encouraged to make direct amends to those they have harmed, except when doing so would harm others.
What is Step 9: "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others"?
"I made a mistake in my recovery, so all my progress is ruined." Make this a balance thought.
"I made a mistake, but that doesn’t define my entire recovery. I can keep working on it"
This distortion involves imagining the worst possible outcome and believing it’s inevitable, such as thinking, "If I relapse, I’ll never recover."
What is "catastrophizing"?
I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with the wind. What am I?
An echo.
This term describes the process where an individual becomes so focused on avoiding relapse that it creates a state of heightened anxiety and hypervigilance, which can ironically contribute to relapse.
What is "relapse anxiety"?
In this step, individuals seek to improve their conscious contact with their higher power through prayer and meditation, asking for knowledge and the power to carry out their will.
What is Step 11: "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out"?
"I’m having a bad day, which means everything in my life is falling apart." Make this a balanced thought.
"I’m having a rough day, but tomorrow is a new chance to do better"
This cognitive distortion involves blaming yourself for things outside of your control, like believing, "If I had done this differently, everything would have been okay."
What is "personalization"?
What can you break, even if you never pick it up or touch it?
A promise.
This term describes the mental and emotional exhaustion that can occur when someone becomes overwhelmed by the constant vigilance required to maintain sobriety, which can eventually contribute to burnout or relapse.
What is recovery fatigue?
This step encourages individuals to admit their wrongs to others and to the higher power, leading to personal growth and healing.
What is Step 5: "Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs"?
Thinking positively can have many benefits on your brain including
Increase serotine, reducing cortisol, activating the prefrontal cortex, improving focus, and slowing loss of brain cells.
This distortion happens when you focus exclusively on the negative aspects of a situation while ignoring any positive elements, like thinking, "That meeting was terrible," despite receiving positive feedback.
What is "negative filtering"?
What can you catch but not throw?
A cold.