Effects of Substances
Alcohol can cause lowered inhibitions, poor judgment, slower thinking, memory gaps, and blackouts in this part of the body.
What is the brain?
This brain region is involved in planning, decision-making, problem-solving, and controlling impulses and behavior.
What is the frontal lobe?
This is the first step in the addiction cycle and can be an event, feeling, thought, person, place, or situation.
What is a trigger?
In box breathing, you breathe in, hold, breathe out, and hold again for this many seconds each.
What is 4 seconds?
This tool helps people move from broad feelings to more specific emotions.
What is The Emotions Wheel?
Cannabis can affect attention, memory, reaction time, and this ability needed for safe movement and driving.
What is coordination?
This part of the brain is important for learning and memory formation, especially forming new memories and recalling information.
What is the hippocampus?
After a trigger, a person may experience this strong urge to drink or use substances.
What is a craving?
This technique asks you to name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste.
What is grounding?
These are feelings, thoughts, memories, or situations that can increase urges to drink or use substances.
What are emotional triggers?
Cocaine can increase heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, sweating, and cause these eye-related changes.
What are dilated pupils?
These brain pathways use dopamine to reinforce rewarding experiences and motivate us to repeat them.
What are rewards pathways?
This stage may bring temporary calm, escape, or numbness, which can make the brain believe that using “worked.”
What is short-term relief?
This type of coping skill uses movement, such as walking, stretching, exercising, or taking a shower, to release stress and improve mood.
What are physical coping skills?
This emotional trigger can include feeling disconnected, unseen, unsupported, or bored by yourself.
What is loneliness of isolation?
Long-term alcohol use can affect this organ by causing inflammation, cirrhosis, and digestion problems.
What is the liver?
These types of triggers happen inside the body or mind and may include stress, anxiety, anger, boredom, shame, hunger, or tiredness.
What are internal triggers?
These may appear after the short-term relief fades and can include guilt, shame, regret, health problems, financial stress, or damaged trust.
What are negative consequences?
This coping technique means noticing urges and watching them rise and fall like waves instead of immediately responding to them.
What is urge surfing?
Emotional triggers can show up in the body through tension, racing heart, stomach discomfort, sweating, fatigue, or feeling this way.
What is "amped up"?
Repeated cocaine use changes this brain system and can lead to addiction, strong cravings, and relapse risk.
What is the reward system?
This trigger cycle shows how a cue can build into action if it is not interrupted early.
What is cue → thought → feeling → urge → action?
As substance use continues over time, the cycle often speeds up, becomes automatic, and requires less of this.
What is conscious decision-making?
This urge-surfing stage is when the urge reaches its most intense point and a person may feel like the urge will not go away.
What is the peak?
This positive emotional trigger can still increase urges when substances were tied to fun, reward, or confidence.
What is excitement or celebration?