In Relapse Prevention (RP), the clinician and patient work first to assess potential situations that might lead to drinking or using other drugs. These situations include, for example, social pressures and emotional states that could lead to thoughts about using substances, and ultimately to cravings and urges to use. All treatments for substance use disorder (SUD), in a way, are intended to prevent relapse. The treatment called Relapse Prevention (RP), however, refers to a specific intervention. For example, if you don’t take care of yourself and eat poorly or have poor sleep habits, you’ll feel exhausted and want to escape.

What is the best way to prevent relapse?

  1. Stay Active in Your Recovery Network.
  2. Be Aware of Your Personal Triggers.
  3. Take Good Care of Yourself Physically.
  4. Practice the Art of Letting Go.
  5. Find a Higher Purpose to Live for.

When people think of refraining from alcohol use, they think of withdrawal and being sick instead of long-term abstinence’s benefits on their lives. https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/substance-abuse-counseling/ helps you correlate positivity with staying sober. Are you confident that once you stop using alcohol, you can abstain from ever using it again? The relapse prevention model helps to increase your confidence to remain sober. Come up with methods and ways to help yourself be successful – things like setting small attainable goals and rewarding yourself for positive progress. Make a list of things you are thankful for and some of your reasons for remaining sober.

Care for yourself

Recent studies have reported genetic associations with alcohol-related cognitions, including alcohol expectancies, drinking refusal self-efficacy, drinking motives, and implicit measures of alcohol-related motivation [51, 52, 104–108]. Overall, the body of research on genetic influences on relapse and related processes is nascent and virtually all findings require replication. Consistent with the broader literature, it can be anticipated that most genetic associations with relapse outcomes will be small in magnitude and potentially difficult to replicate. Finally, an intriguing direction is to evaluate whether providing clients with personalized genetic information can facilitate reductions in substance use or improve treatment adherence [110, 111].

  • The first 3 months following treatment appear to be the most critical for lapsing and thus implementing a program to prevent relapse during this time can be very helpful in improving overall treatment outcomes (Witkiewitz, 2008).
  • Self-efficacy is a client’s belief in his/her ability to maintain abstinence or some other goal (e.g., moderate drinking), and low self-efficacy has been shown to be a consistent predictor of relapse.
  • Programs that teach people how to prevent relapse take both short and long-term sobriety into account.
  • Although the RPP may seem like a very structured session, there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach that would work with every client.

Broadly speaking, there are at least three primary contexts in which genetic variation could influence liability for relapse during or following treatment. First, in the context of pharmacotherapy interventions, relevant genetic variations can impact drug pharmacokinetics or pharmacodynamics, thereby moderating treatment response (pharmacogenetics). As summarized below, preliminary empirical support exists for each of these possibilities. Initial evidence suggests that implicit measures of expectancies are correlated with relapse outcomes, as demonstrated in one study of heroin users [61].

Emerging topics in relapse and relapse prevention

If addiction treatment is about getting sober, recovery is about learning how to stay sober. The early months following treatment are a time of unique challenges and choices. By paying attention to the cue or reminder, we can begin to respond with new routines. Whereas before we responded to the mortgage payment with drinking or irritability, we would now replace it with a new routine like calling our sponsor or going for a run.

Who is most likely to relapse?

Users of all drugs are susceptible to relapse, and a person who engages in dysfunctional thoughts or behaviors will be vulnerable to relapse, regardless of their primary drug of choice.

Continued efforts to refine and develop novel variation on RP approaches to chronic mental health and physical problems should remain a high priority for research. The importance of a strong relapse prevention plan cannot be overstated. Preventing relapse sounds like a secondary goal, but it’s a powerful tool in any recovery. For those times when we find ourselves alone, we need to have a plan.

Patient Care Network

If you just sit there with your urge and don’t do anything, you’re giving your mental relapse room to grow. The magic of sharing is that the minute you start to talk about what you’re thinking and feeling, your urges begin to disappear. When you think about using, the fantasy is that you’ll be able to control your use this time.

Thus, examining withdrawal in relation to relapse may only prove useful to the extent that negative affect is assessed adequately [64]. Self-efficacy (SE), the perceived ability to enact a given behavior in a specified context [26], is a principal determinant of health behavior according to social-cognitive theories. In fact, some theories view SE as the final common pathway to relapse [42].