Relapse prevention

6 important questions on Relapse prevention

What is a lapse?

Slight error or slip, individual may be able to cope w/ the reason for the lapse and continue w/ the new behavior again
For example: incident where you felt that you broke your diet
A first violation of the abstinence goal (initial lapse)


Single setback, a mistake, a slip

What is a RElapse?

  • A breakdown in the person's efforts to control a particular problem (i.e. Continuing exercise participation)
  • A full return to previous unhealthy behavior

What is meant w/ maintenance?

  • An action sustained over a certain period of time
  • In stages of change model: 6 months
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What is the process of relapse?

  • High risk situations
  • Individualized (different for everyone)
  • Negative feelings
  • Interpersonal conflicts
  • Social pressures
  • Positive emotional states

How do people get into a high risk situation?

  • Lifestyle imbalance and stress (shoulds and wants)
  • Desire for indulgence
  • Urges and cravings
    • Urges: relatively sudden impulse to engage in an act, such as alcohol consumption
    • Craving: subjective desire to experience the effects or consequences of an act.
  • Rationalization (justification of certain behaviors w/ faulty logic, making excuses to explain behavior)
  • Apparently irrelevant decision; series of mini-decisions that take a person into a high-risk situation

Interventions for the step abstinence violation effect: cognitive restructuring after a lapse

  • People tend to think black and white
  • Common negative thoughts after a lapse:
    • Total failure
    • I am responsible for all bad things
    • I'm hopeless
    • Once a junkie, always a junkie

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