Relapse Workshop: Relapse as a Learning Opportunity

Estimated watch time: 4 mins 40 secs

Summary:

Relapse isn’t inevitable, but it is common. Addiction is a chronic, relapsing disease. If you do slip or relapse, what’s most important is that you use it as a learning experience going forward. Look at your relapse as a way to gain insight that can help you prevent a similar situation in the future.

This video offers questions you can ask yourself.

Video Materials:

Transcript:

u003ch3u003eRelapse Workshop: Relapse as a Learning Opportunityu003c/h3u003ernu003cemu003eHi everybody, We are going to be talking about relapse prevention and how you could recover from having a slip or even a full on relapse and what you might be able to do differently to put in some safety nets and make it less likely for you to repeat a relapse.u003c/emu003ernrnu003cstrongu003eSo in this lesson, we’re going to talk about how relapse is actually a learning opportunity.u003c/strongu003ernrnAddiction is a chronic, relapsing disease, which means that relapse is very common. It doesn’t mean it’s inevitable. You certainly don’t want to use that phrase as a justification to relapse. But it does happen and it can happen. And so what’s most important is that you use relapse as an opportunity to learn about your recovery program and maybe what you can do differently to decrease your chances of another relapse.rnrnSo you may hear people talking about a lapse or a slip. This is when you have a single incident of using maybe you’re just used for one day as opposed to a relapse, which is considered a full blown episode of using. You keep using over a period of time.rnrnNow, relapses or lapses can happen due to an emotional or an environmental trigger. So could be due to stress, a major life event, something traumatic that happens, feeling irritable, being bored, feeling overwhelmed, being hungry, angry, lonely, tired, which is often put together with feeling depleted in some way.rnrnSo lapses or relapses can start in the mind and the body days or weeks before using actually start. So it’s a good idea to learn to get to know when that relapse actually started to happen.rnrnAnd lapses are important opportunities for you to develop insight into what you are feeling, where you were or who was there.rnrnLearning to be mindful about our thoughts and feelings can help us restrain from acting in unmindful ways or acting impulsively without thinking, where the relapse just happens automatically. When we regularly practice paying attention to our thoughts and feelings, we can become more relaxed about them, become more curious about them, and get to know them, which reduces reacting to them.rnrnSo in the exercise after this lesson, think back to a recent lapse or relapse and answer these questions: when did you first have the urge to use? What specific day and time? Where were you? Who were you with? What were you doing? And what were the people around you doing?rnrnWhat was your mood earlier that day? What was your mood earlier that week? How long had you experienced urges to relapse before you did use? Did you tell anyone about the urges? If so, who and if not, how come? Did you consider doing anything else to cope with your urges? And if so, what?rnrnLooking back, what do you think you could have done differently? What thoughts did you have that you think contributed to the lapse? Which of these thoughts could you label unhelpful? And what thoughts did you have that you would say was your inner critic? What feelings do you think contributed to the lapse? What pleasurable feelings were you trying to create or what difficult feelings were you trying to get rid of?rnrnThink about what might have helped you to respond to the thoughts and feelings you were having at that time without using drugs or alcohol. Would it have been easier to access a support person? Did you need an obvious in your face reminder of distraction techniques for riding out urges? Did you need to practice more healthy coping skills? Did you need more support in your daily life or better boundaries with people who pressure you to use or treat you in ways that lead you to want to use? Did you need a safe place to go when you started to feel urges? or did you need a chance to talk to a therapist to find out what keeps driving you to use?rnrnIs there anything else you can think of? What would it take to do things differently next time?rnrnu003cstrongu003eIn our next lesson, we’re going to talk about self-forgiveness.u003c/strongu003ernrnThank you for choosing The Recovery Village. If you or a loved one are struggling with mental health or substance abuse and would like to find out more about the programs we offer, please reach out to us directly atu003ca href=u0022tel:855-387-3291u0022u003e 855-387-3291u003c/au003e.

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Accompanying Worksheets:

What is Addiction Lesson Reviews (Lesson 5)

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Transcript:

How a thought becomes a relapse

In this lesson we will discuss how a thought becomes a relapse.

So now that you know what your triggers are the next step is to uncover the thoughts that lead you to drink or use. The usual sequence that can lead to relapse is you have a trigger, you have thought about that trigger, that thought creates a craving and then that craving creates drug or alcohol use. Your thoughts are directly connected to our emotions and our actions. We all have some thoughts that are rational and some that are irrational. In addiction your irrational thoughts around drinking or using mostly come from your addicted brain. Thoughts are very important to notice and understand because when we encounter a trigger the way we think about it dictates the way we cope with it.

So, it’s important to identify your red flag thoughts and that red flag thought is something you tell yourself about drinking or using that increases the likelihood that you will relapse. These are dangerous thoughts for us to be having. These are called relapse justifying behaviors and we all have them in addiction. When you find yourself having these thoughts that give you permission to drink or use you have to work harder to kick your rational brain into gear. You will need to notice these thoughts when they happen.

We can train ourselves to notice when we’re thinking in a way that increases our chance of relapsing and practice inserting new thoughts that increases our chances of staying sober. Common red flag thoughts are I have to have a drink. Nobody has to know. It really doesn’t matter if I use. I can control it. I’m only going to have one. I’m having a bad day. I might as well use. I deserve it. And it’s a special occasion. I can start over tomorrow. Can you identify your common red flag thoughts?

Next we’ll talk about some common red flag thinking and how these thoughts become a relapse. So one example is to have black or white thinking. And this occurs when you see things as either all good or all bad. Example is when you said “oh I messed up everything at work” and the red flag thought that follows that is, “I might as well go and drink.” So what I need you to do is to take a look at the examples of your thoughts that are black and white thinking and what’s the corresponding red flag thought that could trigger you to return to use.

Another example is when we discount the positive. This occurs when we cast aside a compliment. Someone says something nice to you and you say “oh my boss only said something nice out of pity.” Now the Red Flag thought is “I’m pathetic. I have nothing to lose by drinking.” Can you see in this example how you are thinking can lead you toward relapse? Think of the examples of when you’ve discounted the positive and what that following red flag thought is for you.

Another example is jumping to conclusions and these can happen in two different ways. There’s mind reading and there’s fortune telling. So when your mind reading you’re assuming the other person’s behavior to you reflects something negative about how they feel about you. And when you fortune telling. You’re predicting that things will turn out badly for you. So the first example is of mind reading. “My brother’s blowing me off because he thinks he’s better than me.” And the second example is “with my luck treatment won’t work for me.” That is fortune telling.

So in the first example, the red flag thought is. “I’ll show him if he’s gonna treat me like that. I’m gonna go use” and the second red flag side for fortune telling is “I’ll never be able to stay clean and sober. There’s no point in even trying.” So you need to think about times when you’ve jumped to conclusions and how those thoughts lead to some sort of red flag thought leading you to use.

The next example is when you take your feelings too seriously and you think of your feelings as reality, which most of us do. The truth is feelings are just feelings. They’re not the truth. So you can take an example by saying “I feel hopeless therefore life is hopeless for me.” And the red flag thought is “things will never get better. At least if I go use, I won’t have to feel the pain of my hopeless life.”

So can you think of your example of taking your feelings too seriously?

Self blame: this occurs when you have an active self-critical voice inside of you which most of us do. You blame yourself for things that are not in your control. So the self blaming thought is “it’s all my fault that I drink too much” and the red flag corresponding thought could be “I’ve ruined my life. I have nothing else to lose by continuing to drink.” So share an example of your self blaming thoughts and a potential red flag thought that could follow that.

Labeling yourself. So we do this with the way that we feel or we think about the mistakes that we’ve made. So labeling thought is. “I’ve relapsed just like I knew I would. I’m just a raging alcoholic and I always will be.” And the red flag thought could be” raging alcoholics like me they never get clean in the long run. I’m going to be another bad statistic. There’s no point in me even trying to stay clean.” So can you identify your labeling self thoughts and the red flag thoughts that could lead you to use. Now keep in mind the idea is to get to know these thoughts and see the way that we think and how that leads us to saying things that are encouraging us or justifying our return to use.

What I’d like you to do with your assignment is to write down your triggering situations. The thoughts that you had in that triggering situation. The feelings that came with that. And then write your craving from a 0 to a 10. 0 is no craving at all and a 10 is a very intense craving, very hard not to return to use. So if you’re able to monitor this over time you will start to get to know your thinking that led you to relapse and then you’ll be able to stop yourself in those situations.

Please join us for our next part of this series where we will discuss “Thought Challenging.”

Thank you for choosing The Recovery Village. If you or a loved one are struggling with mental health or substance abuse and would like to find out more about the programs we offer, please reach out to us directly at 855-387-3291.

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Relapse as a Learning Opportunity