Common Relapse Triggers and How to Avoid Them

Many situations may be high-risk for one person and fine for another. The important thing is to recognize situations that cause stress and prepare strategies to what is an alcoholic nose drinkers nose? mitigate it. The HALT acronym helps those in recovery keep an eye on some of the most basic human needs that can lead to or intensify triggers if not fulfilled.

You can learn a lot about yourself by taking an inventory of what you’re feeling and asking yourself why. In fact, learning how to face your emotions without escaping into addiction is invaluable. Understanding what might trigger you to relapse as well as having a plan in the place for these triggers are the first steps toward prevention. Here are five triggers you need to consider and talk to your therapist or counselor about. If you or someone you know is struggling with substance use disorder, reach out to us.

Use the opportunity to your advantage by discussing addiction triggers linked to feelings during therapy and addiction education lessons. This could include family, friends, sponsors or other members of your addiction recovery community, just to name a few people. These need to be people that you’ll feel comfortable calling on if you encounter one of your triggers out in the world and need someone to talk to as a tool to help prevent relapse. Addiction relapses are similar in that the individual needs to seek treatment to get back on track. To overcome withdrawal symptoms, most people need some form of detoxification orwithdrawal managementservice. A long-term, severe relapse might require residential treatment, while people with prior experience in a treatment program may do well withoutpatient therapy.

Triggers are social, environmental or emotional situations that remind people in recovery of their past drug or alcohol use. While triggers do not force a person to use drugs, they increase the likelihood of drug use. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that 40 to 60 percent of people treated for substance use disorders relapse. Long-term drug use creates an association in the brain between daily routines and drug experiences. Individuals may suffer from uncontrollable drug or alcohol cravings when exposed to certain cues.

Over-Confidence in Recovery

Objects surrounding your daily life can lead to drug and alcohol cravings. For example, if you were using spoons to consume heroin, the piece of cutlery can trigger those memories. Empty pill bottles, movies, magazines, and some paraphernalia are common triggers of substance use.

This external stimulus would lead the individual to repeat drug use or relapse after a period of abstinence. Addiction models constructed upon this observation consider the trigger as a stimulus able to activate drug related memories leading to reward anticipation and craving responses. As a consequence, derived therapeutic approaches suggest to avoid the trigger or provide the individuals with cognitive capabilities to control that emotional response provoked by the trigger. Such cognitive-behavioral therapies include operant conditioning, contingency management or coping skills training (Witkiewitz et al., 2019).

What are Common Relapse Triggers?

Physical triggers, also known as external triggers, are usually physically encountered. However, that doesn’t always mean that they involve using substances specifically. Something that immediately preceded drug or alcohol use, or something that usually happened after.

Family and friends often tempt those in recovery to consume alcohol because they are under the misconception that one deviation from the treatment plan will not be detrimental. Friends and family may not understand the consequences of negative behaviors toward people in recovery. These behaviors can make the individuals feel alienated and push them toward substance use. The transition back to life outside of rehab is fraught with the potential for relapse.

Relapse Triggers

Unfortunately, at that point, the process of relapse has already begun. That pressure to try desperately to keep the pieces of your recovery together begins to become a trigger in itself. Addiction treatment programs like rational emotive behavior therapy are designed to focus on just that.

A physical addiction trigger could even be a car, or a type of car if it sets off a craving. Avoiding triggers is only one part of the puzzle when it comes to addiction and recovery. As we’ve mentioned a few times, it’s important to learn healthy coping mechanisms to help you handle yourself if you happen to encounter one of your triggers while you’re out in the world. Avoiding all of your triggers isn’t always an option, but running into one when you’re going about your daily business doesn’t necessarily have to trigger a relapse. Addiction happens because the use of drugs or alcohol makes a person feel better in some way.

Often these are emotional triggers in recovery, but that’s not always the case. If you or someone you know relapses, the most important thing to do is ensure safety. Drug and alcohol tolerance may decrease in recovery, so someone who has been sober for months and uses the same amount of a substance they used before treatment may be at risk of overdose. If the relapse does not seem life-threatening, contacting a sponsor, therapist or trusted loved one is the next thing to do. It helps to compare addiction relapse to relapse in other chronic conditions. A person with diabetes will often relapse due to poor eating behaviors, for example.

This gives you time to identify it as a trigger and work through the after-plan process that’s been practiced. It sounds simple, but in the heat of the moment, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. No matter how prepared you are knowing how to deal with triggers, it’s hard to prepare for the unexpected. Unexpected triggers can even be ones you have prepared for but arise very suddenly and without warning.

How to Avoid Triggers in the First Place

By abusing substances to cope, instead of getting professional care, each illness triggers the other. Cut out the middleman, and participate in a treatment program that incorporates treatment for co-occurring disorders along with addiction triggers. Emotional triggers in recovery that haven’t been carefully considered can derail sobriety very quickly.

Whatever the course of treatment, it will involve the person identifying the reasons they relapse and learning what steps to take to prevent it in the future. For many people, drug and alcohol use began as a way to alleviate boredom or make certain activities feel more fun. Those in recovery often have a hard time finding new ways to have fun, and it may cause them to glamorize or ruminate on their past substance abuse. https://en.forexrobotron.info/ Recovery is hard work and drug use feels easy, and this can make people feel like their efforts haven’t been worth it. Therapy can help people overcome the cognitive challenge of acknowledging the difficulty of recovery but realizing that sustaining an addiction is far harder. Recovery is a journey with no end, yet some people begin to feel that they are cured and don’t have to worry about triggers anymore.

Substance use disorders and drug use change the way the brain works. If you’re in recovery and experiencing a craving, you’re taken back to the time when substance use brought you pleasure, and your brain pays no attention to all the ways it caused harm. From a therapeutic view, the capability of psychotherapeutic treatments has been demonstrated to restoring the biological normality of brain structure and function (Barsaglini et al., 2014).

Recognizing the Stages of Relapse

A study of rats by the University of Michigan found that the rats largely preferred rewards that triggered the brain’s amygdala, part of the limbic system that produces emotions. The researchers also discovered that the rats were inclined to work harder to obtain the reward that triggered the amygdala than the same reward that did not trigger any emotion in the brain. Treatment for addiction takes many forms and depends on the needs of the individual. In accordance with the American Society of Addiction Medicine, we offer information on outcome-oriented treatment that adheres to an established continuum of care.

• While many triggers can be negative experiences, it is important to note that positive events can trigger relapsing as well.
• These people may not know the dangers of exposing you to drugs and substances.
• You might be surprised how quickly your resolve and good intentions disappear once the party’s started.
• Keep in mind, this list is not all inclusive.Many triggers are difficult to avoid, but that doesn’t make managing your resulting cravings impossible.

A person can find alternative routes to avoid high-risk places, such as places where they used to meet their dealers or bars where they used to binge drink. Triggers provide a perfect example of why staying sober isn’t as simple as it seems. Unless you have experienced them personally, you cannot imagine how difficult it can be to navigate a trigger without giving in to temptation. When you choose to get treatment at North Georgia Recovery Center, you can rest assured knowing that you will be treated by licensed therapists in our state-of-the-art facilities.

Physical Relapse

If addicted people could simply make the decision to get sober, snap their fingers, and turn their lives around; they would. Recovery is not easy and most people require addiction treatment to reclaim their lives once they become addicted to drugs or alcohol. As soon as things start getting hard, it’s tempting to turn back to addiction.

Send them a text message or Facetime them until the urge to relapse passes. Technology gives us the tools to stay connected to our support groups even if they’re not in the same time zone. When you see a doctor or mental health specialist, let them know that you are in alcohol side effects & signs of alcohol abuse recovery. Insisting on non-addictive prescriptions and alternatives to medication can help eliminate a potential source of triggers. The only solution to stress is a combination of preventive self-care and employing coping skills whenever you start to feel overwhelmed.

Spending time away from the treatment center can seem scary, especially right after detox. But the outpatient treatment does allow for the opportunity to gather information about areas that are particularly consumed with triggering emotions. No one is going to argue that facing your addiction and triggers, aren’t emotional experiences. Emotional triggers in recovery are especially difficult to navigate through and even harder to identify. Self-talk is a powerful tool and a valuable coping mechanism if you encounter one of your triggers during your daily life.