Online Alcoholism & Addiction Counselling

So you’ve stopped drinking, or maybe you’re just not doing it every day now, and you want to know how to prevent yourself from relapsing, or (if you want to keep it simple) how to make sure you don’t drink today.

Relapse prevention requires some planning, specifically -

• what situations might I encounter that are risky for me? (my triggers)
• how might I deal with my feelings differently?
• what behaviour can I do instead?

You need to identify your internal triggers (like boredom, frustration, loneliness, anxiety etc), and your external triggers (like arguments, bars, other people drinking etc.). Can any of these triggers be avoided? If so, plan how to do that. For those that can’t be avoided, you’ve got to learn to deal with them some other way.

So, what do these triggers mean to you? What beliefs do you hold about them that lead you to drink? A few common beliefs might be -

• “drinking helps me relax”,
• “drinking makes me more confident”,
• “everyone else drinks so that makes it all right for me to drink too”.

What thoughts go through your head when you’re exposed to these triggers? You may not even be aware of these thoughts, they’re so habitual, so you’ll have to listen carefully to your internal dialogue here.

Once you’ve got an idea what some of your automatic thoughts are, you need to learn to challenge them. So for example, the next time you’re feeling stressed and you think “a drink would relax me” you might then say to yourself “yes, it does, but it’ll make me even more nervous and stressed tomorrow”.

Relapse prevention is just knowing about your habits

Of course by the time you’ve got to this stage, you’re probably craving a drink, and you’re thinking about how to get some. You might be arguing with yourself - part of you doesn’t want to get wasted again. You’ve told yourself you’re not doing it any more (or today at least). So here’s when you might start looking for permission, to make it ok:

• “just this time won’t hurt”,
• “I’ll be able to hide it, so no-one will know”,
• “I’m not at work tomorrow, so it doesn’t matter if I’m hungover”
• “I can’t cope with this craving, so I might as well just get on with it”

As far as behaviour goes, we’ve already mentioned avoiding triggers, but another option is distracting yourself (look at our earlier article on ‘how to cope with alcohol cravings‘). Other things you might do are more general - make some new friends, find new things to do with your time, get into the habit of some exercise. Most importantly - find some support, people you can talk to about what’s troubling you.

Try going through our worksheet on Relapse Prevention Strategies.

Remember though, a lapse is not a relapse, just because you might make a mistake, try not to think “oh well, I’ve failed, so obviously I’ll never beat this, I might as well just keep drinking…”

If you are trying to cut down your alcohol use, even if you are mostly successful, there will inevitably be times when you will relapse and have a binge. Don’t be put off by this, you haven’t failed. What is important here is to learn from your mistakes and work out how you could do things differently next time.

What was it about that situation that caused you to drink more than you intended? Was it a particular trigger that you couldn’t avoid (birthdays or a bereavement for instance)? Or was it a trigger that has caught you out before? If so, you need to work out some different ways to deal with it.

Many relapses occur as a result of the beliefs you may hold about alcohol. For instance if you believe that you “can’t cope with these feelings” and so you “need a drink otherwise you’ll lose the plot”, or if you believe that the only way you can be sociable is after a drink, then obviously these beliefs will tend to make you relapse.

The beliefs you have about your cravings or urges will also determine how easy it is to avoid relapse. So again, if you believe that once you get a craving, it won’t go away until you have a drink, then every craving you get becomes very risky. Similarly, if you believe that you don’t have the mental strength to cope with your cravings, then of course you probably won’t. Your beliefs are self-fulfilling.

What you need to do now is find out what your beliefs are, and more importantly how accurate they are. This means testing out your beliefs by looking at the evidence. Most of our problems in life arise from inaccurate beliefs about ourselves and how the world works. But this is where you might need a counsellor or a therapist, because it’s very difficult to be objective and impartial about your own thoughts.

» Try this test to see what your negative beliefs about alcohol or drug use might be.

» Then try this one to examine what your beliefs about cravings are.