Expanding the continuum of substance use disorder treatment: Nonabstinence approaches

Mental health challenges are frequently accompanied by layers of shame, blame, and misunderstanding. This is why individuals experiencing these conditions may be more likely to interpret setbacks as evidence of personal defects rather than recognizing the complex interplay of inadequate support systems, underdeveloped coping mechanisms, genetic factors, and environmental influences. At ReachLink, we emphasize addressing these preconceptions about recovery and developing a more accurate understanding based on compassion, self-awareness, and support—elements essential to successful mental health recovery. Although specific intervention strategies can address the immediate determinants of relapse, it is also important to modify individual lifestyle factors and covert antecedents that can increase exposure or reduce resistance to high-risk situations. Global self-control strategies are designed to modify the client’s lifestyle to increase balance as well as to identify and cope with covert antecedents of relapse (i.e., early warning signals, cognitive distortions, and relapse set-ups).

Identifying and Coping With High-Risk Situations

The myth that we need to erase all past mistakes and start with a “blank slate” if we want to live a healthful life is dangerous because it keeps us striving for fad fitness trends rather than consistency. SMART Takes is a monthly newsletter filled with content about self-empowered, practical, and evidence-informed recovery. Every month includes information about the latest research, relevant podcasts, blogs, and announcements.

Create and Use a Relapse Prevention Plan

Abstinence violation effect can be overcome, but it is far better to avoid suffering AVE in the first place. Enroll in Amethyst Recovery, and you’ll learn the skills you need to practice effective relapse prevention. The weight of this guilt often correlates to the amount of time spent in recovery leading up to the relapse. Those abstinence violation effect with only a few weeks of sobriety will not feel as bad as those with years under their belt.

• She is a current member of the Golden Key International Honor Society and the Delta Epsilon Iota Honor Society.
• Positive expectancies regarding alcohol’s effects often are based on myths or placebo effects of alcohol (i.e., effects that occur because the drinker expects them to, not because alcohol causes the appropriate physiological changes).
• Oxford English Dictionary defines motivation as “the conscious or unconscious stimulus for action towards a desired goal provided by psychological or social factors; that which gives purpose or direction to behaviour.

Key 1: A Lapse Is Not a Relapse

• If you’re in the Massachusetts area, a personalized outpatient plan can give you the structure and support you need to build a recovery that lasts.
• Shiffman, Gwaltney and colleagues have used ecological momentary assessment (EMA; 44) to examine temporal variations in SE in relation to smoking relapse.
• Depending on the substance used, addiction may also have the potential to damage the brain itself.
• Most importantly, 12-step programs tend to be abstinence-based, emphasizing that an authentic or high-quality recovery depends on abstaining completely from drugs and alcohol.

Your lapse becomes a tool to move forward and to strengthen your motivation to change, your identification of triggers and urge-controlling techniques, your rational coping skills, and the lifestyle changes needed to lead a more balanced life. For someone in the throws of an eating disorder (or even in eating disorder recovery), a perceived lapse in their prescribed eating plan or body image goals can trigger intense feelings of guilt, shame, and self-blame. This can create a cycle of negative emotions that may lead to further restrictive behaviors, binge eating, or other harmful coping mechanisms. Naturally, the risk of returning to an addiction can be another effect of abstinence.

As of 2020, the number of drug-involved overdose deaths reached an all-time high of 91,799, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. At least 74.8% of those deaths involved opioids, 14% involved heroin, 26% involved psychostimulants, primarily… This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves. Although the benefits of 12-step participation may (and quite often do) outweigh the added AVE risk, clinicians should be aware of this particular risk and take steps to counteract it. This is an open-access report distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain License. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

Ongoing cravings, in turn, may erode the client’s commitment to maintaining abstinence as his or her desire for immediate gratification increases. This process may lead to a relapse setup or increase the client’s vulnerability to unanticipated high-risk situations. Given data demonstrating a clear link between abstinence goals and Halfway house treatment engagement in a primarily abstinence-based SUD treatment system, it is reasonable to hypothesize that offering nonabstinence treatment would increase overall engagement by appealing to those with nonabstinence goals. Indeed, there is anecdotal evidence that this may be the case; for example, a qualitative study of nonabstinence drug treatment in Denmark described a client saying that he would not have presented to abstinence-only treatment due to his goal of moderate use (Järvinen, 2017). In a 2013 Cochrane review which also discussed regarding relapse prevention in smokers the authors concluded that there is insufficient evidence to support the use of any specific behavioural intervention to help smokers who have successfully quit for a short time to avoid relapse. The verdict is strongest for interventions focused on identifying and resolving tempting situations, as most studies were concerned with these24.