This publication is intended for use by people who are interested in working with criminal offenders who are chemically dependent (addicted to alcohol and/or drugs).

It focuses on chemical dependency and the criminal offender, and will present you with information you may not have been exposed to before.

Research tells us that most criminal offenders have alcohol or drug problems. It also tells us that traditional forms of treatment for chemical dependency are not very successful with these offenders.

Many of them return to using alcohol or drugs after treatment. When this happens, most of them become repeat offenders. This publication is designed to help you teach criminal offenders how they can stay sober and clean.

This publication is designed for the paraprofessional counselor. A paraprofessional counselor is someone who wants to help others, but who has little or no professional counselor training.

This publication explains basic counseling information in simple terms. It is also designed to help you work with people who are using the Appendix—Relapse Prevention Workbook for Chemically Dependent Criminal Offenders.

It explains the purpose of each exercise in this workbook and tells you how to help the patient use and understand the exercises.

This publication is based on information that has had better than average results in treating chemically dependent criminal offenders. This information is called relapse prevention therapy. Relapse prevention therapy is based on experience with patients who generally fail in traditional treatment. The techniques in this publication were developed through experience with these patients.

Relapse prevention therapy breaks down the recovery process into specific tasks and skills. Patients must learn these skills in order to recover. It also shows patients how to recognize when they are beginning to relapse, and how to change before they start using alcohol or drugs again.

It is important that you read the entire publication to understand the basic information and how it all fits together. When you read the section that explains how to use the exercises from the Appendix—Relapse Prevention Workbook for Chemically Dependent Criminal Offenders, read the workbook at the same time. If you are a recovering person yourself, fill in the workbook as you go through it. This will help you understand how the exercises work.

It is important to tell your patients (the offenders with whom you are working) that they may get frustrated or discouraged at times when they are completing the workbook. The main reason for this is that chemically dependent people, especially criminal offenders, want immediate payoffs and results. Recovery doesn't give immediate results. Encourage them to continue with the exercises, and give them positive feedback for each step they complete along the way.

It is also important for you not to get discouraged. Talk with other people who are doing the same kind of work. Find out what is working and what is not working for them. Tell them the same things. Encourage one another.

How will you know when patients are making progress? You will know by seeing how they change the way they think, feel, and act toward themselves and others. If you try to control your patients, they will either drop out of treatment or simply manipulate you by telling you what they think you want to hear.

It is important that you view your patients as people whose disease of chemical dependency and way of thinking prevent them from acting in a socially acceptable manner. These patients may want to be full members of society, but they do not have the skills to do so. In some cases, they have given up hope.

It is your job to help your patients understand more about themselves and the world, help them learn new skills, and give them hope, so that they are motivated to change. You cannot do this by telling them what they are or what they must be. It is one thing for you to know, but unless the patient comes to an understanding based on changes in his or her own thinking, treatment will fail.

You do not have all the answers. Even professional counselors do not have all the answers. Most answers come from listening carefully to what patients say and how they think. If you do not know something, be honest. Patients will respect you for this and be more willing to work with you if you are honest about what you do and don't know. When you don't know an answer, try to find the information and share it with the patient.

Most of all, give patients your best effort. If you do this and learn from your mistakes, you will become a better counselor. Read as much as possible about chemical dependency and counseling for chemically dependent people. Get all the training you can.

Remember, your best source of information is your patients. When you make a mistake, admit it and learn from it. Even if you don't succeed with one patient, what you will learn will help other patients in the future.

You may never know for sure if you have helped most of your patients. Some patients will not use information you give them now, but will use it at some point in the future. Also, remember that every patient you help will have a positive impact on everyone with whom they come in contact.

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Technical Assistance Publications (TAP) 19

Counselor's Manual for Relapse Prevention with Chemically Dependent Criminal Offenders

http://tie.samhsa.gov/Taps/TAP19/TAP19toc.html

Chemical dependency is a disease caused by the use of alcoholand/ or drugs, causing changes in a person's body, mind, and behavior.

As a result of the disease of chemical dependency, people are unable to control the use of alcohol and/or drugs, despite the bad things that happen when they use.

Chemical dependency occurs most frequently in people who have a family history of the disease. As the disease process progresses, recovery becomes more difficult.

Chemical dependency may cause death if the person does not completely abstain from using alcohol and other mood-altering drugs.

Effects

The problems of chemical dependency that affect people when they use alcohol or drugs, and even after they have stopped using, include the following.

Malnutrition and metabolic dysfunction. The addict's ability to function normally is damaged by the effects of alcohol and/or drugs on the brain and body. Only after a period of proper diet and taking supplements can normal body chemistry be restored. This process affects the way the addict thinks, feels, and acts.

Liver disease and other medical complications. The addict's liver enzymes may be far above normal. This can cause poisonous effects within the body and may lead to infections and illnesses that need to be treated before normal functioning can resume.

Brain dysfunction. Alcohol and drugs damage brain cells, interrupt the production of certain brain chemicals called neurotransmitters, and alter the way the brain functions. Some of these changes may be permanent.

Addictive preoccupation. A chemically dependent person's thinking patterns are altered by chemical dependency as the disease progresses. These changes cause the person to have strong thoughts, desires, and physical cravings for alcohol or drugs. These processes also change the way the person sees the world. They lead the person to believe that using is better than not using, despite the bad things that result from using.

Social consequences. As the physical and psychological problems identified above get worse, the person's behavior becomes more antisocial and self-destructive. Frequent social consequences of addiction are job loss, money problems, car accidents, domestic violence, criminal behaviors, illness, and death.

Criminal behaviors. Chemical dependency can cause a person to commit crimes. People who are chemically dependent commit crimes related to their use of alcohol or drugs (drunk driving, public drunkenness, assault, etc.), the support of their addiction (selling drugs, committing crimes to get drugs or money for drugs, etc.), and secondary consequences of drug or alcohol use (not paying child support or court fines, failing to follow through with probation requirements, etc.).

Some people do not commit crimes until they become chemically dependent. Others have personality problems that initiate their criminal behavior. Most of those who have personality problems either become chemically dependent on or abusive of alcohol and drugs.

Any relapse into behavior that leads to criminal actions is likely to cause a relapse into the use of alcohol or drugs.

Any relapse into chemical use is likely to cause a relapse into criminal behavior.

The conditions just described combine and interfere with the ability to think clearly, control feelings, and regulate behaviors, especially under stress. Alcohol and drug dependency damages the basic personality traits that are formed before the addictive use of alcohol or drugs.

Dependency on alcohol or other drugs systemically destroys meaning and purpose in life as the addiction gets worse and worse.

Treatment

Because dependency on alcohol or other drugs creates problems in a person's physical, psychological, and social functioning, treatment must be designed to work in all three areas. The worse the damage in each area, the greater the chance of relapse and return to old behaviors (criminal actions and/or the use of alcohol or drugs). Total abstinence (not using any alcohol and drugs) plus personality and lifestyle changes are essential for full recovery.

The type and intensity of treatment depend on the patient's:
Current physical, psychological and social problems
Stage and type of addiction(s)
Stage of recovery
Personality traits and social skills before the onset of addiction
Other factors in life that cause stress.

Chemical dependency is a chronic condition that has a tendency toward relapse. Abstinence from alcohol and other mood-altering drugs is essential in the treatment of chemical dependency.

It is also an important part of relapse prevention therapy. There is no convincing evidence that controlled drinking or drug use is a practical treatment goal for people who have been physically dependent on alcohol or drugs.

Many chemically dependent people who exhibit criminal behaviors were raised in families that did not provide proper support, guidance, and values. This caused them to develop self-defeating personality styles that interfere with their ability to recover.

Personality is the habitual way of thinking, feeling, acting, and relating to others that develops in childhood and continues in adult life. Personality develops as a result of an interaction between genetically inherited traits and family environment.

Growing up in a dysfunctional family causes a person to have a distorted view of the world. He or she learns coping methods that may be unacceptable in society. In addition, the family may not have been able to provide guidance or foster the development of social and occupational skills that allow the person to fully participate in society.

This lack of skills and distorted personality functioning may cause addictive behaviors to occur. These problems may also contribute to a more rapid progression of the addiction, make it difficult to recognize and seek treatment during the early stages of the addiction, and make it hard to benefit from treatment.

There are four goals in the primary treatment of dependency on alcohol and other drugs:

Recognition that chemical dependency is a bio/psycho/social disease

Recognition of the need for life-long abstinence from all mind-altering drugs

Development and use of an ongoing recovery program to maintain abstinence

Diagnosis and treatment of other problems or conditions that can interfere with recovery.

Traditional treatment has taken one of two general approaches:

The Medical Model.

This approach tries to help the patient meet the first three goals listed above.

The Social/Behavioral Model.

This approach focuses on the fourth goal listed above.

The lack of a model that includes all of the components has led to high relapse rates, especially in criminal justice populations. Relapse prevention therapy is a model that uses an approach that works with all four components.

A comprehensive model of chemical dependency treatment effectively combines the best of the medical and social/behavioral treatment models.

It is based on the idea that recovery is a process that takes place over time, in specific stages. Each stage has tasks to be accomplished and skills to be developed.

If a recovering person is unaware of this progression, unable to accomplish the tasks and gain the skills, or lacks adequate treatment, he or she will relapse.

The following is a description of this comprehensive model. It is called the Developmental Model of Recovery (DMR).

The Developmental Model of Recovery

The DMR has been devised to help recovering people and treatment professionals identify appropriate recovery plans, set treatment goals, and measure progress. The DMR describes six stages or periods of recovery.

Transition Stage

The transition stage begins the first time a person experiences an alcohol or drug-related problem. As a person's addiction progresses, he or she tries a series of strategies designed to control use. This ends with recognition by the person that safe use of alcohol and/or drugs is no longer possible.

The struggle for control is a symptom of a fundamental conflict over personal identity. Alcoholics and drug addicts enter this phase of recovery believing they are normal drinkers and drug users capable of controlled use. As the progression of addiction causes more severe loss of control, they must face the fact that they are addictive users who are not capable of controlled use.

During the transition stage, chemically dependent people typically attempt to control their use or stop using. They are usually trying to prove to themselves and others that they can use safely. This never works for very long. Controlled use is especially tough for people who are participating in criminal behavior because the high level of alcohol and drug use among their peers makes their lifestyle and use seem normal.

The major cause of inability to abstain during the transition stage is the belief that there is a way to control use.

Stabilization Period

During the stabilization period, chemically dependent people experience physical withdrawal and other medical problems, learn how to break the psychological conditioning causing the urge to use, stabilize the crisis that motivated them to seek treatment, and learn to identify and manage symptoms of brain dysfunction. This prepares them for the long-term processes of rehabilitation.

Traditional treatment often underestimates the need for management of these issues, focusing instead on detoxification. Patients find themselves unable to cope with the stress and pressure of the symptoms of brain dysfunction and physical cravings that follow detoxification.

Many have difficulty gaining much from treatment and feel they are incapable of recovery. The lack of a supportive environment for recovery that many criminal offenders experience adds stress and undermines their attempts to stabilize these symptoms.

They often use alcohol and drugs to relieve such distress. It takes between 6 weeks and 6 months for a patient to learn to master these symptoms with the correct therapy.

The major cause of inability to abstain during the stabilization period is the lack of stabilization management skills.

Early Recovery Period

Early recovery is marked by the need to establish a chemical-free lifestyle. The recovering person must learn about the addiction and recovery process. He or she must separate from friends who use and build relationships that support long-term recovery. This may be a very difficult time for criminal justice patients who have never associated with people with sobriety-based lifestyles.

They also need to learn how to develop recovery-based values, thinking, feelings, and behaviors to replace the ones formed in addiction. The thoughts, feelings, and behaviors developed by people with criminal lifestyles complicate and hinder their involvement in appropriate support programs during this period. Major intervention to teach the patient these skills is necessary if he or she is to succeed. This period lasts about 1B2 years.

The primary cause of relapse during the early recovery period is the lack of effective social and recovery skills necessary to build a sobriety-based lifestyle.

Middle Recovery Period

Middle recovery is marked by the development of a balanced lifestyle. During this stage, recovering people learn to repair past damage done to their lives.

The recovery program is modified to allow time to reestablish relationships with family, set new vocational goals, and expand social outlets. The patient moves out of the protected environment of a recovery support group to assume a more mainstream and normal lifestyle. This is a time of stress as a person begins applying basic recovery skills to real-life problems.

The major cause of relapse during the middle recovery period is the stress of real-life problems.

Late recovery period

During late recovery, a person makes changes in ongoing personality issues that have continued to interfere with life satisfaction. In traditional psychotherapy, this is referred to as self-actualization. It is a process of examining the values and goals that one has adopted from family, peers, and culture.

Conscious choices are then made about keeping these values or discarding them and forming new ones. In normal growth and development, this process occurs in a person's mid-twenties. Among people in recovery, it does not usually occur until 3B5 years into the recovery process, no matter when recovery begins.

For criminal offenders, this is the time when they learn to change self-defeating behaviors that may trigger a return to alcohol or drug use. These self-defeating behaviors often come from psychological issues starting in childhood, such as childhood physical or sexual abuse, abandonment, or cultural barriers to personal growth.

The major cause of relapse during the late recovery period is either the inability to cope with the stress of unresolved childhood issues or an evasion of the need to develop a functional personality style.

Maintenance Stage

The maintenance stage is the life-long process of continued growth and development, coping with adult life transitions, managing routine life problems, and guarding against relapse. The physiology of addiction lasts for the rest of a person's life. Any use of alcohol or drugs will reactivate physiological, psychological, and social progression of the disease.

The major causes of relapse during the maintenance stage are the failure to maintain a recovery program and encountering major life transitions.

Stuck Points in Recovery

Although some patients progress through the stages of recovery without complications, most chemically dependent people do not. They typically get stuck somewhere. A "stuck point" can occur during any period of recovery. Usually it is caused either by lack of skills or lack of confidence in one's ability to complete a recovery task. Other problems occur when the recovering person encounters a problem (physical, psychological, or social) that interferes with his or her ability to use recovery supports.

When recovering people encounter stuck points, they either recognize they have a problem and take action, or they lapse into the familiar coping skill of denial that a problem exists. Without specific relapse prevention skills to identify and interrupt denial, stress begins to build. Eventually, the stress will cause the patient to cope less and less well. This will result in relapse.

The Developmental Model of Recovery Compared With Traditional Models

Traditional models of treatment are based on the idea that once a person is detoxified, he or she can fully participate in the treatment process. Although this is true for many patients in the early stages of addiction who have had functional lives before their addiction progressed, it is not true for most of the criminal justice population.

In addition, most traditional programs have a program format that is applied to all people regardless of their education, personality, or social skills. Patients whose needs fit within the program usually do well. But those whose needs do not fit, such as criminal justice patients, generally do not do well.

The DMR recognizes that there are abstinence-based symptoms of addiction that persist well into the recovery process. These symptoms are physical and psychological effects of the disease of chemical dependency. In the DMR, these symptoms must be stabilized and the patient must be taught how to manage them before general rehabilitation can take place. This model identifies the specific symptoms that a patient needs to overcome.

This model also contains methods and techniques that recognize the learning needs, psychological problems, and social skills of the patient.

Post Acute Withdrawal

Some of the symptoms of withdrawal from alcohol or drugs are the result of the toxic effects of these chemicals on the brain. These symptoms are called Post Acute Withdrawal (PAW). PAW is more severe for some patients than it is for others. Other factors cause stress that aggravates PAW. Below is a list of conditions affecting the criminal justice population that tend to worsen the damage and aggravate PAW.

Physical conditions that worsen PAW through increased brain damage or disrupted brain function:

Combined use of alcohol and drugs or different types of drugs
Regular use of alcohol or drugs before age 15 or abusive use for a period of more than 15 years
History of head trauma (from car accidents, fights, falling, etc.)
Parental use of alcohol or drugs during pregnancy
Personal or family history of metabolic disease such as diabetes or hypoglycemia
Personal history of malnutrition, usually due to chemical dependence
Physical illness or chronic pain.

Psychological and social conditions that worsen PAW:

Childhood or adult history of psychological trauma (participant in or victim of sexual or physical violence)
Mental illness or severe personality disorder
High stress lifestyle or personality
High stress social environment.
Addictive Preoccupation

The other major area of abstinence-based symptoms is addictive preoccupation. This consists of the obsessive thought patterns, compulsive behaviors, and physical cravings caused or aggravated by the addiction. These behaviors become programmed into the patient's psychological processes by the addiction. They are automatic and can cause the recovering patient to return to use unless he or she has specific training to identify and interrupt them.

Addictive preoccupations are activated by high-risk situations and stress. Because of the environment surrounding most criminal justice patients, they often experience high-risk situations and stress.

These situations and stresses can include

Exposure to alcohol or drugs or associated paraphernalia
Exposure to places where alcohol or drugs are used
Exposure to people with whom the patient has used in the past or people the patient knows who are actively using
Lack of a stable home environment
Lack of a stable social environment
Lack of stable employment.

Traditional treatment focuses on either detoxification alone or detoxification with movement into a rehabilitation program aimed at changing the patient's lifestyle. Programs are similar for all patients. Many programs omit teaching the specific stabilization skills that are necessary before lifestyle rehabilitation can take place.

The DMR first stabilizes patients so that they can take advantage of lifestyle rehabilitation. It then places the patient into a group that contains patients in similar stages of recovery and works on tasks and skills for that stage of recovery. Specific skills are taught to identify and manage relapse warning signs.

Relapse is not an isolated event. Rather, it is a process of becoming unable to cope with life in sobriety.

The process may lead to renewed alcohol or drug use, physical or emotional collapse, or suicide.

The relapse process is marked by predictable and identifiable warning signs that begin long before a return to use or collapse occurs.

Relapse prevention therapy teaches people to recognize and manage these warning signs so that they can interrupt the progression early and return to the process of recovery.

Studies of life-long patterns of recovery and relapse indicate that not all patients relapse.

Approximately one third achieve permanent abstinence from their first serious attempt at recovery.

Another third have a period of brief relapse episodes but eventually achieve long-term abstinence. An additional one third have chronic relapses that result in eventual death from chemical addiction.

These statistics are consistent with the life-long recovery rates of any chronic lifestyle-related illness. About half of all relapse-prone people eventually achieve permanent abstinence. Many others lead healthier, more stable lives despite periodic relapse episodes.

Classification of Recovery/Relapse History

For the purpose of relapse prevention therapy, chemically dependent people can be categorized according to their recovery/relapse history. These categories are as follows:

Recovery-Prone
Briefly Relapse-Prone
Chronically Relapse-Prone.

These categories correspond with the outcome categories of continuous abstinence, brief relapse, and chronic relapse described above. Relapse-prone individuals can be further divided into three distinct subgroups.

Transition patients fail to recognize or accept that they are suffering from chemical addiction in spite of problems from their use. This failure is usually due to the chemical disruption of the patient's ability to accurately perceive reality, or to mistaken beliefs.

Unstabilized relapse-prone patients have not been taught to identify the abstinence-based symptoms of PAW and addictive preoccupation. Treatment fails to provide these patients with the skills necessary to interrupt their disease progression and stop using alcohol and drugs.

As a result, they are unable to adhere to a recovery program requiring abstinence, treatment, and lifestyle change.

Stabilized relapse-prone patients recognize that they are chemically dependent, need to maintain abstinence to recover, and need to maintain an ongoing recovery program to stay abstinent.

They usually attend Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Narcotics Anonymous (NA), or another 12-step program in addition to receiving ongoing professional treatment. They also make protracted efforts at psychological and physical rehabilitation and recommended lifestyle changes during abstinence.

However, despite their efforts, these people develop symptoms of dysfunction that eventually lead them back to alcohol or drug use.

Many counselors mistakenly believe that most relapse-prone patients are not motivated to recover.

Clinical experience has not supported this belief.

More than 80 percent of relapse-prone patients admitted to the relapse prevention program at Father Martin's Ashley in Havre de Grace, Maryland, had a history of both recognition of their chemical addiction and motivation to follow aftercare recommendations at time of discharge.

In spite of this, they were unable to maintain abstinence and sought treatment in a specialized relapse prevention program. he or she became aware of during this exercise.

Relapse prevention is a systematic method of teaching recovering patients to recognize and manage relapse warning signs.

Relapse prevention becomes the primary focus for patients who are unable to maintain abstinence from alcohol or drugs despite primary treatment.

Recovery is defined as abstinence plus a full return to bio/psycho/social functioning. As previously noted, relapse is defined as the process of becoming dysfunctional in recovery, which leads to a return to chemical use, physical or emotional collapse, or suicide.

Relapse episodes are usually preceded by a series of observable warning signs. Typically, relapse progresses from bio/psycho/social stability through a period of progressively increasing distress that leads to physical or emotional collapse. The symptoms intensify unless the individual turns to the use of alcohol or drugs for relief.

To understand the progression of warning signs, it is important to look at the dynamic interaction between the recovery and relapse processes.

Recovery and relapse can be described as related processes that unfold in six stages:

Abstaining from alcohol and other drugs

Separating from people, places, and things that promote the use of alcohol or drugs, and establishing a social network that supports recovery

Stopping self-defeating behaviors that prevent awareness of painful feelings and irrational thoughts

Learning how to manage feelings and emotions responsibly without resorting to compulsive behavior or the use of alcohol or drugs

Learning to change addictive thinking patterns that create painful feelings and self-defeating behaviors

Identifying and changing the mistaken core beliefs about oneself, others, and the world that promote irrational thinking.

When people who have had a stable recovery and have done well begin to relapse, they simply reverse this process.

In other words, they

Have a mistaken belief that causes irrational thoughts

Begin to return to addictive thinking patterns that cause painful feelings

Engage in compulsive, self-defeating behaviors as a way to avoid the feelings

Seek out situations involving people who use alcohol and drugs

Find themselves in more pain, thinking less rationally, and behaving less responsibly

Find themselves in a situation in which drug or alcohol use seems like a logical escape from their pain, and they use alcohol or drugs.

A number of basic principles and procedures underlie the CENAPS Model of Relapse Prevention Therapy. Each principle forms the basis of specific relapse prevention therapy procedures.

Counselors can use the following principles and procedures to develop appropriate treatment plans for relapse-prone patients. Following a description of each principle is the relapse prevention procedure for that principle.

Principle 1: Self-Regulation

The risk of relapse will decrease as a patient's capacity to self-regulate thinking, feeling, memory, judgment, and behavior increases.

Relapse Prevention Procedure 1: Stabilization

An initial treatment plan is established that allows relapse-prone individuals to stabilize physically, psychologically, and socially. The level of stabilization is measured by the ability to perform the basic activities of daily living.

Because the symptoms of withdrawal are stress-sensitive, it is important to evaluate the patient's level of stability under both high and low stress. Many people who appear stable in a low-stress environment become unstable when placed in a more stressful environment.

The stabilization process often includes

Detoxification from alcohol and other drugs

Solving the immediate crises that threaten sobriety

Learning skills to identify and manage Post Acute Withdrawal and Addictive Preoccupation

Establishing a daily structure that includes proper diet, exercise, stress management, and regular contact with treatment personnel and self-help groups.

Because the risk of using alcohol or drugs is highest during the stabilization period, steps must be taken to prevent use during this time. The patient needs to be in a drug-free environment.

Any irrational thoughts (thoughts that don't make sense to a healthy person) that are creating immediate justification for relapse need to be identified and discussed. The patient should then be helped to remember the consequences of past chemical use and to develop new coping strategies.

An early relapse intervention plan can be developed by the counselor and patient to decide what action to take if the patient begins to use alcohol or drugs. This early intervention plan motivates the patient to stay sober and provides a safety net should chemical use occur.

Principle 2: Integration

The risk of relapse will decrease as the level of conscious understanding and acceptance of situations and events that have led to past relapses increases.

Relapse Prevention Procedure 2: Self-Assessment

Self-assessment first involves a detailed reconstruction of the presenting problems (problems that caused the patient to seek treatment) and the alcohol and drug use history. A careful exploration of the presenting problems identifies critical issues that can trigger relapse.

This allows the counselor to design intervention plans that help to solve crises that can be used for relapse justification in the early treatment stages. The next step is a reconstruction of the recovery and relapse history. This helps identify past causes of relapse.

In reconstructing the recovery/relapse history, it is important to identify the recovery tasks that were completed or ignored, and to find the sequence of warning signs that led back to drug or alcohol use. The assessment is most effective if the counselor reconstructs the relapse history using exercises (done as homework assignments), such as making a list of all relapse episodes and identifying the problems that led to relapse. These assignments should be reviewed in group and individual sessions.

Principle 3: Understanding

The risk of relapse will decrease as the understanding of the general factors that cause relapse increases.

Relapse Prevention Procedure 3: Relapse Education

Relapsers need accurate information about what causes relapse and what can be done to prevent it. This is typically provided in structured relapse education sessions and reading assignments, which provide specific information about recovery, relapse, and relapse prevention planning methods.

This information should include, but not be limited to

A bio/psycho/social model of addictive disease
A DMR
Common Astuck points" in recovery
Complicating factors in relapse
Warning sign identification
Relapse warning sign management strategies
Effective recovery planning.

The recommended format for a relapse education session is as follows:

Introduction and pretest (15 minutes)
Educational presentationClecture, film, or videotape (30 minutes)
Educational exercise conducted in dyads or small groups (15 minutes)
Large group discussion (15 minutes)
Post-test session and review of correct answers (15 minutes).

It is important to test patients to determine their retention and understanding of the material. Many relapsers have severe memory problems associated with Post Acute Withdrawal that prevent them from comprehending or remembering educational information.

Principle 4: Self-Knowledge

The risk of relapse will decrease as the patient's ability to recognize personal relapse warning signs increases.

Relapse Prevention Procedure 4: Warning Sign Identification

Warning sign identification is the process of teaching patients to identify the sequence of problems that has led from stable recovery to alcohol and drug use in the past and then recognizing how those steps could cause relapse in the future. The process of developing a personal relapse warning sign list is (1) reviewing warning signs, (2) making an initial warning sign list, (3) analyzing warning signs, and (4) making a final warning sign list.

The patient develops his or her own individualized warning sign list by thinking of irrational thoughts, unmanageable feelings, and self-defeating behaviors. Most final warning sign lists identify two different types of warning signs: those related to core psychological issues (problems from childhood) and those related to core addictive issues (problems from the addiction).

Warning signs related to core psychological issues create pain and dysfunction, but they do not directly cause a person to relapse into chemical use. When patterns of addictive thinking that justify relapse are reactivated, a return to using alcohol and drugs occurs.

Principle 5: Coping Skills

The risk of relapse will decrease as the ability to manage relapse warning signs increases.

Relapse Prevention Procedure 5: Warning Sign Management

This involves teaching relapse-prone patients how to manage or cope with their warning signs as they occur. The better they are at coping with warning signs, the better their ability will be to stay in recovery.

Warning sign management should focus on three distinct levels. The first is the situational-behavioral level, where patients are taught to avoid situations that trigger warning signs. At this level, they are taught to modify their behavioral responses should these situations arise.

The second level is the cognitiveBaffective (thoughts and feelings) level, where patients are taught to challenge their irrational thoughts and deal with their unmanageable feelings that emerge when a warning sign is activated. The third level is the core issue level, where patients are taught to identify the core addictive and psychological issues that initially create the warning signs.

Principle 6: Change

The risk of relapse will decrease as the relationship between relapse warning signs and recovery program recommendations increases.

Relapse Prevention Procedure 6: Recovery Planning

Recovery planning involves the development of a schedule of recovery activities that will help patients recognize and manage warning signs as they develop in sobriety. This is done by reviewing each warning sign on the final warning sign list and ensuring that there is a scheduled recovery activity focused on each sign. Each critical warning sign needs to be linked to a specific recovery activity.

Principle 7: Awareness

The risk of relapse will decrease as the use of daily inventory techniques designed to identify relapse warning signs increases.

Relapse Prevention Procedure 7: Inventory Training

Inventory training involves teaching relapse-prone patients to complete daily inventories. These inventories monitor compliance with the recovery program and check for the emergence of relapse warning signs. A daily recovery plan sheet is used to plan the day, and an evening inventory sheet is used to review progress and problems that occurred during that day.

A typical morning inventory asks the patient to identify three primary goals for that day, create a to-do list, then schedule time for completion of each task on the to-do list on a daily calendar. During the evening review inventory, the patient should review his or her warning sign list and recovery plan to determine whether he or she completed the required activities and experienced any relapse warning signs.

Whenever possible, these inventories should be reviewed by someone who knows the patient and who can assist him or her in looking for emerging patterns of problems that could cause relapse.

Principle 8: Significant Others

The risk of relapse will decrease as the responsible involvement of significant others in recovery and in relapse prevention planning increases.

Relapse Prevention Procedure 8: Involvement of Others

Relapse-prone individuals cannot recover alone. They need the help of others. Family members, 12-step program sponsors, counselors, and peers are just a few of the many recovery resources available.

A counselor should ensure that others are involved in the recovery process whenever possible. The more psychologically and emotionally healthy the significant others are, the more likely they are to help the relapse-prone patient remain abstinent.

The more directly the significant others are involved in the relapse prevention planning process, the more likely they are to become productively involved in supporting positive efforts at recovery and intervening on relapse warning signs or initial chemical use.

Principle 9: Maintenance

The risk of relapse decreases if the relapse prevention plan is regularlyupdated during the first 3 years of sobriety.

Relapse Prevention Procedure 9: Relapse Prevention Plan Updating

The patient's relapse prevention plan needs to be updated on a monthly basis for the first 3 months, quarterly for the remainder of the first year, and twice a year for the next 2 years. Once a person has maintained 3 years of uninterrupted sobriety, the relapse prevention plan should be updated on a yearly basis.

Nearly two thirds of all relapses occur during the first 6 months of recovery. Less than one quarter of the variables that actually cause relapse can be predicted during the initial treatment phase.

As a result, ongoing outpatient treatment is necessary for effective relapse prevention. Even the most effective short-term inpatient or primary outpatient programs will fail to interrupt long-term relapse cycles without the ongoing reinforcement of some type of outpatient therapy.

A relapse prevention plan update session involves the following:

A review of the original assessment, warning sign list, management strategies, and recovery plan.

An update of the assessment by adding documents that are significant to progress or problems since the previous update.

A revision of the relapse warning sign list to incorporate new warning signs that have developed since the previous update.

The development of management strategies for the newly identified warning signs.

A revision of the recovery program to add recovery activities to address the new warning signs and to eliminate activities that are no longer needed.

Although the workbook is intended to be used in a group counseling session, occasionally you will need to do individual counseling.

This chapter discusses some basic counseling skills that can be used in individual and group counseling. It also explains some of the concepts and terms used in relapse prevention counseling that you will need to help patients with the workbook.

Helping Traits

People who are effective at counseling have developed eight behaviors that they use during counseling sessions. It is important to develop these traits if you are to improve your ability to help others. The counselor is a role model (someone whom patients tend to imitate). Therefore, you want to model behaviors that will be helpful to patients' recovery. The following are some of these traits.

Empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand how another person sees and interprets an experience. It is different from sympathy (feeling sorry for someone). When you are empathetic, you can look at and understand a situation from another person's perspective. It does not mean you have to agree with that person.

Genuineness. Genuineness is the ability to be fully yourself and express yourself to others. It is the lack of phoniness, faking, and defensiveness. When you are genuine, the way you act on the outside matches your thoughts and feelings on the inside.

Respect. Respect is the ability to let another person know, through your words and actions, that you believe that he or she has the ability to make it in life, the right to make his or her own decisions, and the ability to learn from the outcome of those decisions.

Self-Disclosure. Self-disclosure is the ability to disclose information about yourself - the ways you think and feel, the things you believe - in order to help other people.

Warmth. Warmth is the ability to show another person you care about him or her. Behaviors that show warmth include touching someone, making eye contact, smiling, and having a caring, sincere tone of voice.

Immediacy. Immediacy is the ability to focus on the "here and now" relationship with another person. You can express immediacy by saying things like: "Right now I am feeling ________." "When you said that, I began to think _________." "As you were speaking, I sensed that you felt __________."

Concreteness. Concreteness is the ability to identify specific problems and the steps necessary to correct them. When a problem, situation, behavior, or set of actions is defined in concrete terms, you could draw a picture or make a movie about it if you were able.

Confrontation. Confrontation is the act of honestly telling another person your perception of what is going on without putting them down.

Confronting someone can include:

Giving an honest evaluation of the person's strengths and weaknesses

Saying what you believe the person is thinking and feeling

Stating how you see the person acting

Telling the person what you believe will happen because of their actions.

Active Listening

When a patient is talking about a problem or presenting an assignment, it is important to listen actively. Active listening is a basic counseling skill that helps you clarify for yourself and the patient what is really going on. Patients in recovery are not always clear in their thinking. This lack of clarity can confuse them and those around them. Active listening will help them clarify their thinking.

Active thinking consists of several skills. These include the following:

Clear listening. When you are listening to a patient, it is important to just listen. The most common problem for new counselors is that they think while they listen. If you are thinking about what you are going to say, you will not accurately hear what the person is saying. It is important that you listen without judging what the patient is saying and without immediately trying to correct his or her thoughts.

Reflecting. When someone talks to you, reflecting is summarizing and repeating that person's thoughts andfeelings in a simple, clear manner. Reflecting helps clarify the issues for both of you. If you misunderstand the patient, he or she can correct you. When you repeat thoughts and feelings back to the patient, use statements instead of questions.

Example: Patient—"I try and try to stay straight but everything goes wrong and I end up using again."

Counselor-"You seem to feel hopeless about recovering." Reflecting gives a patient the sense that you are really listening. He or she will tend to open up more and talk about problems he or she hasn't talked about before.

Asking open-ended questions. Do not ask questions that can be answered with a "yes" or a "no." Instead, ask questions that require patients to explore the reasons they think, feel, and act the way they do.

Example: "What happens when you try to recover?" "What do you do when you feel hopeless?"

Not asking "Why?" Most new counselors make the mistake of asking "Why?" The patient does not know why, or else he or she would have changed. If you ask "Why?" the patient will give you an excuse. By asking "What?" you are getting the patient to focus on what he or she has done that can be changed.

Using effective body language. How you physically position yourself tells a patient a lot about how you feel about him or her. When you are working with patients, it is best to sit with your legs and arms uncrossed, to lean forward and to make eye contact. This body position shows that you are interested in what the patient has to say and that you are paying attention.

Watching for nonverbal cues. When you are working with a patient, listen and watch carefully. Does the person tense up, tap his or her foot, shift around, etc.? When you see these cues, make the patient aware of them and let him or her know what this might mean the patient is feeling.

Basic Relapse Prevention Techniques

There are a number of techniques that are used when doing relapse prevention counseling.

Centering

When you begin a group or an individual session or when you want a patient to calm down and get in touch with thoughts and feelings, you can use a technique called centering. This is basically a relaxation technique. Instruct the patient to do the following:

Put both feet on the floor, sit up straight and close your eyes.
Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.
Breathe in deeply, hold it for a second, then breathe out.
Do this again and feel your lungs fill with air, then empty.
Slow your breathing to a steady rhythm.
See if any thoughts are entering your mind.
Ask yourself if you are feeling any body tensions.
Open your eyes when you are ready.
Speak slowly as you give the instructions. This will help the patient calm down.

Sentence completion

Sentence completion is a technique used to help patients identify thoughts that they have that may not be true. These thoughts are called mistaken beliefs. Many times when a patient is acting in a self-defeating way, it is a result of mistaken beliefs he or she has about the world and himself or herself. When a patient is behaving in a way that hurts himself or herself and others, it is because the patient believes that this is the only choice he or she has. Sentence completion is a way to help a patient identify and correct mistaken beliefs. You do this by doing the following.

Have the patient form a sentence stem: A sentence stem is the beginning of a sentence that has meaning for the patient. You can form these stems based on topics the patient is talking about.

Examples are:
"I know my recovery is in trouble when . . ."
"When I think about drugs, I . . ."
"Right now, I am feeling . . ."

Have the patient write down the sentence stem.

Have the patient repeat it out loud and end it differently six to eight times or until he or she cannot think of new endings.

Have the other group members write down the endings. If you are in an individual session, do this yourself.

Have the group members read the endings back to the patient as they write them down. Have them use the following form: A(patient's name), I heard you say (sentence stem)(first ending)." Repeat the exercise until all the endings have been read.

Look for a common theme in the endings. You may form a new sentence stem from the common theme and repeat the exercise, or stop here if the mistaken belief is identified.

Have the patient identify the mistaken belief if he or she can and write it down.

Sentence repetition

Sentence repetition is a way for a patient to become conscious of mistaken beliefs and the thoughts, feelings, and actions they cause. Identify the mistaken belief and ask the patient to write it down.

Ask the patient to repeat it out loud, slowly.

After each repetition, ask the patient to take a deep breath, let it out, and report any thoughts, feelings, or urges that surfaced.

Have the patient write down these thoughts, feelings, and urges.

Ask the patient if he or she can remember who caused this mistaken belief or where it came from.

Ask the patient if the person could have been wrong.

Ask the patient if there are other ways to believe that could be true. You may have to ask the group to help.

Ask the patient to complete the following sentences:
"If I continue to believe this, the best that can happen is . . ."
"The worst that can happen is . . ."
"The most likely to happen is . . ."
"If I change what I believe, the best that can happen is . . ."
"The worst that can happen is . . ."
"The most likely to happen is . . ."

The probable outcomes can be discussed and a course of action decided by the group. The most important decision is to identify a rational thought that the patient can substitute when the mistaken belief occurs.

Example are as follows.
Mistaken belief—I can't tell others what I feel or they will look down on me.

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Continued: Technical Assistance Publications (TAP) 19

Counselor's Manual for Relapse Prevention with Chemically Dependent Criminal Offenders

http://tie.samhsa.gov/Taps/TAP19/TAP19toc.html