After a slip

I relapsed. What do I do now?

Take a breath. A slip is one event, and it does not undo the good days you built. What matters most now is the next hour: be honest, be kind to yourself, and do one small thing.

The thought after the slip is the real risk

Right after a slip, a voice often says, “I blew it, so why bother.” Psychologists Marlatt and Gordon named this the abstinence violation effect: the slip makes giving up feel like the logical next step. It sounds true. It is not.

In a study of people quitting smoking, those whose confidence dropped after a lapse tended to lapse again sooner. Blaming themselves, on its own, was not what predicted it. The drop in confidence was. So tonight the goal is to protect your confidence, not to punish yourself.

Say what you did, not who you are

Guilt says, “I did something.” Shame says, “I am something.” Guilt looks at what happened, so there is something to learn from. Shame is a verdict on who you are, and it pushes people to hide, which is where the loop starts again. Researchers who measured both found that people more prone to shame had more alcohol and drug problems, and people more prone to guilt mostly did not.

So swap “I am disgusting” for “I slipped last night.” It is honest, and it leaves room for your next good move.

Kindness does not let you off the hook

Many people fear that going easy on themselves will make them slip again. In an experiment with strict dieters who had just broken their diet, the ones given a short, kind way to think about it felt less distress and ate less afterward, not more. Talk to yourself the way you would talk to a friend: “That was hard. It happened. What do I need now?”

More questions

• How do I stop one slip from turning into a binge?
• Does a relapse reset all my progress?
• Why do I keep relapsing?