People generally seek my services soon after a relapse. To help them I need to understand how the relapse happens.   I usually ask the new client to describe the sequence of events that led to the first lapse.  Few are able to offer much detail.

The first lapse is the critical event that dooms the sincerest intention. My clients hire me so that they do not fail again. To do my job, I need to know the sequence external events and internal states that led to previous relapses. Their inability to give me the critical information was especially frustrating — considering the detailed reports I would get from the same client about some trivial conflict at work. Understanding why they could not give me a clear description of the relapse sequence was the key to understanding why these individuals repeatedly relapsed and how to help them escape their particular trap.

When Hasselbring, a bright and observant attorney, cannot describe the sequence of events that led to his relapse, it suggests that he was not paying attention; he was “asleep at the wheel.”  He relapsed because he passively followed the path of least resistance rather than exercise his will to interrupt the disastrous sequence of events unfolding right in front of him.  

Autonomous Behavior

Performance becomes easier with practice. In fact, with enough practice, performance can become autonomous—that is, it requires no conscious attention and happens all by itself. Consider activities such as driving or using a computer keyboard. When first attempted, performance is slow, hesitant, and filled with error, but with practice speed increases, variability decreases, and execution becomes increasingly effortless. What once demanded considerable attention can now be performed rapidly and accurately with little or no awareness of the component actions.

Conscious attention is not required to initiate an autonomous sequence. Mere exposure to the triggering stimulus is sufficient, and, once initiated, the action has a ballistic quality, tending to run on to completion all by itself. For example, when driving, a red light is sufficient to trigger a complex sequence of events that brings the vehicle to a smooth stop. Rapid, accurate, effortless performance that makes no demands on valuable conscious resources has obvious advantages. The down-side of over-training becomes apparent when you try to respond to the trigger differently. For example, an experienced driver would take longer to learn to reliably stop at a green light than it originally took to learn to stop at a red light. Until the driver has acquired the new habit, [s]he must pay attention in order to override the well-practiced behavior and do something different.

Stephen Tiffany,* whose views have been paraphrased in the preceding paragraphs, suggests that after considerable practice, the behavioral sequence that leads to incentive use becomes autonomous. While such automatic sequences can be overridden, it requires conscious attention to do so. The Karma of repeatedly using an incentive is that the path that leads to it becomes progressively easier to follow until it becomes autonomous. As a result, whenever your conscious resources are occupied by a demanding social situation or powerful emotional state, or are diminished by fatigue or intoxication, you will tend to follow this default path.

An “absent-minded” relapse occurs when a deliberate response, required to interrupt the autonomous sequence, is not deployed when needed. This may occur when it was triggered and progressed automatically without conscious awareness. Less dramatic, but probably more common: The individual is aware of the intention to abstain as well as the unfolding sequence of events leading to the lapse, yet passively follows the path of least resistance rather than consciously — effortfully — triggering a willful response to interrupt it.

Escaping Bad Karma

The decision to change your ways sets up a conflict. On one side there is the well exercised behavioral sequence that leads to incentive use. Against this is pitted a poorly exercised response to do something other than use the incentive in this situation. This is not much of a conflict; the path of least resistance has the advantage. A popular but fatal misconception: Now that I understand the costs and benefits of my relationship with this incentive and have made up my mind to change my ways, I will consciously make the right choice when I am in conflict.

Understand this: During a crisis you won't have the cognitive resources to react mindfully.

As a professional boxer can hire sparring partners to help him hone his/her skills, you can strengthen your skills by focusing on good performance during the high-risk situations you encounter in real-time. Unlike the boxer, you will not have to pay for your sparring partners — the natural world will provide them for free. As you respond mindfully to the challenges as they arise, you will be exercising and strengthening your coping skills. The Karma of performing as intended during high risk situations is that doing so becomes easier over time. With sufficient practice, performing the intended behavior becomes effortless—autonomous. The real objective of this course is to help you transform your default path so that it takes you to the outcomes you really want..

Use It or Lose It

Habit strength, like muscle strength, increases with exercise. Each lapse strengthens the sequence of behaviors that lead to the lapse and each successful coping reaction strengthens the intended behavior sequence.

Every HRS is a contest with a finite duration—generally seconds or minutes, rarely hours. You will either win by performing as intended or lose by lapsing. Each win enhances self-efficacy and exercises the responses that produced it, but each loss is demoralizing and strengthens the behavioral sequences that lead to future relapses.

You can succeed at this task, but you must stay mindful during the early phases of habit change and make sure you respond intentionally in each and every HRS you encounter. While you are going through it, it may seem as though it will never end, but if you can stay “awake” during this stage of habit change, you will discover in retrospect that this part of the passage was easy and did not last very long.