"I Was Doing Well Until…": The Trigger That Gets All the Blame

The story after a lapse is almost always the same: “I was doing really well. And then…” The trigger fills in the rest. A stressful week. A fight with a partner. An invitation to a party. A bad day at work. A sleepless night.

The trigger is usually real. The explanation is usually incomplete.

How the trigger narrative works

Marlatt and Gordon’s relapse-prevention model identified categories of high-risk situations that commonly precede a lapse: negative emotional states, interpersonal conflict, social pressure, positive emotional states (celebration), and exposure to substance-related cues [1] [2]. These are real and identifiable. Knowing what your high-risk situations are is genuinely useful.

But the model also makes a critical distinction: the trigger does not cause the lapse. The person’s coping response to the trigger determines what happens next. When someone encounters a high-risk situation and has a prepared, effective coping response, self-efficacy increases and the risk of lapse decreases. When they encounter the same situation without a coping response, the lapse becomes likely [2].

“I was doing well until the trigger” stops at the first half of this equation. It identifies the situation but does not ask: what was my plan for this situation, and why did it not work?

A fictional example

The following is an illustrative example, not a real person’s story.

Ben had not used social media for nineteen days. Then his ex posted photos from a holiday. His friend showed him. Within an hour, he had reinstalled the apps and spent three hours scrolling.

• His explanation: “I was doing great until Jamie showed me those photos. That ruined everything.”
• What he does not examine: He had no plan for encountering content about his ex. He had told Jamie he was taking a break from social media but not asked Jamie to avoid showing him things. The apps were still linked to his accounts, so reinstalling took ten seconds.

The trigger, seeing the photos, was real. It was also predictable. If Ben had prepared for it, the nineteen days might have been twenty. The trigger is not the lesson. The missing coping plan is the lesson.

The dynamic model of relapse

A more recent model of relapse, developed by Witkiewitz and Marlatt, moved away from the idea that relapse follows a linear trigger-response pathway [3]. Instead, it describes relapse as emerging from a dynamic system of risk factors: background factors (stress, mood, motivation), immediate triggers, and coping resources interact in real time. A trigger that leads to relapse on a tired, lonely Tuesday may not lead to relapse on a well-rested, socially connected Thursday.

Real-time monitoring studies support this complexity. In a study of smokers, self-efficacy fluctuated throughout the day, and drops in self-efficacy preceded lapses more reliably than any specific external trigger [5]. The state of the person mattered as much as the situation.

Building trigger plans

The goal is not to eliminate triggers, which is impossible, but to arrive at each one with a response already prepared:

1. List your top five triggers. Be specific: not “stress” but “the hour after a difficult phone call with my manager.”
2. For each, write a specific coping response. Implementation intentions work best in if-then form [4]: “If I feel the urge after a work call, then I will walk to the kitchen, make tea, and sit with the feeling for ten minutes.”
3. Practice the response. Mentally rehearse it. The goal is for the coping response to become as automatic as the habit itself.
4. After a lapse, update the plan. Do not just blame the trigger. Ask: which trigger was it? Did I have a plan for it? If yes, why did the plan fail? If no, add one.
5. Track the pattern. Over several lapses, you will see which situations are genuinely difficult and which you have already learned to handle. The list should get shorter.

The useful reframe

“I was doing well until X” becomes: “I was doing well, and X showed me what my plan does not yet cover.”

The trigger is not the villain. It is the exam question. The work is to study for the next one.

For what happens after the lapse itself, see “I already failed, so why bother?”. For the thought that treats a single failure as proof that change is impossible, see “I’ve tried before and it didn’t work”.

When to get more support. If the same trigger keeps leading to lapses despite your best planning, or if the triggers are situations you cannot avoid (a difficult living situation, a chronic health condition, a workplace you cannot leave), a therapist trained in relapse prevention can help you develop more effective coping strategies. In the US, SAMHSA’s National Helpline (1-800-662-4357) offers free, confidential referral. In the UK, your GP can refer you to appropriate services. If you are in distress, call or text 988 in the US, or contact Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK and Ireland.