Step 2: Ingraining a Slip is Not a Fall

The first and indispensable skill in preventing relapse is to understand the difference between a slip and a fall. Not the same at all!

Memorize This First

 Practically everyone trying to realize a goal, on their own or with professional treatment, will experience at least one slip (or “lapse” as researchers call them). A slip is a single event, a one-time reemergence of an unwanted behavior that need not lead to a fall or a relapse. 

So if your goal is to lose weight and you indulge in an especially delectable dessert after dinner one night, you have slipped but not fallen. With the help of a good slip plan, which we’ll get to shortly, you can make a mistake without derailing your entire goal.

A fall or a relapse, by contrast, is a complete abandonment of the goal and a retreat back into your old patterns of behavior. Hence, if that one dessert at that one dinner turns into a nightly habit, then you have officially relapsed. You let the slip become a fall, the lapse has graduated into a relapse.

Describe one example of a slip and one example of a fall that you have experienced.