STRESS
It is Saturday night about 5:00 PM. R picks you up at your apartment and you are on your way to the bowling alley. As you get in the car, you ask her, ‘Do you love me or not?’ She wants to talk to you about this tonight. Your heart beats faster…She wants to break up.
DRUG
It is the morning of July 4th. You are at the Lighthouse Beach for the first picnic of the summer… You feel a sense of being more alive…There are coolers spread all over the beach…Almost everyone has a drink in their hands already…
What happens to craving and anxiety?
Understanding 1:
Stress carries personal meaning (“stress scripts”) Stress isn’t generic—it’s shaped by memory, relationships, shame, and loss. What you can do: Identify your “top 3 stress moments” that reliably precede use.
Understanding 2:
Stress + cues create predictable craving loops In the lab, stress imagery increases craving and anxiety—stress becomes a relapse engine. What you can do: Create a “cue disruption plan”: leave location + change sensory input + contact safety.
Understanding 3:
Repetition isn’t moral failure—it’s patterned survival Your draft ties this beautifully to psychoanalytic ideas: threat loops repeat because the system is trying to manage the unmanageable. What you can do: Practice one “symbolizing move” instead of acting out: write one sentence of what hurts / tell one person the truth / name the feeling out loud.
