Brilliant Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, 2nd Edition

Stage four: maintenance

Things are going well. You’ve followed the plan, done all the things you should and it seems to be working. You can feel your habit, addiction or compulsion starting to loosen its grip on you. You’re feeling good about yourself, more positive about life. This is surely the time you can relax and congratulate yourself for a job well done … Well, actually no. This is ironically precisely the time when you are most vulnerable to relapse, at the very point when you feel you have turned the corner. The problem is that people in the maintenance phase often get complacent.

People doing well in recovery get lulled into a sense ...