“Archangels gave me my life back. Their team is the most amazing, caring people I have ever met. The housing they sent me to was amazing, the groups are amazing, and this whole project is amazing. If you're tired of being sick and tired, reach out and save your life.”
“This facility is run by some of the best people you could ever ask for. They are extremely professional and truly dedicated to helping those struggling with mental health and addiction. They truly saved my life. I will be forever grateful for everything they did for me.”
“I had the honor of touring this facility, and it was absolutely beautiful, clean, and thoughtfully designed. But more than how it looked, you could feel the love in every detail. Watching the staff interact with clients genuinely touched my heart.”
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Relapse prevention is the part of addiction treatment that gets most underestimated. Early treatment work, stopping use, getting through withdrawal, beginning therapy, is intense and visible. Relapse prevention is the longer game: the careful identification of what could pull a person back into use, and the deliberate construction of an environment, a set of skills, and a community that makes return to use less likely. Done well, relapse prevention is the difference between a year of sobriety and a lifetime of recovery.
This page covers the relapse prevention framework, the specific skills used at The Archangel Centers, and what to do when a relapse happens, because for many people it will.
The original Marlatt and Gordon relapse prevention model, developed in the 1980s, made a crucial observation: relapse is rarely a single moment of decision. It is a process that begins long before the substance reaches the body. The process typically includes:
1. A high-risk situation: a specific combination of internal state (mood, fatigue, hunger) and external context (a place, a person, an event) 2. An insufficient coping response: the client lacks the skills, the plan, or the support to navigate the situation without using 3. A breach of self-efficacy: the belief that one cannot handle the situation 4. A "decision" to use, often experienced as not a decision at all 5. The use itself 6. The abstinence violation effect: the cognitive and emotional spiral that follows a single use, often producing escalation to a full relapse
Each point in this sequence is a place where intervention can change the outcome. Relapse prevention work is the systematic identification of these points and the construction of alternatives.
A trigger is anything that produces craving or sets in motion the chain that leads to use. Common categories:
Trigger identification is concrete. The work is to name specific triggers in detail, not to identify them in the abstract.
For each major trigger, a written coping plan: what the client will do in the moment when the trigger appears. The plan includes:
The written plan is not a substitute for the work; it is the work. The act of constructing it forces the specificity that distinguishes a plan from a hope.
A skill drawn from mindfulness-based relapse prevention: observing the urge to use without acting on it, recognizing that urges build and recede on a wave-like pattern, riding the wave to the other side. Combined with breathwork and grounding techniques, urge surfing is one of the most reliable skills in the toolkit.
The specific words and posture for declining an offer to use, practiced in role-play, calibrated to the specific people and situations the client will encounter. Refusal is harder in practice than it sounds, particularly with old friends; rehearsal matters.
Removing or reducing exposure to triggers in the controllable parts of the client's life. Throwing out paraphernalia. Blocking certain phone numbers. Avoiding certain neighborhoods. Changing the route home. Stimulus control is not a moral position; it is a practical recognition that distance from triggers makes the other skills more useful.
Marlatt's broader observation: relapse risk rises when life becomes dominated by "shoulds" without compensating "wants." Building a sustainable lifestyle that includes things the client genuinely enjoys is part of long-term relapse prevention.
Recovery rarely sustains in isolation. Whether through 12-step communities (AA, NA), non-12-step communities (SMART Recovery, Recovery Dharma), faith communities, family, or alumni networks, ongoing connection with people who understand is part of the plan. See 12-step vs alternatives.
Group rooms, private therapy offices, the medical office, family programming rooms, and the wellness space, designed for clinical depth and nervous-system regulation.
A more recent extension of the Marlatt model is mindfulness-based relapse prevention (MBRP), which integrates mindfulness training with the traditional relapse prevention framework. Specific elements include:
MBRP has emerging evidence as an effective complement to standard relapse prevention work, particularly for clients who connect with mindfulness as a framework.
Relapse prevention is woven across the program:
For many people, recovery includes one or more relapses. The clinical literature and the recovery community both treat relapse as information, not as a verdict. The questions that matter:
The Archangel Centers approach to relapse is clinical, not punitive. A relapse during outpatient treatment is met with a clinical conversation, not with discharge from the program. Sometimes the right next step is a step-up to a higher level of care; sometimes it is a refinement of the existing plan; rarely is it ending the relationship.
Treatment integrates cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), motivational interviewing, narrative therapy, and trauma-informed care with EMDR available in individual therapy. The medical provider manages MAT (Suboxone, Vivitrol, Sublocade) and psychiatric medications when indicated.
Intake uses the full evidence-based battery: ASAM Criteria, LOCUS for mental health acuity, PHQ-9, GAD-7, the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale, plus biopsychosocial, nutrition, and pain screens. The assessment drives the treatment plan from day one.
See Our Modalities“I came back from rock bottom. I'm here because I want to show others they can too. This isn't just a business. It's my mission.”- Mike Sorrentino, Founder
Mike and Lauren Sorrentino did not set out to build a generic treatment center. They wanted a recovery-grounded program that mixes lived experience, licensed clinical expertise, and family programming that actually moves the needle for the people who love someone in active addiction.
The clinic that resulted is small enough that each client knows their primary therapist by name, but resourced enough to deliver the full ASAM continuum from Partial Care through outpatient continuing care, with MAT and EMDR available when clinically indicated.
Read the Full StoryMost clients leave the first admissions call with a clinical assessment, an insurance verification, and a scheduled start date. Recovery starts with a decision, not a commitment. The admissions line is staffed around the clock.
Confidential, 24/7 admissions. Same-week placement is often available. Verify your insurance free of charge before any commitment.
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