Relapse in the addictive behaviors: Integration and future directions

This paper identifies the major consistencies in substantive and methodological findings across the review papers in this special issue on relapse in the addictive behaviors. The papers were consistent in suggesting that there have been major methodological advances which have helped to move the field forward. Furthermore, the papers show the need for taking a biopsychosocial approach to the study of relapse and the major difficulty across addictive behaviors in creating an acceptable operational definition of relapse. Suggestions for future research directions that follow from the papers include deriving and evaluating relapse definitions, systematically developing and testing models and theories of relapse, and understanding and narrowing the relapse research–clinical practice gap.