As described earlier in this article, the original relapse taxonomy sought to categorize the environmental or emotional stimuli associated with an initial return to drinking in order to enhance the long-term effectiveness of aversion therapy. The resulting taxonomy contained three levels of categorization of high-risk situations with increasing specificity to help clinicians obtain detailed information about the causes underlying each relapse episode. In the RREP study, researchers from three study sites were trained in coding relapse episodes. The researchers then coded key, or baseline, relapse episodes3 described by study participants entering treatment at the study sites. The study addressed three major issues, as follows:
