his natural environme andescrisseeing the cues-- people he's used with, places that he's purchased cocai, even paphernalia lying in the gutter, even ns broadcasts of drug raids-- finding these things causing him intense craving. it makes you doubt whether you can ever stay off of it. if i keep running across situations like that or either run across people that use, it would put a very big doubt in my mind. as i was in there simulating that, i was saying, "gosh, i wonder, can i ever do this again?" i'll say it like this-- if you ever lose a best friend, and you got a chance to get that best friend back again... then you probably will try to get it back. [dr. childress] so we took our cue from that and said what we need is some way to weaken this association. we do that by having a patient come into the laboratory and show him cues that will remind him of cocaine over and over again in a protected setting where he can't act on the craving arousal. we're teaching several different strategies. we begin with teaching him a deep relaxation technique to counter the craving and arousal. we also