The Stages Of Change

The Stages Of Change Model was developed by Psychologist James Prochaska when he was doing research on how smokers gave up their addictive habit (or not). Prochaska found six basic stages of change that everyone cycles through on the way to quitting an addiction and/or modifying a behavioral change.The stages of change are:

Precontemplation --(Not yet acknowledging that there is a problem behavior that needs to be changed)

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Contemplation -- (Acknowledging that there is a problem but not yet ready or sure of wanting to make a change)

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Preparation/Determination-- (Getting ready to change)

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Action/Willpower-- (Changing behavior)

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Maintenance-- (Maintaining the behavior change) and

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Relapse (Returning to older behaviors and abandoning the new changes)

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Each stage is necessary and must be utilized in order to facilitate effective and lasting change. For example, one cannot move directly from a contemplative state to an action state without preparing to do so first.

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Another thing the researchers found is that relapse is a normal part of change, and that most folks cycle through these processes several times before making lasting changes in their lives.

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I would like to discuss this theory and the idea of overcoming addictions and addictive behavior.

Can we just try to give the topic some action at Jar's site? Adminnemooseus

Cant I have the same topic both places? Most folks here dont visit thereIm getting quite educated about the science of addiction. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.For very minor amusement, see here and the following message.AdminnemooseusEdited by Adminnemooseus, : Add post-promotion message.

Seriously!?You have to relapse in order to quit? So... most folk, not all.I don't think that relapse is a necessity.Actually, I don't think that any of the stages are necessarily a necessity. Like, preparation.I know people who were smokers that just stopped buying them one day on a whim. They quit successfully without relapse and had no preparation. The idea is that if you don't have them, then you cannot smoke them. Over time, you'll eventually no longer be addicted.Another possibility is simple isolation. Take a full fledged smoker by surprise one day and lock them up alone for a year without cigarettes and after that they won't be addicted to nicotine anymore. No preparation, no relapse.

The people who can do this are a definite minority,according to the authors. They also found that people who moved directly from contemplation to action did in fact relapse much more often than people who did some preparation beforehand. The stages are a natural progression. The research showed that people move through the stages in a circular fashion rather than just a linear progression. For most people, relapse (or at least a lapse) is common. If you are one of the fortunate few who can quit without awareness, support groups, or counseling...then more power to you! No. Nobody has to do anything..its just that clinical observation of thousands of people showed that most folks do.In pre-contemplation, folks don't even think they have a problem.
In contemplation, folks realize that they have a problem but dont see it as a major problem.
In preparation, folks know they have a problem that needs addressing and are preparing to tackle it. The research also touched on nine basic strategies that helped a person change their behavior.

An (apparently) non-Christian, chain-smoking Allen Carr stumbled (as if) upon Gods very own method of addiction breaking.

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"The truth regarding (insert the addiction here) will set you free"

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Allen Carrs entry into this territory took the form of a slim volume and was entitled "The Easyway to Stop Smoking". And it was an easyway. Falling off a log easy. There was no willpower required, no struggling with the urge, no black misery, no pining away, no "just one drag" of a friends cigarette, no missing that [i]favorite one (after food, after a meeting, after love making, after ...)Shoot: you could even smoke like a chimney all the way through reading the feckin book /seminar / cd / dvd. Can't say fairer than that.At the end of the swift process you emerged a non-smoker - and one quite unlike those many non-smokers who spend the rest of their lives miserable and yearning for cigarettes.Allen Carr was no magician. He didn't rely on tricks or hypnosis or anything other than the rational beloved of EvC-ers. All he did was realise the truth about why people smoke. And he tells you what it is (if fairly plain, lowbrow language - which might prove problematic for the snobbish addicts would would suppose this all very complicated).And once you grasp the truth about why you smoke, you find yourself freed from it's clutches. It is trule a remarkable lesson to learn about truth - (indeed, I learned this lesson for the first time long before I became a Christian and it shook me. For it calibrated the "flavour" of truth for me. The non-absolutists were pissing against the wind from then on in as far as I was concerned.)Whatever, it's certainly a lot less complicated sounding than the above process (you'd read through the book in a couple of days). Sounds too good to be true? Well, lots of folk handled the copy handed down by my sister and they all gave up - me included. Millions others have too apparently, including testimony from the rich and famous. He even wrote a companion book "The Easyway to Control Alcohol". I gave it to a friend of mine who had drunk beyond his hearts desire for 32 years. A friend who started out on a life of all-day-long-hash-smoking at 18 years of age - so desparate was he to reduce his drink input. He read this book and 8 months later, he's still free of drink. He just needed to find out about the truth as to why he drank as he did.The truth, it seems, does still set free. Even after all these years..As to giving up? As Allen Carr himself would say; "giving upplies that there is indeed something to give up. Something to deprive yourself of (which is sure to make you miserable - even if dry). Give up suggests that these drugs actually contribute something beneficial to your life. As if they are so precious. As anyone who is not addicted would tell you.Drugs preciousness is purely subjective. Precious only in the mind of their addicts.As for this? As everyone who ever pined for (insert your fix of choice here) would say once deprived of access to it - even if self denied:(insert your expletive of choice here)Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

If all you are saying is that this method is a common and effective one, then I agree. What struck me in the OP was this:

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The Stages Of Change Model was developed by Psychologist James Prochaska when he was doing research on how smokers gave up their addictive habit (or not). Prochaska found six basic stages of change that everyone cycles through on the way to quitting an addiction and/or modifying a behavioral change.

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[snip]

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Each stage is necessary and must be utilized in order to facilitate effective and lasting change.

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That's just not true.

picky, picky! OK...I should have said most and not all! Let me ask you this: Are you one of the fortunate few who can quit any addiction cold turkey on the first try?If so, you still invariably had to move through the stages of change. There was a period of time that your attitude towards your addiction was one of ambivalence.(contemplation) You then decided to do something about it. (preparation/determination) even though your time spent in this stage was brief...and again, the research shows that successful change requires counting the costs and making a plan to substitute desirable countering behaviors for the undesirable habit.You then quit the behavior. (Action) and have maintained it without relapse if you are part of the 15% who can do so....Most of us experience relapse at least once. Thats just how life is. Edited by Phat, : titleEdited by Phat, : No reason given.

Yes, you should.It just reeks of the attitude that the 12 step program has where you have, I repeat have, to do certain things to advance. I just think its bogus. Effective? Sure. True? No.For example, the whole submitting to a higher power thing isn't necessarily a necessity.I just think its dumb to force people into things like that. The people I have known that went to rehab just "went through the motions". They were forced into the whole higher power things and just with along with a nod and a smile and said "yeah, "yeah " to the leaders so they could move on with the program. They were lying to the leaders because there was no point in resisting or arguing. They didn't believe it but they had to be there and they wanted out so they lied.I just think that is bad practice to have the program be like that where people aren't going to be honest about it.

This isn't 12 step. Its the Stages Of Change Model.

Yeah, but just like the 12 step, they're making things out to be necessities that really aren't.My position is that it is a bad practice to do that.Both belittle people into succumbing to the "Steps", the steps themselves, which themselves cost money to attend. "You can't quit on your own, you have to use the program that we are selling."I call bullshit.Granted, their program is effective. But they should NOT have to resort to "tricking" poeple into it.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : added the much needed "NOT"

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This isn't 12 step. Its the Stages Of Change Model.

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OK, Buster.You like to argue for some vague reason, so I will oblige. First, 12 step programs are usually free. Nobody has to pay for anything.Second, your friends who laughed at the program were a perfect example of folks stuck in the precontemplation stage. They had no desire to change. They were only pretending because it was court ordered. We know that many court ordered programs are ineffective for this very reason.Third, as I said before, a minority of people can quit on their own. The Stages Of Change model was thoroughly researched. Thousands of people were observed, including the minority who could quit without programs. The research focused on how they did it. The stages of change are not "necessities that really aren't." They are the way the process works....be you in a program or be you quitting on your own.

not sure what you mean by 12 steps, but if you are refering to AA or NA then you are mistaken. both of those are free.Edited by Artemis Entreri, : No reason given.

I continue to learn more and more about this stuff.....Lets discuss some questions.1) Why is the relapse rate so high in these types of programs? Some would argue that it proves that the program itself is ineffective.
I would argue, however, that the process of change costs a lot emotionally and that an individual who spent many years forming addictive patterns and behaviors cannot in most cases simply will themselves to stop without some sort of strategy in place.Relapse occurs precisely because addictions serve as painkillers and allow us to avoid facing the issues within us that need to be unraveled and understood by our adult selves.