Joined Find Addiction Rehabs with extensive experience in the field of addiction treatment. As a former Nurse Practitioner in Miami, she found her passion for addiction treatment when a family member was lost to his disease. With each article and resource, she hopes to save other families from experiencing the anguish of a loved one’s passing due to drinking or drugs. This misconception leaves many people unsure of how long the recovery process can take. Shortcuts to healing don’t work so well, and it usually requires the dedication of the recovering person and their support network to bring about real change.

The Stages of Change provide a broad outline of what most people undergoing treatment for addiction can expect throughout their time in recovery. If you or a loved one needs help with substance abuse, Recovery at the Crossroads can help you along every step of the way. It can also be helpful for the addicted person themselves to gain self-understanding using this model. Insight is a powerful tool for change because it makes it easier to be mindful of decisions you’re making in the moment.

They’ve usually made steps toward taking action, such as intending to join a gym, seeing a counselor or attempting to quit addiction by themselves without attending a treatment center. Alcohol and drug abuse can tear families apart and transform loving and successful individuals into desperate, lonely husks of their former selves. Even though the impact alcohol withdrawal symptoms causes, timeline & treatment is devastating, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Anyone can overcome addiction with the help and guidance of a substance abuse treatment program. Some people are able to adjust to controlled drinking, drug use, or addictive behaviors without becoming addicted. For others, abstinence is the only way to keep their addiction under control.

Maintenance & Recovery

Termination means the end, and recovering from an addiction is a lifelong process, and as such, there is no end. Recovering from an addiction is a life-long process, and Prochaska and DiClemente’s original last stage recognizes this fact. In this stage, the addict has made specific overt changes to their overall lifestyle. Read up on your addiction to learn different ways to make a successful, lasting change. To help a contemplator move to the next stage, confirm the readiness to change, normalize the idea of change by weighing the pros as well as the cons, and identify specific barriers to behavioral change.

Real change begins to happen in the action stage, as you put plans created during preparation into action. This change may be drastic, or it can involve smaller, incremental changes. While the first three stages are more internal and often don’t affect external behavior, others can see the change in this stage. In 1970s and 1980s, James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente developed the transtheoretical model to explore the mechanisms of change in problematic behavior patterns, including addictions.

However, for most people, a commitment of two to five years is necessary to truly break the habit and solidify change. The sequential model provides a useful way of understanding the process of change and gives a structure to how changes in addictive behaviors can be encouraged and managed. Successful recovery from addictive behaviors occurs in gradual sequential steps over some time. People believed that addictive behaviors were a matter of willpower such that someone could simply snap their fingers and quite drinking or stop using drugs. In the fifth stage, “maintenance,” a person reaches a behavioral milestone. Here, individuals must continually prove that they can resist temptation from all the people, places, and things that trigger them to use.

The Relapse or Termination Stage is included only to acknowledge that sometimes people will fall back into old, addictive habits. In fact, for many people, relapse is what pushes them back into the action and maintenance stages. Most successful self-changers go through the stages three or four times before they make it through the cycle of change without at least one slip. Without a strong commitment to maintenance, there will surely be relapse, usually to precontemplation or contemplation stage. However, they are also still acutely aware of the benefits they perceive from alcohol or drug addiction.

It may feel strange and even empty to be living life without your addiction. It takes time to get used to life without an addiction, even if your support and alternative ways of coping are good. Researchers, Dr. James Prochaska and Dr. Carlo DiClemente developed the Transtheoretical Model of health behavior change in the 1970s. From it came the Six Stages of Change model that has helped identify and measure intentional changes to behavior over the years—particularly in areas of addiction. A person who wants to change their life or change something significant, like quitting drug use, is a self-changer.

The Processes of Change

These stages give the recoveree the tools they need to stop being afraid of the substance that controlled their life for so long. Prochaska, DiClemente and Norcross created the stages of change or transtheoretical model in 1983 to help people quit smoking. It was then updated in 1992, when it started being used in clinical settings for a variety of behaviors. By studying various mental health and substance use disorder treatment plans, Prochaska, DiClemente and Norcross noted patterns that occur as people progress through a major behavioral shift.

For some, however, even in the face of dire consequences, there is a tendency to remain in denial about the magnitude of their addiction. Other people may become aware of a problem, but find it difficult to take the necessary steps to seek help and enter into recovery. Then, there are those who are able to identify the need for a change and are ready and able to take the necessary steps to find and maintain support.

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This is a critical stage for family members and treatment facilities because the person is more likely to listen to reason. By avoiding blame, judgment and accusations, it’s possible to guide them to the next stage. Since the changes here are more observable, it’s not surprising that behavioral change is often misconstrued as an action rather than the 4th stage of change that it is. Getting someone to replace old habits with new, healthier ones will take time.

During the Contemplation Stage, the balance between pros and cons is about even. As the pros start to outweigh the cons, the addict begins to recognize that they have a problem that must be addressed and they move on to the Preparation and Action stages. During the Maintenance Stage, the pros must continue to outweigh the cons in order to prevent a relapse. Even after a client has left our center, the work required to abstain from destructive substances is not yet over. All it takes is one stressful situation to potentially make an addict relapse.

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Relapse or Termination Stage

The “maintenance” stage also stresses the fact that sobriety does not happen by itself. It is the person’s responsibility to safeguard their abstinence for a lifetime against relapse with impeccable vigilance. Preparation is the commitment to take action and bring about real change in their lives. In some cases, a person may simply step over preparation and move immediately towards taking action. However, this has the problem of leaving the person unprepared to deal with the rehab process and possibly turning their back on it before it finishes. Preparation usually commences when the person realizes that their current behavior’s consequences far outweigh the personal discomfort they would have from trying rehab.

However, with repeated failure to change on one’s own accord, the preparation stage can also grow closer to a person throwing their hands up and seeking help. The end of contemplation stage is a alcohols effects on blood pressure time of ANTICIPATION, ACTIVITY, ANXIETY, and EXCITEMENT. Precontemplators usually show up in therapy because of pressures from others… spouses, employers, parents, and courts… Resist change.

• Keep in mind that plans for this kind of change do not have to be perfect.
• They may start by contacting their insurance company and rehab centers and discussing long-term treatment options with family and employers.
• The Stages of Change provide a broad outline of what most people undergoing treatment for addiction can expect throughout their time in recovery.

Someone might remain in this stage due to a lack of information about addictive behaviors. Another reason we regularly see people get stuck in the precontemplation stage is disappointment with multiple failed attempts at recovery and treatment options. Most individuals in precontemplation feel that recovery simply isn’t possible for them. Depending on the goals you set in the contemplation stage, and the plans you made in the preparation stage, the action stage can occur in small, gradual steps, or it can be a complete life change.

What makes the Transtheoretical Model so highly-regarded is that it combines the most effective techniques from several different areas of study. That’s the basis for the name – trans, a prefix meaning across, plus theoretical, meaning concerned with the theory of a subject or area of study. As an industry professional JourneyPure has become one of my most trusted resources.

A Gradual Process

In reality, people can jump about between stages, go backward and forward, and even be in more than one stage at a time. The maintenance stage is concerned with keeping to the intentions made in the third stage and the behaviors implemented in the fourth stage. People in the preparation stage are not content to just sit and wait for change, as the saying goes lamictal and alcohol if the mountain doesn’t come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain. In doing so, it provides a comprehensive theory of change that applies to a variety of behaviors, settings, and population- thus the name transtheoretical. The model was introduced by James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente, who were researching ways to help people quit smoking.

The five stages of addiction recovery are precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance. Here, trained professionals provide support through the early phases of discontinuing an addiction. This model was developed from research looking at how change occurs in “natural recovery” from addictions.

Often addicts are aware of a need to change and have begun to confront themselves, which can create shame surrounding their behaviors that backfires. Motivational interviewing, on the other hand, is a type of therapy that focuses on these mechanisms of change to help an addict in recovery understand how to take steps to move forward. This stage can last from six months to five years, depending on the severity of the addiction and the individual’s genes and experience. It takes a small minority of people six months of abstinence to reach the point where they don’t go back to their addictive behavior.

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When a person does finally move into the next phase, any effective treatment facility will have further preparations for an individual’s particular circumstances. In this stage, the range of preparation can be from implementing strategies for moderating drug or alcohol intake, all the way to preparations leading to treatment for addiction. Most people in the preparation stage are planning to take action and are making the final adjustments before they begin to change their behavior.