This is the question I am grappling with right now.

This idea was presented in the training I am doing with SMART Recovery. Yes, I want to be a meeting facilitator someday, but right now I am still working on me. Seeing this concept in black and white, has given me a renewed sense of hope about my future.

The Transtheoretical Model (also called the Stages of Change Model), developed by Prochaska and DiClemente in the late 1970s, evolved through studies examining the experiences of smokers who quit on their own with those requiring further treatment to understand why some people were capable of quitting on their own. It was determined that people quit smoking if they were ready to do so. Thus, the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) focuses on the decision-making of the individual and is a model of intentional change. The TTM operates on the assumption that people do not change behaviors quickly and decisively. Rather, change in behavior, especially habitual behavior, occurs continuously through a cyclical process. The TTM is not a theory but a model; different behavioral theories and constructs can be applied to various stages of the model where they may be most effective.

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In the original study that sparked this model, it was found that people quit smoking if they were ready to do so.

I can relate to this. After 43 years of concealing my depression, even and especially from myself, I was ready to change. Of course, it took me being up against the wall, seeing only three options before I could finally say “I am ready to change.” And while I have made decisions that are helping me continue to change, if I had seen a way out, I would not have accepted change.

Understanding that I can enter and exit this model is giving me hope that I too can be “recovered.”

Yet right now, I will be happy with “in recovery.” And I feel like in many ways, I am recovered. But this recovery also frees my mind to see the many things I did not even recognize that are keeping me from living a balanced life.

Having gained 10 pounds in the past month, I am going to apply this model to my eating habits.

I have done this in the past and can use that as a model to do it now. There are also tools within SMART Recovery I can use to help me evaluate the pros and cons of changing my eating habits. Getting out a Decision-Making Worksheet/ Cost Benefit Analysis gives me a clear way to see what I give up versus what I gain.

The worksheet has me list the Advantages and Disadvantages of Doing and then list the same for NOT Doing.

READ: Am I asking the right questions?

Every day I am learning something about myself. Each of these revelations is getting me closer to living a balanced life. I look forward to being “recovered,” but am excited, and working very hard, to be in and stay in “recovery.”

What have you thought about changing?

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The post Is it possible to be “recovered” rather than forever in “recovery?” appeared first on My Concealed Depression.