Food addiction recovery is greatly accelerated by having the right information. One good source I talked about in my last post for the right information is the book Changing For Good by three research psychologist named Prochaska, Norcross and Diclemente. Here are the other three stages I promised to deliver in my last post from their now classic book:
Action – this is the stage which people become to change their behavior and their environment to address the issue. Common wisdom is this is when progress is being made to solve the issue. Actually progress is being made all along each stage.
Maintenance – this is the stage when the person with a food addiction has to work to consolidate their gains during the earlier stages. This is a critical time since lapsing into past behavior is very much an issue. In fact this stage is so critical it can last from months to a lifetime depending on the person and the issue. I can tell you as a food addict in my recovery it is indeed lasting a lifetime!
Termination – this is the stage where the behavior no longer has a grip on the person at all. There is no temptation, or threat or “lapses” to old behavior with the new behavior having become natural, normal and a habit with no ongoing effort to keep the new behavior in place. Now of course for some people and some behaviors (like smoking, drinking, drugs, food addiction, etc.) there is no reaching this stage. They have to stay in maintenance or at least some lower level of maintenance.
The last thing you do have to understand is I just presented these stages like they are linear progression when in fact they are not linear for most people or so the research shows. The stages are a spiral for most people. People and food addicts often slip up somewhere along the line and “lapse” or “backslide” and then need to go back to contemplation stage and go at it again into the action stage. This is NOT necessarily a bad thing when it happens although it would be nice if it did not happen. According to the research successful self-changers go through the stages from three to four times before success. Get the book Changing for Good and see what it can teach you about food addiction recovery.