Step 2 of 6 · Recover From Drug Dependence
Where You Are Now
Where You Are Now
Step 2 · 12 min
🎬 Video lesson coming soon
Recovery is not a switch. It is a process — with recognisable stages, each with its own tasks and challenges.
Understanding where you are in that process is more useful than being told you should be somewhere different.
Prochaska's stages of change — and why they matter for how you approach recovery
Pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance
Motivational interviewing: working with ambivalence honestly
What your current stage tells you about what you need next
James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente's Transtheoretical Model identifies five stages of change in the recovery process:
Pre-contemplation: not yet considering change — or considering it but without serious intention. The person may not be acknowledging the problem, or may have tried and failed and given up hope.
Contemplation: aware of the problem, ambivalent about change. The classic "I want to want to stop" state. Both the reasons to change and the reasons to continue are clearly visible. This is not resistance — it is honest ambivalence.
Preparation: intending to change, beginning to plan, taking small steps. The motivation has tipped toward action but the action hasn't been fully taken.
Action: active change has begun. This is the stage most external treatment programmes focus on — but it requires specific support that is different from what contemplation requires.
Maintenance: sustaining the change over time, managing relapse risk, rebuilding the life. This stage is often underserved — people are assumed to be "recovered" and support is withdrawn before it is no longer needed.
Motivational Interviewing (Miller and Rollnick): the therapeutic approach most supported by evidence for addiction treatment works specifically with ambivalence — helping the person clarify their own reasons for change without external pressure or moral judgment. Research consistently shows that MI produces more sustained recovery than confrontational approaches.
The most useful question at any stage: "What are your reasons for wanting change — your own reasons, not what others want for you?" These intrinsic motivations are the ones that sustain the difficult work of recovery.
Find a comfortable position · Read slowly
Sit with this for a moment — don't answer quickly.
Which stage are you actually in? Not which stage you feel you should be in. Not the stage that would be most impressive to report. The one that is honestly true right now.
Pre-contemplation. Contemplation. Preparation. Action. Maintenance.
It's okay if the answer is "I'm not sure" or "somewhere between two." That is honest. That counts.
Now write your reasons for wanting change — the ones that belong to you. Not "because my family wants me to" or "because I know I should" — those might be true, but they are not the ones that will carry you through the hard moments. The reasons that will carry you are the ones rooted in what matters to you: the life you want, the person you want to be, the relationships you want to have.
Write those. Even if they're complicated. Even if they're mixed in with ambivalence.
And then: what does your current stage tell you about what you most need right now? If you're in contemplation, you need space to sit with ambivalence, not pressure to act. If you're in preparation, you need a plan. If you're in action, you need support and accountability.
Name what you need. That's the beginning of getting it.
You are exactly where you are. That's not a consolation — it's a starting point. The only step available is the one from here.
And from here, there is a next step. The next lesson is about the first days — and what they actually demand of you.