Getting Motivated to Give Up Substance Abuse

Getting substance abusers motivated to change their habit is one of the big challenges of treatment. Wilderness treatment does pretty well at this, according to another test in the same 2006 OBHRC study. (No. 20c.) It showed that entering wilderness treatment, 73 percent of our clients either had no interest in changing their behavior, or, though they might be thinking about it, were "reluctant" to take any action. The rest had stopped trying to ignore the problem and were beginning to participate in efforts to change. By the end of their wilderness treatment, none of our clients were still in the first phase ("uninvolved") and just nine percent were in the second phase ("reluctant.") The other 90 percent were either in the "active anticipation" phase or, having worked through the issues and decided to quit or seriously reduce their use, had gone on to the final phase, "maintenance" of their decisions.) There was some backsliding at the six month follow-up, but of the 229 clients who filled out this questionnaire at six months, 182 fit the "participation/maintenance" profiles (79 percent) while only 21 percent fit the "reluctant" profile, and none were "uninvolved."

Learn more about our research:

• Research Results Summary
  
  
• Does Wilderness Therapy Work? Does it Last?
  
  
• Lifting the Fog of Depression
  
  
• Solving Substance Abuse
  
  
• Getting Motivated to Give Up Substance Abuse
  
  
• A Short Term Treatment for Incipient Character Disorders
  
  
• Family Functioning After Wilderness Therapy
  
  
• Strong Therapeutic Relationships
  
  
• Limits on Research with Adolescent Treatment Programs
  
  
• List of Catherine Freer Research