How they do it...
How people do it
Excerpted from Spontaneous Remission from Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Abuse: Seeking Quantitative Answers to Qualitative Questions - )
American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, August, 2000 by Glenn D. Walters
• [Analysis] of untreated substance abusers confirms the reality of spontaneous remission from alcohol, tobacco, and other drug abuse.
• A broad definition of remission in which subjects either displayed abstinence or significantly reduced their usage and reported no substance-related problems produced a 26.2% …. rate. [A] more restrictive definition of remission based on total abstinence yielded a … rate of 18.2%. Both figures indicate that spontaneous remission from substance abuse is a relatively common event…observed across cultures….
• Despite claims that spontaneous remission occurs only in those who are not "seriously addicted", there were few meaningful differences between [people who quit on their own and those who didn’t].
• [Comparing people who quit smoking, alcohol, and illicit drugs]: Although health concerns were the modal initiating factor for all three groups, these concerns, along with feelings of disgust and the will to stop, were reported significantly more often by self-remitting smokers.
Alcohol/illicit drug self-remitters, on the other hand, were more apt to utilize changes in values and goals and concerns about drug-related social problems to initiate their spontaneous remission from substance abuse.
Social support, relationship changes, willpower, and identity transformation were the most frequently cited maintaining factors …..
[Smokers] relied more on self-confidence, substitute activities/addictions, and willpower to maintain their desistance, while alcohol/illicit drug abusers made greater use of social support, new relationships, and identity transformation strategies in maintaining desistance.
• Stall and Biernacki proposed a three-stage model of spontaneous remission: [emphasis added]
The initial stage of the model involves finding the resolve or motivation to [quit from….] a handful of initiating factors--medical problems, pressure from family and friends to stop using, extraordinary events, financial problems--that account for over half the reasons cited….
The second stage … consists of a public pronouncement to quit….public commitments, even when made to an imaginary audience, were more effective in promoting a change in identity than private commitments. Finding substitute activities, replacing old associations with new ones, developing nondrug recreational/leisure interests, and changing one's place of residence all signify a commitment to change that rests on a public pronouncement to live differently.
The third or maintenance stage [includes] ongoing social support, a growing sense of self-confidence and willpower, and the discovery of life meaning through religion, education, physical exercise, and identity.