Justin Sudol
Public Health
Professor Elias
22 February 2017 Changing Behaviors Cigarette Smoking
1. There are four stages of change that Steve went through in order for him to quit
smoking. The first stage was pre-contemplation, which meant that Steve did not want
to quit smoking. He felt that he could quit at any time, it was a stress reliever at work,
and it helped him to socialize when he was younger. Steve started to worry about the
health conditions of smoking cigarettes because of a cough that he had obtained
causing him to only smoke a few cigarettes a day. He feared that his 10-year-old was
scared for him as well as finding cigarette butts after his daughter’s 16-year-old
birthday party. Steve was suffering from contemplation. Steve became serious about
quitting cigarettes and went to go see his physician assistant that helped him enroll in
a support group, set up a quit date, and told of his friends and family. Dorothy, his
wife, cleared out all cigarette butts and ashtrays. She had also walked with after
dinner to avoid all habits of smoking during desert. This made Steve great in the
preparation phase because he always feared of gaining too much weight. The last
stage of the cycle is action. Steve was now smoke free and changed all his habits that
made him smoke. Instead of spending countless dollars on cigarettes he would save
the money in a jar and eventually would surprise his wife with a vacation from the
savings. This brings us to the maintenance phase where Steve did smoke for the
whole year, which got him to go on a vacation as part of a reward to himself.
