ABC's

   Smoking is a behavior as much or more than it's an addiction. Many of us have spent years establishing and perpetuating routines where lighting up a cigarette was an integral and unquestioned element. We awoke, worked, drove, talked on the phone with a cigarette. Most of us owned cars that wouldn't start unless we were also lighting up a cigarette at the same time. We experienced pleasure and pain, happiness and sadness, intense activity and boredom .... all with the accompanying cigarette. All of these behaviors can be examined with the use of a 3 part diagram, the ABC cognitive model.

   The ABC model is a graphic representation of the concept that:

   Between the *occurrence* of an event and our *reaction* to that event, there is a *mental dialogue* that dictates how we will react. Also, the dialogue is usually one that we are unaware of on a conscious level. Further, by altering the script of that dialogue we will alter our reaction to the event.

 

Copyright © 2004 Steve Polansky (ddsteve) All rights reserved.