Faking It to Make It

"At Hale Creek Correctional Facility, I sat in a substance abuse program with about twenty other men. I didn't have a substance abuse problem. But I had a prior drug case, so the system put me there anyway. The file defined me. The charge became my identity. And the program? It was designed to fix a problem I didn't have. So I did what everyone else did: I faked it. I said the right things. I participated enough to check the boxes, and I performed recovery from an addiction that wasn't mine. And I wasn't alone. About 90% of us were doing the same thing, performing compliance, not transformation."

The Performance We All Learned

The facilitator would ask questions. We'd give the answers we knew they wanted to hear.

"Do you recognize how substance abuse affected your decisions?"

"Yes."

"Are you committed to staying sober?"

"Yes."

"Do you have a plan for avoiding triggers?"

"Yes."

It didn't matter if any of it was true. It mattered that we said it. That we performed the role of "recovering addict" convincingly enough to get credit for completion. The program wasn't measuring transformation. It was measuring performance. And we all knew it.

Why We Faked It

It wasn't because we were dishonest people trying to game the system.

It was because the system had already decided who we were based on our charges, not who we actually were.

My charge said "drug case." So the system said "substance abuser." Even though that wasn't my reality. The program didn't ask: Who are you? What patterns led you here? What actually needs to change?

It assumed: Your charge tells us everything we need to know. Here's the template. Fit yourself into it. So we did. Because that's what survival in the system requires: perform the narrative they've written for you, even if it's not your truth.

What We Actually Needed

Sitting in those rooms, week after week, I watched men who genuinely struggled with addiction perform the same script as men who didn't. I watched men who made one bad decision get lumped in with men who'd made that decision a hundred times.

I watched intelligence, complexity, and individuality flatten into a one-size-fits-all program that treated symptoms the system assigned us based on paperwork.

What we actually needed wasn't substance abuse counseling.

What we needed was a framework for understanding:

• Who we were underneath the charges

• What patterns, not just substances, kept leading us back

• What we could control, and what we couldn't

• How to think strategically instead of reactively

• How to rewrite the narrative we were living from

But that program wasn't an offer.

So we faked recovery from problems we didn't have, while the real work; the identity work, the pattern work, the thinking work, never happened.

The System Treats Charges, Not People

This is the fundamental flaw in most justice system programming:

It treats people based on what they were charged with, not who they are.

Drug charge? Substance abuse program. Violence charge? Anger management. Property crime? Impulse control workshop. The charge becomes the diagnosis. The program becomes the prescription. And whether it actually fits the person? Irrelevant.

The system isn't designed for individualized transformation. It's designed for categorical compliance. And compliance, even when it's genuine, isn't the same as transformation.

Why Compliance-Based Programs Fail

Programs built around compliance create three problems:

1. They reward performance over honesty

Participants learn quickly: say what they want to hear, and you move forward. Be honest about where you actually are, and you get labeled "resistant" or "in denial."

So people perform. They say the right things. They mimic the language of recovery or change or insight. But underneath? Nothing has shifted.

2. They ignore the real patterns

A substance abuse program might address alcohol or drugs. But it won't address the deeper pattern: Why do you numb when life gets hard? What are you avoiding? What story are you telling yourself about who you are and what you deserve?

Those questions require identity work, not symptom management.

3. They assume the charge tells the whole story

A drug charge might have been about addiction. Or it might have been about economics, peer pressure, impulsivity, trauma response, or one bad decision in a moment of desperation.

The charge doesn't tell you which. But the program treats them all the same.

What Transformation Actually Requires

Real transformation doesn't start with symptoms. It starts with identity.

Not "How do I manage my anger?" but "Why do I see the world as a threat?"

Not "How do I avoid drugs?" but "What am I trying to escape, and what else could I do with that impulse?"

Not "How do I follow the rules?" but "Who do I want to become, and what decisions get me there?"

Transformation requires:

Self-awareness - Understanding who you are, not who your charge says you are

Pattern recognition - Seeing what keeps repeating and why

Ownership - Taking responsibility for what you can control

Strategic thinking - Making decisions based on long-term consequences, not short-term relief

Narrative power - Rewriting the story you're living from

None of that happens in a compliance-based program where the goal is to say the right things and check the boxes.

Why CTG Starts with Identity

Change The Game was built from that experience at Hale Creek. From sitting in rooms full of men performing compliance while the real work went unaddressed. From knowing that what we needed wasn't another program based on our charges, it was a framework for understanding ourselves.

CTG doesn't ask what your charge is. It asks who you are.

Not who the system says you are. Not who your worst decision says you are. Who you actually are underneath all of that. It starts with the questions that matter:

Who am I, really, beyond what I've been labeled? What patterns brought me here? What do I actually have control over? What story am I living from, and is it the story I want to keep living?

Those questions don't fit neatly into program categories. They're messy. Personal. Honest.

But they're the only questions that lead to actual transformation.

What Would Happen If CTG Replaced Those Programs

I think about those rooms at Hale Creek often.

Twenty men sitting in a circle. Most of us performing compliance we didn't believe in. All of us leaving fundamentally unchanged.

If CTG had been in those rooms instead:

We wouldn't have been sorted by charge. We would've been asked to look at ourselves honestly.

We wouldn't have learned scripts to perform. We would've learned frameworks for thinking.

We wouldn't have faked recovery from problems we didn't have. We would've done the real work of understanding the patterns we did have.

And maybe, probably, more of us would have left different than we arrived. Not because CTG is magic. Because it's honest. It doesn't ask you to perform a role. It asks you to examine your reality. It doesn't treat symptoms based on charges. It addresses identity based on truth.

The Program I Wish Existed

When I was at Hale Creek, performing compliance in a program that didn't fit me, I didn't have the language for what I actually needed. I just knew something was missing. Years later, after building the framework that became CTG, I realized what it was:

I needed a program that saw me as a person, not a charge.

I needed a program that asked what patterns I was repeating, not what substance I was abusing.

I needed a program that started with identity, not symptoms.

I needed a program that created space for honesty, not performance.

CTG is that program. It's the program I wish had been in those rooms.

It's the program that would've changed the outcome for 90% of us who were faking it, not because we didn't want to change, but because we were being asked to change the wrong things.

Why This Is Important for Systems

If you run a facility, a reentry program, a youth justice initiative, you already know:

Most of your participants are performing compliance, not transforming.

They're saying what they're supposed to say. They're checking the boxes. They're getting through the program. And then they're leaving fundamentally unchanged.

That's not because they don't want to change.

It's because the programs aren't designed for transformation. They're designed for compliance.

CTG offers a different approach:

Start with identity, not charges. Ask honest questions, not scripted ones. Create space for self-examination, not performance. Build frameworks for thinking, not just managing symptoms.

The result?

In our pilot with 25 detained youth, youth who could have easily faked it like I did at Hale Creek, we saw:

• 72% completion rate (they stayed engaged because it was real)

• 72% increase in self-efficacy (they saw themselves differently)

• 28% reduction in behavioral incidents (real change showed up in behavior)

• Writing portfolios that opened doors (they had language for who they were becoming)

That's what happens when you stop asking people to perform compliance and start asking them to examine their identity.

The Choice

Systems have a choice:

Continue running programs where 90% of participants are faking it to make it. Or implement programs that start with the real work; the identity work, the pattern work, the honest work that actually leads to transformation.

I know which one I needed.

I know which one would have changed the trajectory for most of the men I sat with at Hale Creek.

I built CTG to be that alternative.

The question is whether systems are ready to move beyond compliance theater and invest in actual transformation. The participants are ready. They've been ready.

They're just waiting for programs that match their readiness with real tools.

T.M. Jefferson
Founder, Change The Game Educational Program
www.ctgpro.org

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