Would you like some relief from your hair-pulling and skin-picking?

Are you ready to take action to change your behaviors?

Would you use an online behavior management program that has been proven effective in helping people reduce their hair-pulling and skin-picking?

Would you like to raise money for TLC while gaining more self-awareness and self-control?

Then TLC’s Hands-Down-a-Thon is for you!

What’s the Hands-Down-a-Thon?

Like a jog-a-thon or read-a-thon, the Hands-Down-a-Thon is a sponsorship event designed especially for people with trich. You commit to using the behavioral change websites StopPulling.com or StopPicking.com for two months, and you ask your friends and family to sponsor you with a pledge to TLC.

In return, you will receive your second month absolutely free (the monthly fee will be refunded to your credit card) on StopPulling.com or StopPicking.com the leading online behavior management sites for trich and skin-picking.

What are StopPulling.com and StopPicking.com?

StopPulling.com and StopPicking.com are web sites designed by a member of TLC’s Scientific Advisory Board, Suzanne Mouton-Odum, in collaboration with several colleagues. These sites ask you to track your daily pulling and picking behaviors – where they happen, what you are feeling when they happen, and how severe they are – in order to help you attain greater awareness of your patterns. The sites then suggest behavior management strategies that are customized to you, helping you to gain greater understanding and control of your triggers and responses.

These are very challenging – and very rewarding – behavior change programs, and many TLC members have seen positive changes in their behaviors as a result of their participation in StopPulling.com and StopPicking.com. So TLC is partnering with these websites in the 2008 Hands-Down-a-Thon to raise funds for TLC.)

It’s as simple as 1-2-3.

1.Sign up for the Hands-Down-a-Thon.

Fill out a simple one-page form to let us know you will be raising money for TLC. (Thank you!)

Please note: this event is for adult pullers and pickers only. Children might feel pressured to report more "good days" than they are actually having, which would be detrimental to their recovery.

2. Create a fundraising home page on firstgiving.com to benefit TLC.

On firstgiving.com, you can create your own fundraising page in just 10 minutes. TLC provides you with sample text and the TLC logo, to make creating the page as simple as possible (it really is easy and quick to do!). Once your page is created, you then email a note to friends and family that links to your fundraising page, where they can make a credit card donation to TLC in support of your Hands-Down-a-Thon. Your sponsors will receive a receipt for their donation, and TLC will receive the funds directly from firstgiving.com.

3. Sign up for StopPulling.com or StopPicking.com -- and work on keeping your hands down for two months.

If you’d like to learn more, please take their virtual tour, read their testimonials, and FAQ. And if you decide you’re ready to start making some changes in your behavior patterns, simply sign up and follow their daily program. It’s affordable (just $1 a day), and it takes only a few minutes each day to log in your behaviors and learn better behavioral strategies.

And when you sign up for the Hands-Down-a-Thon, your second month of StopPulling.com or StopPicking.com will be refunded, as a reward for all your hard work.

It’s a win-win! 

• You achieve a great accomplishment by creating behavioral self-awareness and change for two months.
• Your family and friends get to support you on your road to recovery.
• TLC receives donations to help educate the public and train more doctors to treat trich.
• And you receive two months for the price of one.

Over the course of your Hands-Down-a-Thon, you will probably have easier weeks and more challenging ones; the most important thing is to start each day anew, because each day is a day you can change your behaviors –and your life – for the better. Are you ready to give it a try?