Summary
Do you have a substance-using loved one who refuses treatment? The CRAFT program may help. CRAFT - Community Reinforcement and Family Training - teaches the use of healthy rewards to encourage positive behaviors. Plus, it focuses on helping both the substance user and the family.
The CRAFT goals are to teach you how to encourage your substance user to reduce use and enter treatment. The other goal is to help you enhance your own quality of life. This non-confrontational approach teaches you how to figure out the best times and strategies to make small but powerful changes. And it will show you how to do so in a fashion that reduces relationship conflict.
Experts have based CRAFT on solid science. People from many walks of life have used it successfully to help their loved ones and themselves. Whether you are the parent, spouse, romantic partner, adult child or friend of the substance user, research tells us that you too can succeed with this program. The methods are effective and easy to learn . CRAFT allows family members to feel good about their efforts on behalf of their loved ones.
When a CRAFT Program is Not Available in Your CommunityCRAFT can easily be learned on your own. The 2004 book, Get Your Loved One Sober: Alternatives to Nagging, Pleading, and Threatening by Robert J. Meyers and Brenda L. Wolfe, was written to bring CRAFT right into your home. It helps you change the way you think about your situation and teaches you how to help your loved one learn to enjoy a sober lifestyle. The authors also help you rethink your own lifestyle to make it safer and saner regardless of what your loved one does. If you are also working with a therapist, we recommend that you alert your counselor to the CRAFT manual for therapists, Motivating Substance Abusers to Enter Treatment: Working with Family Members.
FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT CRAFT1. CRAFT is a motivational model of help based on research that consistently finds motivational treatments to be superior to confrontational ones.
2. More than two-thirds of family members who use CRAFT successfully engage their substance using loved ones in treatment.
3. Evidence suggests that substance users who are pushed into treatment by a traditional confrontational intervention are more likely to relapse than clients who are encouraged into treatment with less confrontational means.
4. Family members who use CRAFT experience greater improvements in their emotional and physical health than do those who use confrontational methods to try to help their loved ones.
5. People who use CRAFT are more likely to see the process through to success than those who use confrontational methods.
FIVE MYTHS ABOUT CRAFT1. CRAFT's system of offering and withdrawing "rewards" such as your affection and attention is just another way of enabling someone who is using substances. And enabling is bad.
2. No one enters treatment until they "hit bottom" so using CRAFT while your loved one is still functioning is a waste of time.
3. Most substance users overdo it all the time so it is impossible to do anything to lessen the severity of their use.
4. If you love someone, it is cruel to allow him or her to sleep in vomit or endure public humiliation when you have the power to fix those things.
5. Once your loved one agrees to stop using or enter treatment, your job is done.
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- The CRAFT method relies on nonconfrontational methods to encourage loved ones to enter addiction treatment.
- The method also can help family members improve the quality of their lives.
- CRAFT's effectiveness has been proven through scientific study.
Do you have a substance-using loved one who refuses treatment? The CRAFT program may help. CRAFT - Community Reinforcement and Family Training - teaches the use of healthy rewards to encourage positive behaviors. Plus, it focuses on helping both the substance user and the family.
The CRAFT goals are to teach you how to encourage your substance user to reduce use and enter treatment. The other goal is to help you enhance your own quality of life. This non-confrontational approach teaches you how to figure out the best times and strategies to make small but powerful changes. And it will show you how to do so in a fashion that reduces relationship conflict.
Experts have based CRAFT on solid science. People from many walks of life have used it successfully to help their loved ones and themselves. Whether you are the parent, spouse, romantic partner, adult child or friend of the substance user, research tells us that you too can succeed with this program. The methods are effective and easy to learn . CRAFT allows family members to feel good about their efforts on behalf of their loved ones.
When a CRAFT Program is Not Available in Your CommunityCRAFT can easily be learned on your own. The 2004 book, Get Your Loved One Sober: Alternatives to Nagging, Pleading, and Threatening by Robert J. Meyers and Brenda L. Wolfe, was written to bring CRAFT right into your home. It helps you change the way you think about your situation and teaches you how to help your loved one learn to enjoy a sober lifestyle. The authors also help you rethink your own lifestyle to make it safer and saner regardless of what your loved one does. If you are also working with a therapist, we recommend that you alert your counselor to the CRAFT manual for therapists, Motivating Substance Abusers to Enter Treatment: Working with Family Members.
FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT CRAFT1. CRAFT is a motivational model of help based on research that consistently finds motivational treatments to be superior to confrontational ones.
2. More than two-thirds of family members who use CRAFT successfully engage their substance using loved ones in treatment.
3. Evidence suggests that substance users who are pushed into treatment by a traditional confrontational intervention are more likely to relapse than clients who are encouraged into treatment with less confrontational means.
4. Family members who use CRAFT experience greater improvements in their emotional and physical health than do those who use confrontational methods to try to help their loved ones.
5. People who use CRAFT are more likely to see the process through to success than those who use confrontational methods.
FIVE MYTHS ABOUT CRAFT1. CRAFT's system of offering and withdrawing "rewards" such as your affection and attention is just another way of enabling someone who is using substances. And enabling is bad.
2. No one enters treatment until they "hit bottom" so using CRAFT while your loved one is still functioning is a waste of time.
3. Most substance users overdo it all the time so it is impossible to do anything to lessen the severity of their use.
4. If you love someone, it is cruel to allow him or her to sleep in vomit or endure public humiliation when you have the power to fix those things.
5. Once your loved one agrees to stop using or enter treatment, your job is done.
Click here for original content