Wolfe Brenda L. - Get your loved one sober: alternatives to nagging, pleading, and threatening

With a map, directions, and the family in the drivers seat, Get Your Loved One Sober is an important book for any family affected by alcohol abuse.

Claudia Black, Ph.D., author of It Will Never Happen to Me

For decades it was believed that there was nothing one could do to help substance-abusing loved ones until they hit bottom or that heavy-handed confrontational tactics were necessary. Bob Meyers has developed a remarkably effective and gentle method for working through family members and concerned significant others to help their unmotivated loved ones get into treatment. It is no longer necessary to feel helpless and hopeless. This book offers clear and practical advice based on solid scientific research.

William R. Miller, Ph.D., distinguished professor of psychology and psychiatry and author of Motivational Interviewing

Get Your Loved One Sober is an outstanding resource for persons dealing with loved ones who refuse to get help for their substance abuse problem. Years of research show that the approach described in this book works. I highly recommend it.

Timothy OFarrell, Ph.D., chief of the Families and Addiction Program, Harvard Medical School, Department of Psychiatry

If you feel like your life is out of control because of someone elses substance abuse, this book will put you in the drivers seat with research-based strategies that can make life infinitely betterfor you and your loved one. Get Your Loved One Sober fills a void for everyday people as well as professionals who feel helpless and hopeless concerning substance abusers in their lives. Clearly written and engaging, this book can move you from feeling like a passive victim to becoming an empowered, active player in helping a loved one overcome a drinking problem.

Anne M. Fletcher, M.S., R.D., L.D., author of Sober for Good: New Solutions for Drinking ProblemsAdvice from Those Who Have Succeeded and recipient of the Research Society on Alcoholism Journalism Award

Lucid and clear, this book will help those who love an addicted person find the practical steps they need to take to facilitate change. I recommend it highly.

Thomas Bien, Ph.D., coauthor of Mindful Recovery and Finding the Center Within

Hazelden Publishing

Center City, Minnesota 55012-0176

hazelden.org/bookstore

2004 by Robert J. Meyers and Brenda L. Wolfe

All rights reserved. Published 2004

No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the publisher

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Meyers, Robert J.

Get your loved one sober : alternatives to nagging, pleading, and threatening, / Robert J. Meyers, Brenda L. Wolfe.

p.cm.

The program described in this book is based on the Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT) therapeutic modelP..

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-59285-081-5 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-59285-775-3 (ebook)

1. AlcoholicsRehabilitation.2. AlcoholicsFamily relationships.3. Codependency.4. Change (Psychology)5. Self-control.6. Narcotic addictsRehabilitation.7. Narcotic addictsFamily relationships.I. Wolfe, Brenda L.II. Title.

HV5278.M28 2004

362.292'3dc22

2003057149

Editors note

The stories in this book are composites of actual situations. Any resemblance to specific persons, living or dead, or specific events is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Theresa Gedig

Interior design by Rachel Holscher

Typesetting by Stanton Publication Services, Inc.

The program described in this book is based on the Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT) therapeutic model, which has been evaluated in multiple clinical trials (see references) and found to be an effective intervention for the concerned family and friends of substance abusers. Nonetheless, no guarantees, explicit or implied, are given that the reader will experience outcomes similar to those seen in clinical work. This book is not a substitute for therapy.

To those people who have taught me and continue to teach me about the meaning of life: my mother, Evelyn Fritzsche Meyers, my sons, Nicholas Andrew Meyers and Oliver Joseph Meyers, and most of all, my wife and partner, Jane Ellen Smith.

Bob Meyers, Ph.D.

As always, my work is dedicated to the many teachers who have both instructed me and molded my thinking over the years, and to my family who is my true source of strength.

Brenda L. Wolfe, Ph.D.

I would like to acknowledge the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism ( NIAAA ) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse ( NIDA ) for their support and encouragement on all the CRAFT research projects. I would also like to thank all the knowledgeable and hard working staff at the Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse, and Addictions ( CASAA ), especially Matt ONuska, Roberta Chavez, and Erica Miller. I especially would like to thank my colleague and friend Bill Miller without whom the CRAFT research would have not been possible.

Bob Meyers, Ph.D.

First and foremost, I wish to acknowledge all the patients who have honored me by allowing me to enter their lives and learn from their experiences. After book learning is done and exams are passed, it is ultimately the patient who creates the clinician. I wish also to acknowledge my coauthor, Robert J. Meyers, for his passion and commitment to this project. If ever there was a soul behind a program, Bob Meyers is the soul of CRAFT . Working with him to offer this effective program to the public is a joyful way to give back to the patient community that has given so generously to me.

Brenda L. Wolfe, Ph.D.

If you live with or love someone who drinks or drugs too much, this book can help you. This book offers you a program that has been proven to help people whose lives are affected by a problem drinker, a drug user, or someone who does both. If you feel stuck in a hopeless, substance-ruled life, this book can help you. If you have ever called, or wanted to call, a crisis line, clinic, or hospital and said, Help, my husband is drinking himself to death or Help, my kid stays out all night getting high, and Im scared to death, this book can help. You will also find help here if alcohol or drugs are destroying your marriage or scaring your children. Whether you are the wife, husband, lover, parent, son, daughter, or friend of an alcoholic or drug user, this book offers you the tools both to help you help your loved one find the path to sobriety and to improve your own life.

Throughout the book you will notice that we primarily illustrate our points with alcohol abusers. The program, however, has been proven to be effective with loved ones who abuse a wide variety of substances ranging from alcohol and marijuana to heroin and crack. Thus, you can effectively apply the program to your loved one regardless of the substance of abuse.

If you have tried everything and nothing has worked, but you are not ready to give up, then you are in the right place. The scientifically validated program on which this book is based has been designed specifically for people who feel they have tried it all. They have scolded, nagged, begged, bribed, detached, and tried a few tricks not fit to print. Just like you, they love their drinkers enough to keep trying and trying. What they have not done (and what we will teach you to do) is use that love to change the way they and their drinkers interact so that they spend less time feeling miserable and their loved ones discover the pleasure in being sober. From where we sit, thats an awfully good deal. We are confident that you will also find it to be so.