3X the Chance of Recovery: Here's What You Need to Do for Your Addicted Loved One
If you have an addicted loved one, you've likely heard to go to Al-anon, and you may have given serious thought and consideration to having an intervention. Yes, like on the TV show intervention, but you may have yet to hear of the CRAFT method. CRAFT stands for Community Reinforcement and Family Training.
The CRAFT method is three times more effective than an intervention for getting an addicted loved one into treatment. I want to explain why it's so much more effective, how it works, and how you can access the craft method training. So let's look at the most strategic, most effective model for getting an addicted loved one to get help. Unfortunately, you don't have that many options when you have an addicted loved one.
#1-Al-anon, which is pretty helpful at teaching you how to take care of yourself and get off what I call the rollercoaster. It's all about helping you regain your sanity, which is super important. I'm a big fan. However, it's ineffective for getting your loved one to get better or go to treatment. So your other option is to hire an expensive interventionist to come to your house and train you and your family to confront your addicted loved one and give them the ultimatum, go to treatment, or else.
Now one of the biggest problems with this type of intervention, known as a Johnson Model intervention, that's like the kind you see the TV show, is not only is it expensive, but after the entire family goes through this costly training, only about 30% of families go through with the intervention process because it's so aggressive, so I feel like the Al-anon approach is a little bit too passive. But on the other hand, the Johnson model approach is a bit too confronting, although there's a time and place for both.
For example, suppose you have a loved one in imminent danger of killing themselves or someone else because of their substance use. In that case, I say go for the Johnson Model Intervention because time isn't on your side, and you must do what you can.
But if you want results for your loved one and yourself, the craft model is the way. The craft model is three times more effective because it systematically trains you to do several different things. First, the craft model wants to help you understand why your addicted loved one does what they do.
The craft model also teaches you how to care for yourself, get back on track with your life, and maintain healthy boundaries with your loved one.
And while all that's happening, you'll learn how to systematically, positively reinforce any slight change in a positive direction, even if it's not a hundred percent, if it's just a 2% change, we want to reinforce that positively. But conversely, we wish to withdraw that positive reinforcement when we see behaviors that are not in the right direction.
It's an alternation between positive and neutral. It teaches you how to communicate more clearly with your loved one about all kinds of things, not just the addiction. And it trains you how to step back from some of the enabling behaviors you may have been falling into that could be inadvertently slowing down the process.
So you're taking care of yourself, you're positively reinforcing their positive change, and you're not fixing the consequences that they're creating, this will get your loved one in a state of mind where they're ready to accept help. You're going to learn how to identify when they're ready and how to have that conversation with them about getting help or going to treatment without starting a lot of arguments.
To help you see the difference in the numbers here-- A Johnson model intervention has a 30-something percent chance of getting a loved one into treatment. The CRAFT method has a 67%-75% chance of getting your addicted loved one to accept help in treatment. That's a big difference, and on top of that, when people go into treatment. Their family's been practicing the CRAFT method; they are way more likely to engage in that treatment, stay longer, and have a much better outcome.
So not only is it the best method for getting your loved one to get help, it's your best method for getting that help to be effective, so your loved one has the best chances of long-term recovery.
Cons of the CRAFT method:
Now, I will always tell you the truth. So I will acknowledge a couple of pitfalls to the CRAFT method.
The first pitfall is that it won't get you an overnight change. You won't have one conversation and your loved one say, "oh my gosh, I've been doing this so long, I need help. Will you drive me to treatment?" That's not the way this program works.
It's a systematic change in the way you relate to your loved one, which is going to change how they relate to you and how they relate to their addiction.
The other pitfall to the CRAFT method is that you must back up and let the consequences fall into place for the person.
So, for example, if you're used to making sure they get out of bed and get to work, you'll have to stop doing that, which might mean they might lose their job, drop a class, or get a legal charge. So it will be your job not to fix those things, which will be a little painful to witness, and your loved one may resent you when those things happen.
But overall, because you're nurturing your relationship and stepping back out of the way of your loved one, they will eventually figure it out.
Now, some of you are thinking, okay, how do I get trained in the CRAFT method? I'm going to give you a few ways. First, I teach this method in an online course that I created called The Invisible Intervention. It's like an intervention behind the scenes that nobody knows is happening.
In addition, I also teach you the counseling methodology for helping a person come to terms with their addiction, get out of denial, and ultimately get sober. And that method is called motivational interviewing.
It goes hand in hand with the CRAFT method. So not only will you be getting all the best family training, but you'll be getting the counselor training, which will help you navigate those difficult conversations and learn exactly what to say.
When they say things like, "I don't want to change, this is just the way I am, or It's not even hurting anybody."
Motivational interviewing shows you how to find your loved one's core motivations and pull them forward versus trying to tell them why they need to change.
Because as you can imagine, it's a lot better if it comes from them, and inside the invisible intervention, we teach you how to understand all the different kinds of treatment, including all the different types of medications that are used in addiction recovery, so that you can be making decisions behind the scenes about what options might be best for your loved one.
If you do this right, your loved one will tell you they're ready to change and need help, and you need to be ahead of the game with some options for when that happens. So I want you to know exactly what to do when you get that moment.
Amber Hollingsworth
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