Real Allies in Recovery Success Stories
Families Share How CRAFT Helped Their Loved Ones with Addiction
Your Oxygen Mask – A Central Tenet of CRAFT
The CRAFT method points to the efficacy of shifting our focus back to our Self, even in some of the most dire or anxiety-producing situations.
Al-Anon vs. Allies in Recovery: How Our Approach Differs
At Allies in Recovery, we disagree with Al-Anon on one crucial point: A family member is part of the immediate environment and CAN create the conditions that promote reduced use and recovery.
Oh, What a Little Breath Work Can Do!
Intentional breathing practices have been around for millennia, but Western medicine has taken notice of their potential benefits only recently. This great primer on breath work covers the numerous ways it can improve wellbeing and reduce stress and anxiety. It also shows you some easy, no-fault ways to get started.
Her Partner Isn’t Improving from Substance Use Disorder. Is There an Underlying Mental Health Condition?
One of our AlliesinRecovery.net members as been artfully following the CRAFT principles and yet her loved one is not showing signs of improvement. Engaging in extreme behavior, barely ever sleeping, misusing his ADHD medication, lying, and now, stealing… Is it all on the addiction or could her partner suffer from an underlying, undiagnosed and untreated mental health condition?
Did I Do CRAFT Wrong and Trigger Him to Drink?
She thought her husband was drinking, so she left. He called and said he wasn’t drinking, so she came home, but by then he’d gone out and he did drink. This wife feels she inadvertently triggered her husband to go drink. Did she? She also feels like she messed everything up with one episode of removing rewards. Did she really? The CRAFT approach has us “remove rewards,” including removing ourselves, when our loved one is using substances. CRAFT also asks you to make numerous split-second decisions every day. You’re going to get it wrong sometimes. In the post below, we walk through this scenario with some CRAFT ABC’s.
3 Months into Recovery and He Doesn’t Show an Ounce of Gratitude
This mom has been able to successfully use CRAFT principles to shepherd her son into treatment and to support him during early recovery. However, her son’s lack of gratitude is beginning to feel unbearable. AlliesinRecovery.net Director Dominique Simon-Levine weighs in with a reminder to practice communications skills, and to take care of yourself – all part of the CRAFT curriculum at Allies.
Trauma, Community, and Individualism: Dr Bessel van der Kolk on Healing Trauma, Part III
As one of the world’s leading researchers and thinkers on trauma, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk knows better than to offer solutions to this most intricate of problems. In this video series, he brilliantly describes the contours of trauma, community, and individualism, shedding brilliant light on the search for one’s own path to recovery.
“We Were So Blind” : Dr Bessel van der Kolk on Healing Trauma, Part II
In this second part of his discussion on healing trauma—which is perfectly understandable on its own—celebrated psychologist and author Bessel van der Kolk will leave you feeling both hopeful and humbled. Whether it’s professional-administered psychedelics, EMDR, or yoga, he sees a world of promise for trauma sufferers. But he also stresses that these treatments, like trauma itself, are something we’re just beginning to understand.