Tough Love? Really?
Tough love, I was told, was the only hope I had left. So I tried it and things got worse. I hated it and it didn’t even work. Then I developed a personal strategy that I called Smart Love.
She Wants to Borrow the Car…And We’re Uneasy
She agreed to treatment for alcohol and is heading home soon. But she’ll need transportation when she starts working again. Where does CRAFT stand on letting a loved one borrow the car to get to work? What about installing a breathalyzer?
He’s in a Sober House and Struggling
The period of early recovery is fragile, even dangerous. As important as it is to remove the drugs, it is even more important to add things in that take the place of the drugs, providing meaning, guidance, and supporting recovery and health…
How Exactly Does This Website Help Families?
Allies’ founder and director, Dominique Simon-Levine, responds to questions from our Content Editor about the Key Observation exercises in our eLearning Center. This Q & A provides a clear explanation about how important these exercises are and how they help families understand their loved one’s addiction in order to successfully guide them to treatment.
If Suicide Is a Risk, How Can We Help?
When an addicted loved one alludes to or even threatens suicide, the family can feel paralyzed. Is the risk real or are they being manipulative? How do you respond?
Just Out of Rehab and Drinking
Recovery is a bumpy process and relapse is very often part of it. Sticking with the CRAFT approach will help your loved one reach their goal of continuous sobriety.
Can The Whole Family Get on The Same Page?
Unity in a family is hard to orchestrate, especially where addiction is present. Sometimes this is because parents are elderly or a family member is too angry, or too overwhelmed to take in new information. But this shouldn’t stop a family member from taking steps to guide their loved one toward treatment.
Addiction Is Confounding, but with CRAFT There Are No Gray Areas
When drugs and alcohol take over, the family is drawn into the needs of the addiction, blamed when resources come up short, attacked when they refuse to provide the “help” requested. It is so hard to know what to do or what “helping” looks like. Come out of the gray area and learn how to respond to your Loved One’s addiction.
A Family’s Long and Difficult Battle for Sobriety
How do you walk the line between protecting your addicted loved one from potential danger while allowing the natural consequences that can lead them to want to make a change? While there are definite limits to what a family can do, there are actions that can be taken.
I’m Trying to Set Boundaries but It’s Not Working
Why is it that setting and maintaining boundaries is so difficult to do? Nowhere does this breakdown become more apparent than when we are confronted with life’s difficulties, feeling lost in chaos and despair. This is a time when we are most in need of these self-preserving strategies and yet, our limit-setting abilities are likely at their weakest.
Thank You Allies in Recovery, it Worked!
Annie Highwater offers a mother the tools she learned at Allies in Recovery: CRAFT, and watches in real-time the positive results. The son has checked into treatment. A family’s hope is reignited — during the holidays!
He’s Always High! How Can I Reward Non-Use?
When your loved one is high all day long, without ever seeming to sober up, it might seem impossible to reach them and have any influence on their behavior. The CRAFT method lays out three steps to take.
Podcast: “Good Time Charlies : A Conversation with Award-Winning Journalist Rob Koebel”
Special guest Rob Koebel, actor, writer and award-winning journalist joins Annie and Laurie to talk about about his descent into alcoholism starting at an early age, and the decades that went by without anyone noticing there was a serious problem. His journey to recovery has been a long struggle but one which he is putting to good use by helping others understand the reality behind the “Good-time Charlie” drinker.
Can We Protect Them from Overdose?
How do you keep from encouraging further drug use by raising the bottom and protecting your loved one from overdose? How as a family member do you live with the dangers your loved one is facing, day in and day out? How do you avoid depleting your energy and becoming obsessed with the circumstances of your loved one’s life?
This is Your Cue! Learn How to Recognize Motivation …
It is critical that you, as your addicted loved one’s ally, understand that you can’t create motivation. And it is equally critical that you know there is something you can do!
What If He Loses the Car? How We Inadvertently Enable
A central question to ask yourself is this: is the car supporting non-use, by keeping your loved one working, or has it become an important source of money for drugs and for a bailout when they get him in trouble?
Why You Should Reward Your Loved One
Everyone who had an addiction problem and managed to stop, started out by putting hours of non-using together to equal ONE DAY. What made that day so different? A negative consequence usually lights the flame…..
Overdose – Who is Responsible?
Overdose deaths are skyrocketing and Narcan has become THE focus. But for the family of the opiate using loved one, Narcan is a double-edged sword.
How to Modify CRAFT for Your Loved One Using Opiates
Unsure of how to implement the CRAFT method with your opiate user? We explain how to use rewards and stepping away, even when “non-use” doesn’t seem to exist.
Whatever You Put in Front of Your Sobriety You Will Lose
There is an AA saying, one that I think also applies to families navigating the addiction of a Loved One. Simply put, getting and staying sober must come first. Yet, for families, there is so much else going on.
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