It’s a well-known fact that alcohol and drug addiction can lead to devastating results. There are many treatment methods available to users. However, those individuals associated with addicts often find little or few alternatives for themselves in coping with and trying to help their loved ones who are addicted.
Dr. Robert Meyers, a research assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse and Addictions (CASAA) at the University of New Mexico and associate director of the LifeLink Training Institute in Santa Fe, hopes to change all that with his new book, Get Your Loved One Sober: Alternatives to Nagging, Pleading and Threatening (Hazelden Publishing and Educational Services).
Co-written by Brenda Wolfe, a clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of substance abuse, eating disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder, Meyers and Wolfe provide basic guidelines for spouses, parents or children of problem drinkers or drug users to improve the quality of their own lives while making sobriety a more rewarding option for their loved ones than drinking or taking drugs.
The book, based on the scientifically validated CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training) model created by Meyers, Get Your Loved One Sober provides the guidance and tools to recognize how you and your loved one interact and to change those patterns to achieve healthier and happier results.
Meyers feels the main difference in the success of CRAFT is the involvement of family members as part of the overall treatment.
“This book is for consumers,” Meyers said. “We want to help family members of users who are at their wits end with no place to go. We teach several things in the book. We teach family members how to stay safe, how to take care of themselves and how to gently persuade their user to enter treatment. We want family members of the users to lead fuller and more balanced lives even if the user never enters treatment.
“Part of the unique aspect is that we found that people who go through the program reduce a lot of their negative psychological problems such as depression, anger and anxiety,” Meyers said.
Meyers created the CRAFT approach to treating patients with alcohol and substance abuse problems more than 25 years ago. It’s an alcohol and drug treatment method that has gained a reputation for its success over the past several decades.
“The community reinforcement approach has never had a negative clinical trial, when we’ve tested it (CRAFT) against other methods,” says Meyers. “This mode of treatment is designed to help a family member motivate a treatment-resistant substance user to enter treatment.”
In a recent clinical trial, CRAFT had a 65 percent success rate getting people into treatment when tested against the Johnson Institute’s Intervention Method and Alcoholics Anonymous, which had success rates of 29 and 13 percent respectively.
Meyers has been at CASAA for the past 17 years and has been involved in addiction treatment for more than 27 years.
Contact: Steve Carr (505) 277-1821
Posted by kwentworth at February 11, 2004 04:41 PM