Reviewed by Henry Steinberger,
Ph.D.
Get Your Loved
One Sober offers a revolutionary program: The Community
Reinforcement And Family Training (CRAFT) intervention, to help people
who are seeking sobriety for their loved ones. CRAFT can boast
phenomenal success getting people into treatment. An alternative to
Al-Anon's 12-Step tradition and "detachment" recommendations and
the Johnson Institute's confrontational interventions, the CRAFT
program is based on non-confrontational proven behavioral principles
like finding and rewarding positive behaviors. It is a program
congruent with SMART Recovery® and my own clinical practice:
Alternative Recovery Options(at Capitol Associates, LLC.
The book gives the reader tools and instructions for changing their
interactions with their loved one, which in turn changes the loved
one's behavior. In repeated clinical trials CRAFT proved twice as
likely as the Johnson Intervention and six times as likely as Al-Anon
to get loved ones into treatment. Interestingly, getting a loved one
into treatment is not the first goal. Arranging for one's own safety
and finding a happier life independent of the drinker's situation,
takes priority. Getting a loved one to moderate, choose sobriety, or
go into treatment, are then offered as roads to a better
relationship.
The book, Get Your Loved One Sober, with its easy engaging
presentation delivers an organized set of behavioral strategies,
effective alternatives to nagging, pleading and threatening, and
realistic encouragement. Using simple terms and metaphors, dramatic
story examples and hands-on activities, the book teaches the skills
professionals call: behavioral analysis, goal setting, reinforcement
and extinction, problem solving and communication. Though the key to
change is planned reinforcement, behaviorism and its terminology are
only mentioned when Meyers pointedly recommends looking for treatment
programs congruent with CRAFT described with phrases like "social
skills training," "behavioral marital therapy,"
"cognitive-behavioral treatment," "rational-emotive therapy" and
"motivational treatment."
Though Meyers notes
that some treatment groups "use a Twelve-Step format as their
treatment" he suggests the reader look for treatment that helps the
drinker "figure out the triggers (stimulus cues) and reinforces of
his unhealthy behavior." In his next book, aimed at
professional wanting to learn to apply CRAFT in their practice, he's
promised to specify SMART Recovery® as a useful
alternative.
Reviewed by Henry Steinberger,
Ph.D.
[approximately 450
words]
Dr.
Steinberger, the reviewer, is a Licensed Psychologist in private
practice at Capitol Associates, Madison, WI; Certified by the Board of
Governors of the APA College of Professional Psychology in the
Treatment of Alcohol and Other Psychoactive Substance Use Disorders,
member of the Board of Directors of SMART Recovery® and a Fellow of
the Albert Ellis Institute for Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy.
--
Henry Steinberger Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Capitol Associates, LLC
Alternative Recovery Option
440 Science Drive Suite #200
Madison, WI 53711-1064
608-238-5176 ext. 352
steinberger@sbcglobal.net
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