Help for Family & Friends

Help yourself, and help your loved one, with an alternative to Al-Anon and Johnson Intervention.

happy_family SMART Recovery would like to welcome you and help you find the information and provide you with the resources you can use to help yourself, as well your loved one.

SMART Recovery Family & Friends is a science-based, secular alternative to Al-Anon and Johnson Intervention. Our method is based on the tools of SMART Recovery and CRAFT (Community Reinforcement Approach & Family Training).

SMART Recovery Family & Friends helps those who are affected by the substance abuse, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, or other addictions of a loved one.

Update: The new SMART Recovery Family & Friends Handbook is now available in the SMART Recovery Bookstore!

Family & Friends Online Support Meeting

Each Monday night at 9:00 PM (Eastern), SMART Recovery Volunteer Facilitators provide a Concerned Significant Others (CSO) meeting to address specific issues encountered when a friend or family member tries to reach out and help a loved one affected by addiction.

The meetings share SMART Recovery tools that can be implemented by loved ones to help with emotional upsets, effective communication methods when dealing with loved ones, and more. Techniques employed within the CRAFT Program (Community Reinforcement Approach and Family Training) will also be shared for the benefit of meeting attendees.

To Participate

To participate in the Family & Friends meetings, registration is required at the SMART Recovery Online website: www.smartrecoveryforum.org.

A Family & Friends (Concerned Significant Others) Message Board Forum for additional support is also available.

Local Meetings

In an effort to meet the interest and demand for locally-available SMART Recovery Family & Friends meetings, a program is underway covering several metropolitan areas where local (face-to-face) SMART Recovery Family & Friends meetings are now offered.

Chicago IL Area	Columbia MD Area	San Diego CA Area
Loft Offices	Owen Brown Interfaith Center	Pyrysys Psychology Group
4633 N. Western Avenue	7246 Cradlerock Way	8050 Villa La Jolla Drive
Room 211 (use buzzer for entry)	Room 116 (lower level)	Suite B214
Chicago, IL 60625	Columbia, MD 21045	La Jolla, CA 92037
Thursday 7:00-8:30 PM	Monday 7:00-8:30 PM	Monday 7:00 - 8:30PM
smartchicagonorth(at)gmail.com	smartfamfriends(at)gmail.com	smartrecoverysd(at)gmail.com

Belmont, MA	Mentor, OH (N.E. Ohio)
McLean Hospital	7304 Mentor Avenue
115 Mill Street	Suite F, 2nd Floor
De Marneffe Builging	Every 3rd Saturday
Room 117	10:00am to 11:30am
Saturday 4:30-6:00PM	2/23, 3/16, 4/6, 4/27, 5/18, 6/8
suzy(at)smartne.org	AllwoodInc(at)aol.com

You can get more information on SMART Recovery meetings in the local meetings directory.

Watch this page for more information on local SMART Recovery Family & Friends meetings as they become available.

Are you interested in starting a Family & Friends meeting in your area or for your practice? Get more information

CRAFT

For concerned significant others, SMART Recovery recommends Community Reinforcement Approach & Family Training (CRAFT). CRAFT aims to teach family and friends self-protection and non-confrontational skills to help their addicted loved one find recovery.

CRAFT groups may be difficult to find, as this approach is very new, but more information can be found in an excellent book Get Your Loved One Sober: Alternatives to Nagging, Pleading, and Threatening by Robert J. Meyers, Ph.D. and Brenda L. Wolfe, Ph.D.

Get Your Loved One Sober offers a revolutionary program for those who are seeking recovery for their loved ones. CRAFT boasts a phenomenal success rate getting people into treatment and recovery.

An alternative to Al-Anon's 12-Step tradition and detactment recommendations and the Johnson Institute's confrontational interventions, the CRAFT program is based on non-confrontational and proven behavioral principles like finding and rewarding positive behaviors. It is a program congruent with SMART Recovery.

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's approach proved twice as likely as the Johnson intervention and six times as likely as Al-Anon to get a loved one into treatment.

Robert J. Meyers With CRAFT, arranging for one's own safety and finding a happier life for one's self takes priority. Getting a loved one to moderate, choose sobriety, or go into treatment are then offered as roads to a better relationship.

CRAFT was developed by Robert Meyers, Ph.D. Dr. Meyers has been in the addiction field for 33 years with 23 of those years being at the University of New Mexico. He is currently the director of Robert J. Meyers, Ph.D. & Associates and a Research Associate Professor Emeritus in Psychology at the University of New Mexico's Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse and Addiction. He has been involved in over a dozen clinical trials funded by the National Institutes of Health, including Project Match and the Clinical Trials Network.

Resources at SMART Recovery

SMART Recovery provides a Concerned Significant Others (For Families and Friends) area on our messageboard to provide online peer support. You are also welcome to use any of our online resources and attend our meetings if you choose.

Things to Do If Your Loved One is Addicted to Alcohol and/or Drugs.

The above article is also available here in PDF format