Amber Hollingsworth (master addiction counselor) presents three primary options for family members of people with alcohol/drug problems: 1) Detach with love (Al‑Anon style: self‑care, widely available, free, but relies on the addict to ‘wake up’), 2) Tough love (strict boundaries/no enabling: can protect the family but may not make the addict get better and is emotionally painful, especially for parents), and 3) CRAFT — Community Reinforcement and Family Training (a structured, coachable method that statistically outperforms the first two options — described as “more than twice as effective” — but is less widely available and requires discipline and professional coaching). The speaker emphasizes that no option is perfect and that family recovery should be strategy‑based and tailored to the situation; she points viewers to additional CRAFT resources (videos and the book Beyond Addiction).
Chapters
Having a loved one with a drug or alcohol problem is seriously like being held hostage. You're controlled by fear, but motivated by resentment and frustration. And the very first step to taking your control back is to stop making emotional decisions and to start making strategic, logical decisions. Which is why in this video, I'm going to explain to you the three main approaches for solving this problem. I'm Amber Hollingsworth, master addiction counselor, and if you're sick and tired of being held hostage, subscribe to this channel, and I'll make sure you're always five steps ahead of addiction. So the way I see it, you have about three options as to how you can handle dealing with an addicted loved one. Option number one, you can detach with love. This is the sort of backup, save yourself. There's nothing you could do. You're powerless. It's the Al Anon type approach. And sometimes when you're just drowning in the nightmare of addiction, that's all you can do. And it is helpful to back up and take care of yourself. And when you do that, it does increase the chances that your loved one will also do the same. The pros to using this approach would be it's been around for a long time. There are 12 step Al Anon meetings all over the whole world, everywhere. They're fairly easy to access, and you can even access them online if you can't get to a meeting. And they don't cost anything. And there is some research to show that this method is effective. But the problem, the cons of the Al Anon approach is that it's pretty much reliant on waiting for this person that has this brain disease to wake up and figure out that they've got a problem and they want to get better. And most of the families that I see have a really hard time doing that because this is your spouse, this is your kid, and you're trying to back up and attach with love, but you just can't maintain it. It's diffic because you love that person. And hey, when they're destroying their life, they're destroying your life, too. So you have some feelings about that. Hey, it's easy to say focus on yourself, but not so easy to do when you're actually in that situation. So here's your number two option. If you don't like that one, your number two option is you can confront it and use what I call the tough love approach. Now, the tough love approach is all about setting the boundaries, drawing the hard line in the sand, kicking them out, not giving them any money and don't enable no matter what you do. Put your foot down now. The benefits to using this approach is it does go a long way for preserving the rest of the family. Sometimes it is seriously, like, if you had gangrene in your leg and it was like rotting, you might have to amputate your leg to save the rest of you. That's kind of what tough love approach is. It's like, back up, put a tourniquet on it, and try to save what you can. It's all about putting those boundaries down. Now, the problem with the tough love approach is that it doesn't necessarily make the other person get better. I know people think, oh, if you're tough love, they'll hit their bottom, they'll get better. Well, I'm here to tell you that addicts and alcoholics, they keep using and drinking despite consequences. That's what it means. So just being tough, that's not gonna quite do it either. And in addition to that, like, if this is your kid, like, putting your kid on the street is the most unnatural thing a parent can do. And it is literally like ripping your heart out of your chest and throwing it away. And you might even be being told that that's what you have to do or need to do. But that is such a difficult solution. It doesn't fix them and it doesn't fix you. So the third approach that I want to tell you about is something that not as many people know about. It's called the craft method. C R A F T. That's community reinforcement and family training. And that's what we do here at Hope4Families. We help families. A lot of times it's not the addict or alcoholic that calls us. It's the mom or the wife or the husband or the parent. It is someone close to the person that has a drug or alcohol problem. And sometimes when they call us, they say, hey, I'm looking for help for my, you know, my kid, my spouse, and they're ready to come in and we can go at it and we can treat both sides of that at the same time, and that is the optimal situation. But other times, we have family members that call us and they say, hey, I've got a loved one. I've got this problem. I don't know what to do. They're in denial or they refuse to get help. Like, is there anything you can do? And in a situation like that, we walk the family through a step by step process on how to get their loved one to accept help on how to get them to realize that it is a problem. Now, the benefits to using the craft approach is that it is statistically worth it, way more likely to be an effective method for you. In fact, it is more than twice as effective as either of those other two options that we talked about. But there's no perfect choice when you're in this really sucky situation. There are cons to going this route, and the most difficult thing about using this approach is accessing it. You see, the craft model is much less known about. There's way less people out there trained in it or that practice it. And so it's a little more difficult to access help using that model. And in general, to pull this off, you're probably going to need a little coaching. And that means you might need to get some professional help to actually work through the steps of this process. But even though this method really works, I'm not going to lie to you, it ain't easy, people. It involves a lot of willpower and discipline and strategy and decision making on your part. Now, if you'd like to look more into the craft method, I have some videos on my channel specifically about that. And there's a really good book that you can get right from Amazon. It's called Beyond Addiction. And I'll put the link to that and other resources in the description below in case you'd like to pursue or learn more about that option. But hey, there's nothing wrong with any of those three options. And sometimes you need a little of this and a little of that. And that's why family recovery is all about strategy based on your specific situation. You've got to really look at the situation and factors and people involved to make the best choice for you and your family. Now, up next is more information about the CRAFT approach in case you're ready and you want to know more about that. It's right here in this next video. So just click on it and you'll be on your way to learning more about the craft approach.
