Coauthor Dr. Robert Meyers spent ten years developing a treatment program that helps Concerned Significant Others (CSOs) both improve the quality of their lives and to learn how to make treatment an attractive option for their partners who are substance abusers.

Get Your Loved One Sober describes this multi-faceted program that uses supportive, non-confrontational methods to engage substance abusers into treatment. Called Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT), the program uses scientifically validated behavioral principles to reduce the loved one's substance use and to encourage him or her to seek treatment.

Also see articles by coauthor Brenda L. Wolfe, PhD.

Learning the alternatives to nagging, pleading, and threatening is fairly straightforward. It will not take years of study for you to master these tools. (Excerpt from book Get Your Loved One Sober.)

During much of the last century, people with substance abuse problems were perceived as either willfully ruining their lives, or possessing an inherent weakness of character that made them unable to resist ruining their lives. Both beliefs led to the conclusion the individual was either bad or weak. Hence, the common approach was to nag them to change, plead with them, and threaten abandonment or worse. These tactics are rarely effective.