We shouldn’t be surprised; everything we know about motivation and change applied to writing this book: the time, effort, and uncertainties, the learning, the joy, and especially the support of family, friends, colleagues, and clients. We’re grateful for this community of people who, among their many other contributions, reinforced our conviction that it was worth it.
Thank you to our own loving, supportive families for their unflagging encouragement and patience while we devoted so much love and every free second to this book: Elisabeth, Ben, and Julia; Will, Bruce, and Jonny Bill; Peter, Anna, and Zoe; Ted, Jules, Tim, and Arlene. We look forward to making up lost weekends with you!
To Linda Loewenthal at the David Black Agency for her business and editorial savvy, and for being our sincere champion very early (when we needed it most) and often. Nice pitch! And credit to her assistant, Carrie Lee, for helping Linda do all of the above and more.
To our editor, Shannon Welch, for taking a big swing at it. Thanks to her, we had the talents and care of John Glynn, Gwyneth Stansfield, Benjamin Holmes, Roz Lippel, Kara Watson, Nan Graham, and their colleagues at Scribner going for us—including a handsome cover design by Tal Goretsky that was easy for the four of us to agree on. Also, thanks to Shannon, it’s a better book. We can hardly believe we once considered self-publishing.
To our colleague Bob Meyers, without whom there would be no such thing as CRAFT to help families in such a respectful, loving way. To Jane Smith, who helped Bob put CRAFT into writing and training, so that we could all learn it. To Bill Miller and Alan Marlatt for turning on a light in the addiction treatment world that is still burning bright, and all the other fearless and dedicated researchers who put the evidence in “evidence-based” every day in their pursuit of “what works.” To Tom Hedrick and his excellent crew at The Partnership at Drugfree.org for their invaluable encouragement, input, and, well, partnership. And to every clinician in the field who values science and kindness as much as we do—in particular John Mariani at Columbia (who, as an addiction psychiatrist, researcher, reader of part of our manuscript, and friend, exemplifies these values as much as is humanly possible).
We especially cherish our extraordinary team at CMC, who have been front-seat drivers on the road to helping people get better. That collaboration has taught us how to pass on what we know about helping others in this book. We thank you for the skill and professionalism that you bring to CMC, no matter what else is going on in the world (and there is always something!).
To our clients and their families, who inspire us and teach us with their courage and perseverance.
Finally, we thank everyone who has wanted to help someone. You are the reason we wrote this book and the reason our field needs to keep changing and accepting new ways to help you.