“Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.”
—HENRY WARD BEECHER
IF YOU STILL FEEL LOVE TOWARD YOUR PARTNER AND YOU STILL have hope that he can change, we have good news for you: A great deal of new research shows that recovery from substance abuse is much more feasible than ever before. We learn more every day about what causes addiction, why it is so difficult to manage, and how best to treat it. We now know that a person doesn’t need to “hit bottom” before he can begin to change. And we know that there are many treatment options in addition to twelve-step and residential programs.
In the area of neuroscience alone, major breakthroughs offer those with substance abuse problems a great deal of hope. Specifically, we now know that our brains are constantly evolving. Our brains don’t grow only in our formative years; they create new pathways long into adulthood. What this means is that given help and time and sometimes medication, plus concerted effort and measures to safeguard against returning to substance use, substance abusers can develop new patterns of behavior. And those with drug dependencies can heal their brains.
If your partner is already in recovery in some form, you have even more reason to feel hopeful. Even if he has relapsed many times, the fact that he has admitted he has a problem and has reached out for help is half the battle. Most experts now understand that relapse is actually a natural part of recovery.
Even more good news? We’ve learned that you can play an important role in your partner’s recovery. Relationships between substance-dependent individuals and their partners are typically considered not only painful but also destructive, for both parties. But this doesn’t have to be the case. There is another way for these couples to relate to one another—one that allows them to tap into their love for each other, as well as helping them bypass the obstacles that can get in the way of that love.
Until recently, traditional methods of treatment for substance problems viewed a person’s motivation to change in black and white terms: Either he was ready to change or he was not. People who seemingly didn’t have the motivation to change were told to come back when they were “ready.” Family members were told to “disengage” since there was nothing they could do until their loved one was ready. You may have been told that the best way to help your substance dependent partner is not to help. Especially if you are someone who exhibits codependent behavior, you have likely been told to “detach with love” or to practice “tough love.” Often those who have read books on codependency worry about doing anything nice for their partner for fear of “enabling” his destructive behavior.
“I call that an ‘action stopping’ myth,” says Debra Jay, interventionist, lecturer, and coauthor with her husband, Jeff Jay, of the book Love First: A Family’s Guide to Intervention. “It says you can’t help an alcoholic until he wants help. So that’s it for families: Step back and let the addiction run through your family like a freight train. There’s nothing you can do. And we hear that all the time. We hear it from doctors; we hear it from people in Alcoholics Anonymous. It just stops people from thinking about it.”
This view leaves clinicians as well as family members with only two options: passively wait for the person to gain that motivation on their own, or aggressively demand change, often through confrontation.
But today’s experts are turning this idea on its head. “It’s a completely different story when you say, ‘If you can’t help an alcoholic until he wants help, what will get him to want help?’” Jay points out. “You see, now I’m thinking differently. Now that opens up the door to possibility. Now I can start looking for solutions and answers.”1
Thanks to new research, we now know that family members and others important to a substance abuser can have a positive impact on his motivation. Specifically, Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT) is a scientifically supported, evidence-based approach to helping families of substance abusers, one that we draw from for our suggestions here.
CRAFT grew out of treatment innovations that began in the 1970s. A group of researchers in Illinois, led by behavioral psychologist Nathan Azrin, developed what is considered the most effective behavioral treatment for substance users—the Community Reinforcement Approach (CRA). In the process, they discovered that family involvement was a crucial factor in successful change. Dr. Robert J. Meyers (one of the original Illinois group) expanded the CRA approach to work with families when their loved one refused help, and called it CRAFT. After moving to the Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse, and Addictions (CASAA) at the University of New Mexico, Meyers conducted further research and clinical trials (teaming with Dr. Jane Ellen Smith). Their work has now provided ample evidence that given the right tools, family can effect change.
CRAFT is designed specifically to empower family members. It teaches them how to take control of their lives and to change their interactions with the substance abuser in ways that promote positive behavioral change. Clinical trials have shown that when family members use CRAFT’s positive, supportive, nonconfrontational techniques, including those we offer in this book, not only do they find ways to get their loved one into treatment, but the family members themselves feel better—specifically, they show decreases in depression, anger, and anxiety. Clinical trials have also suggested that family members benefit emotionally even if their loved one does not enter treatment.2
Research groups that studied the CRAFT program observed two results:
• Two-thirds of substance users who had initially been resistant to treatment agreed to treatment.
• The majority of participating spouses and parents reported being happier, less depressed, and less angry, and having more family cohesion and less family conflict than prior to their CRAFT sessions, whether or not their loved one engaged in treatment.
Both results were found across substance and relationship types, and held true for all socioeconomic, ethnic, and age groups.
CRAFT shows us that while you can’t change your addicted partner, you can change yourself in ways that will benefit your partner and your relationship with him, and greatly improve his chances of recovery. We will share with you some of CRAFT’s strategies for doing so, as well as some of our own.
Like the CRAFT program, our approach draws its strength from collaboration and compassion rather than confrontation and conflict. This is the core of our approach.
Throughout this book we will be offering you a lot of helpful information and many strategies to support your partner on his healing journey, based on our experience and expertise, on the expertise of other professionals in the field of recovery, and on the latest research. But the most important information we will offer in this entire book is this: Compassion is the most powerful tool you can have when it comes to healing addictions of any kind. Put simply, what your partner needs the most from you is compassion.
Compassion for others is deeply rooted in human nature; it has a biological basis in the brain and body. It seems that we are wired to respond to others in need. As part of a research project conducted by Emory University neuroscientists James Rilling and Gregory Berns, participants were given the chance to help someone else while their brain activity was recorded. What they found was that helping others triggers activity in the caudate nucleus and anterior cingulate, portions of the brain that turn on when people receive rewards or experience pleasure. In other words, helping others brings the same pleasure we get from gratifying personal desire.
The reaction of another bodily system (the nervous system) also suggests a biological basis for compassion. Our nervous systems play a role in regulating our blood flow and breathing patterns; when we feel threatened, our hearts and breathing rates usually increase, preparing us to either confront or flee from the threat. But when we feel compassion for others, our heart rates slow down, preparing us not to fight or flee, but to approach and soothe. In other words, the science tells us that having compassion for others is actually good for us.
In the last thirty years the science of psychology and studies of the human brain have put compassion, caring, and other prosocial behavior center stage in the development of our well-being and mental health. Most recently, the work of many researchers has revealed that kindness, support, encouragement, and compassion from others have a huge impact on how our brains and bodies develop and function. Love and kindness, especially in early life, even affect how some of our genes are expressed.3
Compassion is especially effective when it comes to healing shame, which as we’ve seen is closely connected to addiction. Most, perhaps all, people who have a substance abuse problem feel deep shame, stemming either from events in their childhood or from the reactions (their own as well as others’) to their addictive behavior, and often both. Compassion is, as it turns out, the only antidote to shame—the only thing that can counteract and neutralize shame’s isolating, stigmatizing, debilitating poison.
The word compassion comes from the Latin roots com (with) and pati (suffer). When we offer someone genuine compassion, we “suffer with” them—that is, we join them in their suffering. And in doing so, we provide the person with not one, but five healing gifts:
1. We let them know that we really see them—that we recognize their suffering. One of the most powerful needs for humans is to be seen. This is especially true for those with a substance abuse problem who were also victims of childhood neglect and abuse and who often felt invisible within their families.
2. We let them know that we hear them. Being heard is another primal need for humans and, again, one that often went unmet early on for those with substance abuse issues.
3. We validate them and their experience—we let them know that we recognize their suffering and their right to express their pain, sadness, fear, anger, or any other emotion due to that suffering. We don’t deny, minimize, or ignore that suffering, which is what those with substance abuse issues may have grown accustomed to as a child (and so may continue to expect).
4. We let them know that we care about them as human beings—that we care about the fact that they suffered and are still suffering. Respect and care for the substance abuser’s humanity may have been in short supply when he was a child, and it is a gift to have this birthright restored.
5. We comfort them, whether with kind words, a healing glance, a loving touch, or a supportive hug. The gift of comfort stimulates the soothing/contentment system in the body and provides a sense of security that helps tone down negative emotions.
So, as you endeavor to support your partner in his healing journey, we encourage you to be kind and patient and loving and compassionate. Far from enabling your partner, acting in these ways is the key to helping him. Being compassionate doesn’t mean condoning or supporting the behavior you don’t want. But it does mean, just as a start, revising the way you think about addiction.