Working with Family Members to Engage Treatment-Refusing Drinkers: The CRAFT Program

SUMMARY

Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT) is an empirically-supported program based on behavioral reinforcement that engages treatment-refusing alcohol-other drug abusers into treatment by working with their concerned family members. These concerned significant others (CSOs) are taught how to rearrange contingencies in the drinker's environment such that sober behavior is supported and drinking behavior is discouraged. CSOs receive behavioral skills training in order to acquire the tools to successfully influence the drinker to enter treatment, and to enhance their own happiness as well. This review describes the outgrowth of CRAFT from the original Community Reinforcement Approach (CRA) program, summarizes the research foundation, and presents the basic CRAFT procedures with illustrative examples.

KEYWORDS:

• Community reinforcement
• treatment engagement
• concerned significant others
• contingency management