Coaching Guide
Read this section carefully before starting Week 1.
This manual is built on CRAFT — Community Reinforcement and Family Training — the most evidence-based approach for family members supporting someone with a substance use disorder. CRAFT has been shown to be 64% effective at getting a loved one into treatment, compared to 30% for Al-Anon and 23% for traditional interventions (Meyers et al., 2002).
It also draws on two additional frameworks that deepen our understanding of why addiction develops and how connection heals it:
Gabor Maté and the Roots of Addiction. Physician and author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts and The Myth of Normal, Maté argues that addiction is not primarily a disease of the brain — it is a response to pain. Specifically, it is an attempt to solve the problem of emotional suffering that originates in early developmental trauma and disrupted attachment. The substance or behavior provides temporary relief from unbearable internal states. Maté’s Compassionate Inquiry approach — woven throughout this manual — asks not "Why the addiction?" but "Why the pain?" This reframe matters for supporters because it shifts the question from "How do I make them stop?" to "What unmet need is the substance filling?"
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. The landmark CDC-Kaiser ACE Study (Felitti et al., 1998) surveyed over 17,000 adults and found a direct, graded relationship between childhood adversity and adult addiction. A person with an ACE score of 4 or higher is 5 times more likely to develop alcoholism and 46 times more likely to become an injection drug user than someone with a score of 0. The ten categories of ACEs — physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; physical and emotional neglect; and five types of household dysfunction (domestic violence, substance abuse, mental illness, parental separation, incarceration) — are not destiny, but they are context. Understanding your loved one’s ACE history helps explain why the addiction took hold and why shame-based approaches ("just stop," "you’re choosing this") are not only ineffective but actively harmful.
What this means for you: CRAFT gives you the strategy (what to do). Maté gives you the understanding (why they use). The ACE data gives you the context (what happened to them). Together, they replace blame with informed compassion — which, paradoxically, is more effective at producing behavior change than any amount of confrontation.
Who This Is For
- Family members supporting a loved one with alcohol, drug, or behavioral addiction
- Friends who want to help without enabling or alienating
- Spouses/Partners who are exhausted from the cycle and ready for a strategic approach
How It Works
This is a 12-week program designed for you — the supporter. Unlike traditional approaches that focus on the person using substances, CRAFT focuses on changing the environment around them. You will learn to reinforce sober behavior, allow natural consequences, communicate effectively, and take care of yourself — all while creating conditions that make treatment more likely.
What This Is NOT
This is not an intervention. This is not tough love. This is not enabling. This is a strategic, evidence-based approach that treats you as a powerful agent of change in your loved one's environment. It does not replace professional treatment — it makes professional treatment more likely.
The Core Principle
You cannot control another person's behavior. But you can change how you respond to it. And when you change your responses, the environment changes. When the environment changes, the calculus of using vs. not using shifts.
What to Expect — and What Not To
This program will help you:
- Build a working understanding of Substance Use Disorder — what it is, how it behaves, and what drives it
- Develop specific communication skills that reduce conflict and increase connection
- Recognize early warning signs and respond with a plan rather than panic
- Set boundaries that protect your own well-being without abandoning your loved one
- Understand the treatment landscape well enough to be a genuine ally — not a bystander
This program will not:
- Replace professional mental health treatment for your loved one
- Guarantee that your loved one will engage, improve, or accept your support
- Eliminate the hard moments — crises, relapses, and setbacks are part of the territory
- Make you responsible for their recovery. That is their work. This is yours.
Your role as a supporter
You are not a therapist, a case manager, or a crisis line. You are a person who cares about someone with Substance Use Disorder, and you are willing to learn how to do that more effectively. That is the whole job description. The skills in this program will make you better at it — but they will not make you responsible for outcomes you cannot control.
When to refer to a clinician
This program is designed for stable, non-crisis situations. If any of the following are present, contact a licensed mental health professional or emergency services immediately:
- Any expression of suicidal ideation or self-harm
- Psychosis, severe dissociation, or inability to distinguish reality
- Active substance use that is escalating or out of control
- Physical safety concerns — for your loved one or for you
- A mood episode that is worsening despite current treatment
In the United States: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988) · Crisis Text Line (text HOME to 741741)
Your Digital Toolkit
This manual is more than a book ~ it is a complete coaching platform. Below is every tool available to you, what it does, and how to use it. Take a few minutes to read through this section before you begin Week 1. You do not need to master everything at once ~ the session scripts will tell you when to reach for each tool.
12-Week Session Scripts
Each week has a complete script. Read it out loud ~ it is designed to sound like a real conversation, not a textbook. Check-in prompts, psychoeducation, worksheet introductions, Compassionate Inquiry exercises: it is all there. You do not need to memorize anything. Just sit down together and read.
⚠️ Important: Open this tool, try it yourself, and get comfortable before using it with your loved one.
Interactive Worksheets
Every week has a worksheet your loved one fills out between sessions. They are fillable right here in the app ~ no printer required, though you can print them if that works better. Completed worksheets save automatically, so you can pull them up in future sessions and track patterns over time.
⚠️ Important: Open this tool, try it yourself, and get comfortable before using it with your loved one.
Regulation Toolkit (21 Exercises)
Twenty-one exercises organized by what your loved one is experiencing right now. Activated and anxious? There is a category for that. Shut down and unreachable? There is one for that too. Grounding, self-soothing, emergency tools ~ each with step-by-step instructions. The "Match State to Practice" guide tells you exactly which exercise to reach for. Grounded in polyvagal theory (Porges) and Somatic Experiencing (Levine).
⚠️ Important: Open this tool, try it yourself, and get comfortable before using it with your loved one.
Binaural Beats Audio Environment
An optional audio layer that plays bilateral stimulation tones through stereo headphones ~ during regulation exercises, quiet moments, or whenever it helps. Four presets (calming, deep relaxation, sleep, gentle focus), adjustable volume, and ambient background sounds (rain, ocean, forest). Requires stereo headphones. This is NOT therapy. It is a relaxation aid.
Default preset: Deep Relaxation (theta, 6 Hz) ~ supports distress tolerance during craving episodes.
⚠️ Important: Open this tool, try it yourself, and get comfortable before using it with your loved one.
Guided Imagery Studio
You record guided imagery scripts in your own voice while BLS tones play underneath. A teleprompter walks you through each section ~ what to say, when to pause, when to breathe ~ so you never lose your place. When you are done, export it as an MP3 your loved one can listen to between sessions. Scripts included: The Container, Comfortable Place, Care and Nurture, and Repairenting. All from *101 Trauma-Informed Interventions* by Linda Curran.
This manual also includes the Addiction: Longings/Cravings script ~ designed specifically for substance use distress tolerance and graduated exposure to cravings.
⚠️ Important: Open this tool, try it yourself, and get comfortable before using it with your loved one.
Compassionate Inquiry Framework
Based on Gabor Maté's Compassionate Inquiry model. Every weekly session includes a CI exercise ~ a reflective question or prompt that helps both of you look underneath the symptoms at the stories, beliefs, and adaptations driving them. The dedicated CI page collects all exercises in one place for review and deeper practice.
⚠️ Important: Open this tool, try it yourself, and get comfortable before using it with your loved one.
Progress Tracking
Visual indicators showing where you are in the 12-week program. Module completion, worksheet status, checklist items ~ tracked automatically. You can export a progress summary to share with your loved one's treatment team, which is useful for keeping everyone on the same page.
Crisis Safety Plan
A structured crisis plan you fill out together during your first session. Emergency contacts, warning signs, coping strategies, a step-by-step action plan. This is the single most important tool in the manual. Fill it out before you start Week 1. Print two copies ~ one for each of you.
⚠️ Important: Open this tool, try it yourself, and get comfortable before using it with your loved one.
Self-Care Assessment
Supporting someone with a mental health condition is hard, sustained work. This tool helps you honestly assess your own well-being ~ physical, emotional, social, spiritual ~ and identify where you are running on fumes. If you burn out, the whole program stalls. Take this seriously.
⚠️ Important: Open this tool, try it yourself, and get comfortable before using it with your loved one.
Coach's Toolkit
Your field manual. Quick-reference tools, communication scripts, de-escalation strategies ~ the things you reach for in the moment when you need a specific phrase, a grounding technique, or a reminder of what to do and what not to do.
⚠️ Important: Open this tool, try it yourself, and get comfortable before using it with your loved one.
Frequently Asked Questions
The questions supporters actually ask: What if they refuse to participate? What if I say the wrong thing? When do I call 911? Organized by topic so you can find what you need without scrolling through everything else.
⚠️ Important: Open this tool, try it yourself, and get comfortable before using it with your loved one.
Downloadable PDF Manual
The entire 12-week program ~ scripts, worksheets, appendices, regulation exercises ~ as a downloadable PDF. Print the whole thing or just the pages you need for a given session. Formatted for standard letter paper with generous margins for notes.
Linda Curran, BCPC, LPC, CAADC, CCDPD
Developed by Linda Curran, BCPC, LPC, CAADC, CCDPD — an internationally recognized trauma specialist with over 25 years of clinical experience, an approved consultant in EMDR and complex trauma, an advisor to Evergreen Certifications, and the author of 101 Trauma-Informed Interventions, Trauma Competency, and EMDR Deconstructed.
Two Steps to Start
Before you begin the 12-week program, complete your Crisis Safety Plan. Then start Week 1.
Download & Print the Complete Manual
This entire 12-week coaching program is available as a downloadable PDF. You can print the full manual or individual worksheets for offline use, note-taking, and easy reference during coaching sessions.
Download PDF Manual