How to Use This Script

This script is designed to be read aloud during your coaching session. "You" sometimes addresses you as the coach and sometimes your loved one — just as it would in a natural conversation. Speak it in your own voice; paraphrase where it feels right. Sections in blockquotes are exercises to do together.

You: "Last week we talked about what addiction does to the brain. This week, we're turning the lens on ourselves. Not to blame you — you've been doing the best you can with impossible circumstances. But to understand how your responses fit into the larger system."

You: "CRAFT research identifies several common supporter patterns. The first is enabling — doing things that remove the natural consequences of using. Paying bills, covering for them at work, cleaning up messes, making excuses. It comes from love and fear. It backfires because it removes the information the addicted person needs to see the cost of their use."

You: "The second pattern is reactivity — responding to using with anger, tears, threats, ultimatums. Again, completely understandable. And largely ineffective. Reactivity gives the addicted person something to push against, creates drama that can actually be reinforcing, and leaves you depleted. CRAFT teaches a different approach: strategic disengagement from the using behavior, strategic engagement with the sober behavior."

You: "The third pattern is hypervigilance — monitoring, checking, searching, interrogating. You're trying to stay one step ahead of the addiction. But hypervigilance is exhausting, it erodes trust, and it doesn't work. Addiction is more creative than surveillance."

You: "None of these patterns make you a bad person. They make you a person responding to an impossible situation with the tools you have. This week, we're going to add some new tools."

A Second Lens — Compassionate Inquiry:

You: "Here's the question for this week: What is the cost to you of living in this situation? Not to them — to you. Your sleep, your health, your relationships, your sense of self. Many supporters have been so focused on the other person that they've lost track of what this is doing to them."

CI Exercise: The Cost to Me Living in this situation has cost me ____________. The part of myself I've lost track of is ____________. One thing I used to do for myself that I've stopped doing is ____________.

Nervous System Regulation Technique — Diaphragmatic Breathing:

You: "This week's regulation technique is diaphragmatic breathing — breathing into the belly rather than the chest.

Place one hand on your chest and one on your belly. Take a breath. Which hand moves more? Most people under chronic stress breathe into the chest — shallow, rapid, activating. Diaphragmatic breathing activates the vagus nerve and shifts the nervous system toward calm.

Practice: breathe in slowly, letting your belly expand first, then your chest. Exhale slowly, letting your belly fall. Five breaths like this. Notice the difference.

Do this before difficult conversations. Do it when you notice yourself escalating. It's the simplest regulation tool available, and it works."

Go Deeper

Polyvagal Theory — The three-state model that explains why your nervous system mirrors the person you’re supporting

Attachment Theory — The developmental framework behind enabling patterns and anxious attachment in addicted families