SMART Recovery Family & Friends Handbook explained

SMART Recovery Family & Friends Handbook

“Why do WE need a handbook? Why do WE need to do work? It’s our Loved Ones that have the addictions.”

Said every person who walked into a Family & Friends meeting, NarAnon, or Alanon, EVER. And they might be right. Maybe we don’t “need” to get sober or do work to save our lives. BUT… we might WANT to. You see a bunch of people finding sanity and comfort and that group connection that makes the chaos we deal with, manageable. We might not be able to MAKE our loved ones sober or clean or better but we can give them their best chance to get there. And we are able to bring our out of the “abject misery” we live in sometimes.

We do that by learning some of the same tools that are taught in SMART for recovery. None of us are given the right coping skills growing up so ALL of us can benefit from learning better ways to tolerate what life throws at us. Or what our loved one throws at us. This handbook also gives us the best methods to communicate with our loved ones, or anyone at all really. PIUS communications and planning and strategies. Also, when to let go of the relationship, if that’s what needs to happen.

When I got sober I was the only one. All of the people closest to me, who I loved about still drank or used or whatever. Some of them to the extremes that I did. It was extraordinarily difficult to be surrounded by people who I loved and watch them continue to destroy themselves. It was heartbreaking. Especially while I was just learning how to be sober myself and I didn’t have the coping mechanisms I learned with the things in this book. The information in this handbook made me a better and more importantly, happier person.

It’s based on Community Reinforcement and Family Training laid out in Bob Myers’ book: Get Your Loved One Sober GLYOS

We are leaving two links here. SMART is a Platinum GuideStar non-profit. The money goes to actually helping people. PLEASE buy this book directly from SMART Recovery or your local SMART Recovery meeting. If you must… we are providing an affiliate link to Amazon. Amazon always takes a huge cut from all products. If you use our affiliate link then Amazon gives a small amount back to Recovery RAWKstars, but we always prefer that the entire retail cut go directly to SMART by buying it from them directly.

(Side note: Amazon only has the Kindle version in stock at the writing of this post. Let us know if that changes and we will change the link here.)