Families

EMPOWERING families through education, support and access to training and resources

REST for families

REST – Resources Education Support Together

Our program for families

The REST program empowers families through education, support and access to training and resources. The program is for adults 18 years and older. The only requirement for attendance is to have a loved one living with a substance use disorder.

REST is changing the narrative and redefining the role of families who struggle with a Loved One’s Substance Use Disorder. The challenge for the family is to learn to influence and direct a Loved One into treatment, recovery, or simply a better life.

 Families are:

  • Not powerless over themselves and their responses

  • Not powerless over influencing their Loved Ones to the path of recovery and/or treatment

Hitting “rock bottom” is:

  • Not one particular event in time but a learning process, a grouping of events that an individual has the potential to learn from

If families can:

  • Enable bad behavior then they can enable good behavior

“Tough love” is:

  • About setting healthy effective boundaries and following through

  • Tough on families and not easy to enforce

Laurie Macdougal

Meet our Facilitator

Laurie is a former math teacher and extremely active in the recovery community. She:
  • Is a Certified Family Peer Specialist in the state of Rhode Island
  • Is a Co-chair to the Family Task Force and also sits on the RI Governor’s Overdose Intervention and Prevention Task Force
  • Created REST, an educational group that offers video meetings, access to training in the Community Reinforcement And Family Training (CRAFT) an evidence-based approach for families with a Loved One (LO) with Substance Use Disorder (SUD)
  • Designed a crisis toolkit for families to create an individualized crisis plan
  • Has used her training and  education as a teacher and in the CRAFT protocols and Motivational Interviewing, combined with her  personal lived experience, to create a CRAFT based educational group for families and friends designed to learn and explore new skills and strategies to cope and interact with a Loved One living with SUD.
  • Has worked with hundreds of families nationally and internationally coaching and educating them in the CRAFT-based approach
  • Co-hosts a podcast, Coming up for Air, giving families and friends a voice in the recovery world.