Any review of the development and applications of the family treatment model for addictions over the last half-century reveals a rapid progression in the acceptance of family-involved therapy as an important component of treatment for alcoholism and drug abuse. For example, the treatment literature from the 1950s and early 1960s primarily conceptualized substance abuse as an individual problem that was best treated on an individual basis (e.g., Jellinek 1960). However, throughout the 1960s, this view was gradually supplanted by what would now be the prevailing clinical wisdom that family members can play a central role in the treatment for alcoholism and drug abuse (Stanton and Heath 1997). In the early 1970s, couples and family therapies were described by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism as "one of the most outstanding current advances in the area of psychotherapy of alcoholism" (Keller 1974, p. 161). By the late 1970s, family therapy for substance abuse was embraced by the majority of substance abuse treatment programs and community mental health settings (e.g., Coleman and Davis 1978; Kaufman and Kaufman 1992), and since the late 1980s, family-based assessment and intervention have become widely viewed as part of standard care for alcoholism and drug abuse. In fact, many have argued that the only reason not to include family members in the treatment of a substance-abusing patient is refusal by the patient or members of the family to be involved (e.g., O'Farrell 1993b).