4 Common Myths About Intervention

1.      Intervention is a dramatic, emotionally charged, and stressful event.

2.     The addicted person is given an ultimatum to “get help or else!”

3.     The addicted person is whisked off to an out of state treatment center by the interventionist, who has been flown in from out of state.

4.      You should only do an intervention when things get really bad.

The truth about how I do an intervention:

1.     The intervention isn’t an “event” at all; it is a loving, caring, respectful process.  The family gathers with the person they are concerned about to express their concern and fears and to make an offer to help.  The addicted person is sometimes invited to this meeting, but when the element of surprise is determined to be valuable it is treated the same as if you were to stop by to visit a sick friend in need.  The intervention is well planned and calm.  No one is ever forced to do anything and everyone is free to leave at any time.  Everyone is treated with dignity and respect at all times, I do not allow any yelling, name calling, or blaming to occur at any time during the process.

2.     The addicted person is offered the opportunity to take control of his/her life by taking the first two steps toward recovery which are (1) to admit the need for help and (2) to accept the help being offered.  What comes next is not an ultimatum, but rather a vow for health.  Whether the addicted person chooses to accept help or not, the family members will take control of their lives by vowing not to continue to enable addiction.  Everyone involved in the intervention is taught how to heal themselves and reclaim their personal freedom.

3.     There are many different treatment options.  Not everyone needs 30, 60, or 90 days of residential treatment.  Those who do are offered the treatment program most clinically and geographically appropriate for their recovery needs.  Each situation is treated individually.  Sometimes the best treatment option is outpatient counseling linked with 12 step support.  No matter what treatment is offered, a family member always accompanies the IP to the treatment facility; I usually don’t go at all.

I specialize in local intervention.  There are plenty of people who need my help right here.  The Association of Intervention Specialists provides a list by state of professional interventionists at www.associationofinterventionspecialists.org.  I recommend you consult this list to find an interventionist in your area.  There may be no reason to pay the additional travel costs to get an out of state interventionist to come to you when there may be a qualified interventionist close by. 

4.     How bad is “bad enough”?  Please don’t sit around and wait for your loved one to “hit bottom”.  That’s downright cruel.  You should never feel guilty about speaking your truth and making an offer to help; it’s what healthy people do.  An intervention is fail proof because at a minimum the family members heal.  They break their dysfunctional code of silence and enabling behaviors and this ALWAYS has a healing effect on the disease process.

Why Intervene Now?

The stress of the current economic situation has a direct effect on addictive behaviors.  In times of stress addiction prone people increase their consumption of alcohol, drugs (prescription and street drugs), food, or their gambling, sexual or work behaviors.  The addiction serves as an escape from stress and worry; it is a coping mechanism.

 The problem is that addiction does not help in the long run.  Addiction is a chronic, progressive, and potentially fatal illness that creates more problems for the one addicted and the people close to him or her.  It is usually a family member or close friend who first recognizes the need for help.  The addict often rationalizes and justifies his addiction, this is characteristic of the denial associated with addictive disease.

 Intervention is the act of breaking denial and shedding the light of reality and hope on the addictive situation.  Because of the denial process, an intervention from outside the addict is always needed to facilitate help.  I used to tell concerned family members and friends that there was nothing they could do; they would have to wait for the addictive disease to run it’s course and for the addict to “hit bottom” before he would be willing to get help.  “Hopefully he will not die first” I would think to myself.

 I don’t tell people that anymore.  I tell people that if you love someone who has an addiction problem you owe it to him and to yourself to intervene on the addiction and make an offer of help.  Waiting around for someone to lose a career, or a marriage, or a home, or get arrested, or die is inhumane when you have a solution.

 Intervention, when done right, is not an act of judgment and ultimatum.  Intervention is an act of love, dignity, and hope.  It provides a lifeline to a drowning person.  Quite simply, it saves lives.

 Addiction is a treatable disease.  There is plenty of local, high quality, affordable treatment available.  Treating the disease isn’t the biggest problem.  Getting people to accept treatment for addiction is the biggest challenge.  Interventionists are trained at just this process.  A professional intervention provides a high likelihood of someone agreeing to get help. 

 Further, an interventionist can provide support to the family members.  Family members need support with understanding what they can and can’t do to help.  Many times it is precisely the well intentioned acts of family members that are keeping the addict sick.  Once family members and friends understand the addictive disease and the role they are playing in it, they are highly motivated to make changes that promote addiction recovery.

 The danger of economic times like these is that while the need for addiction treatment is on the rise, the rate of people accessing addiction treatment is falling.  The reason for this seems to be two-fold. 

1)   Fee for service treatment (or treatment that is not being paid for by insurance but out of pocket by the consumer) has decreased because people are tightening their budgets, spending less, and cutting corners wherever they can.

2)    Insurance reimbursed addiction treatment is also affected because some have lost jobs and hence their insurance benefits and those who still have jobs are hesitant to access EAP or insurance paid treatment for fear of losing their jobs.  Addiction treatment is confidentially protected by AZ statute, however, time away from work to attend treatment could shed an unfavorable light on an employee and make them more susceptible to lay off.

 It is dangerous to put off addiction treatment because as the disease progresses, the consequences and despair increase.  The longer an addict stays in active addiction the worst off he becomes.  His physical and mental health plummet, and he loses more and more quality of life.  The addictive behavior itself becomes a slow form of suicide. 

 Without treatment addiction kills people.  It doesn’t say “Addiction” as the cause of death on the death certificate.  It says things like, “cirrhosis of the liver, heart failure, kidney failure, AIDS, motor vehicle accident, gun shot to the head, hanging”, but it is because of an untreated addiction that many of these people have died.

 67% to 97% of those people who attempt addiction recovery make it.  The 97% is from a study of Navy Pilots treated at early onset with primary residential treatment, 3-5 years of monitoring, and a return to flying within the first year.  This is evidence that addiction is a very treatable disease once treatment is accepted by the addict.

 I like to wrap up my conversations about Addiction Intervention with this message:

Intervention, if nothing else, is so addicts don’t have to die not knowing that there is a better way to live, and family members and friends don’t have to go to funerals not knowing that they did all that they could.

How Does An Addiction Interventionist Stay Sensitive to the Current Economic and Environmental Situation?

Since I began my practice, Scottsdale Intervention and Counseling LLC, my purpose has been to provide my local community with a comprehensive resource for addiction treatment.  When anyone in my “neighborhood” has a problem with addiction or knows someone with a problem with addiction I hope they will call me so I can help.

In the early stages of recovery from addiction and codependency people need a lot of support and an Intervention on the addicted system is usually the first order of business.  The addict and the family members need to learn about the addictive process and how to best treat it.  Once they are motivated to get treatment, they need help determining which treatment option is best suited to their unique needs.

Sometimes I provide the treatment myself, in my office.  And sometimes I refer them to another treatment provider.  There are instances when the best treatment approach is to send a person far away from home, hoping they will never return, and will build a new life for themselves far from negative local situations.  There are also instances when the best treatment provider for a unique situation is located in another state.  More often, however, it is most effective to utilize local treatment and recovery resources.

Using local resources is beneficial for the addict because she builds her early recovery foundation in the environment she will continue to work and live.  Staying close to primary family members makes it convenient for them participate in family programs at the treatment center. Local codependency treatment and recovery resources can also be utilized for family members and friends. 

When you use local resources you avoid travel.  Travel adds to the cost of treatment (these valuable dollars could be going to support additional treatment) and travel (especially airline travel) costs the environment by burning carbon based fuels.

It is also environmentally friendly and usually less expensive to use a local Interventionist.  A local Interventionist will be better acquainted with local treatment resources and will typically be less expensive because you do not have to pay for travel expenses. 

The AIS (Association of Intervention Specialists) provides a list, by state, of credentialed professional Interventionists on their website at www.associationofinterventionspecialists.org.  When choosing an Interventionist make sure they are BRI-I or BRI-II credentialed.  The BRI (Board Registered Interventionist) credential ensures that your Interventionist meets professional standards of training, education, and experience.  Only BRI credentialed Interventionists are listed on the AIS website.  AIS sets the standards for Addiction Interventionists world wide.

Addiction Intervention: How To Help Someone Who Doesn’t Want Help

Addiction is a brain disease.  Science has determined this by a variety of clinical studies, laboratory experiments, and brain scans.  The brain of an addicted person processes addictive chemicals and behaviors differently than a non-addicted brain.  Further, the addicted brain processes the chemical/s or behavior/s of choice at a survival level.  So, biologically an addict’s brain interprets using as surviving; not using as not surviving.

This explains a lot.  It explains why addicts continue to use despite a slew of negative consequences.  When they lose their jobs, marriages, dignity, respect; when they go to jails and hospitals they often still don’t stop using.

It also explains why an Intervention is necessary to help an addict accept treatment for addiction.  An addicted person is ill equipped to take rational action against addiction.  He is deluded by a malfunctioning brain.  Intervention gets his attention, it raises consequences.  Intervention can be a formal meeting of loved ones expressing their love and concern and offering a chance at a new way of life or it can be an intervention in the form of an arrest, a divorce, or getting fired from a job.  A formal Intervention meeting is the gentler way, it can occur prior to more serious consequences.

Intervention offers hope in an otherwise hopeless appearing situation.  Most of the time the addict goes to treatment following an Intervention.  And some of the time they stay in treatment, and some of the time they don’t.  Some of the time they go on to live clean & sober lives and some of the time they relapse back in to addiction after treatment.  Some of the time they eventually get clean and sober after a relapse and some of the time they die in active addiction.  Those are the facts of addiction.  Those are the facts of any chronic, progressive, fatal disease.

If the goal of Intervention is only to get an addict from point A (active addiction) to point B (the treatment center) then Intervention is successful most of the time.  I, however, do not believe that is enough.  I believe the goal of Intervention is healthy change for everyone involved.  It is an opportunity for all affected by addiction to recover; to recover their freedom, their dignity, and their lives.  Even if an addict does not recover from addiction, Intervention teaches family members how to recover.  Improved health for every member of an Intervention process is equally important.

When deciding to Intervene, an initial question to resolve is “to surprise or not to surprise”?  When I present both the surprise and invitational Intervention approaches, most families I work with tell me that if they were to invite their addicted love one to an Intervention “they would never show up”.  This is a logical response.  To be quite honest, when I was drinking and drugging I can’t imagine volunteering to attend a meeting to talk about “my problem”.  This is why most of the Interventions I facilitate are of the Johnson (Surprise) Model.  I believe in the Johnson Model, it works.  It allows family and friends to make an offer of life and this offer is most often accepted.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I must also say that sometimes when you surprise someone they are not grateful for it.  Sometimes the addict is quite angry at the Intervention team members, especially me.  Sometimes no matter how much Intervention team members try to express their love and concern, what the addict hears the loudest is that you “tricked me, lied to me”.   That can create a big barrier to the addict accepting the gift of recovery.

This raises a good argument for the invitational model of Intervention.  Believe it or not, most addicts do show up for a scheduled family meeting to talk about the problems facing all of its members.  The addict doesn’t usually want to come, and he will try to get out of it; convince the family it is not necessary.  But if everyone sticks to the plan, the meetings happen and eventually the addict shows up.  The invitational model works.

Again, in the spirit of full disclosure, I must also say that the invitational model of Intervention usually takes longer to complete than the Johnson Model.  It often requires a series of family meetings over the course of weeks to months.  It takes intense commitment from all the members of the Intervention team over a longer period of time.

In the end, the recovery success rate is the same.  Among all those people attempting recovery motivated by formal Intervention meetings (surprise or invitational), court order, homelessness, divorce, losing their children, hospital admissions, suicide attempts, etc. the rate of recovery is about 66%.  This is broken down in to the law of thirds.  One third of those attempting recovery get it the first time and go on to live free from active addiction for the rest of their lives.  The second third relapse for a period of time and then eventually get it.  The last third do not ever get it, they die in active addiction.

Recovery is possible.  The statistic I quote most is this:  The AMA (American Medical Association) says “Addiction is the most treatable of all diseases.  It has a 100% chance of 100% life long remission”.  Any addict can recover and go on to live a healthy, happy life free from active addiction.

Whether you choose to invite or not invite an addict to an Intervention is a personal choice.  Either method works, the best choice will depend on the circumstances of your unique situation.  We will make this decision together in our first meeting.  The most important thing is to take action, to learn how to step out of the problem and into the solution.

The last thought I will share is this; If nothing else, Intervention is so addicts don’t have to die not knowing that there is a better way to live and family members and friends don’t have to go to funerals not knowing that they did all that they could.

Treating Addiction: What works?

I have what some may think is a unique perspective when it comes to knowing what works when treating addiction. I’ve been an addict for at least 33 years. I figure my addiction started when I was 12 years old and I discovered that food comforted me emotionally. At 15 I found alcohol and that was the beginning of a 15 year run of alcohol and drug addiction for me. At age 30 I found recovery. I didn’t just happen upon it. My family organized it for me. My mother called an interventionist and got the ball rolling. This is how it happens for most addicts; someone who cares about him “gets the ball rolling”.

I know addiction from the inside out. I have been an addict in recovery for over 14 years now. I have been treating other addicts professionally for over 13 years. I have studied and acquired degrees, certifications, and credentials in counseling, gambling addiction, sex addition, intervention, and chemical dependency. I have worked in detox units, residential treatment programs, and outpatient treatment facilities. I have worked with indigent and homeless populations as well as wealthy and high profile clients.

Addiction runs a predictable course, no matter who or where you are. Addiction is chronic, progressive and fatal. I have kept a list over the years that I affectionately call “Dead Addicts”. That’s it, “Dead Addicts”. That is how we addicts end up if we don’t get in to recovery, it is that simple. On my Dead Addicts List I have 19 names of addicts I have known, many I have treated in some capacity over the years, who have died in their disease. This list motivates me. It motivates me to stay clean and sober personally; and it motivates me to never stop trying to help other addicts recover. Every time an addict dies I say the same thing, “That was not necessary”.
It is not necessary because I know how to treat addiction. I know what works.

And here it is:
90 in 90. Go to at least 90 AA or NA or CA meetings in 90 days. That means at least one meeting per day for at least 90 days. While you are there, buy an AA Big Book or NA Basic text and read it. Find a sponsor and start working the 12 Steps. This isn’t rocket science, you could almost teach a monkey to do it. So there are no excuses, just do it. I’ve never met anyone too stupid to recover, I have met a lot of people too smart to recover. These “smart” folks think they don’t really need to do “all that”. They can “get it” with less effort. Several of these “smart” people are on my Dead Addicts list.

Change your playmates, playgrounds, & playthings. This means don’t hang out with the people you used to drink or use with, don’t go to the places you used to drink or use, and get rid of the paraphernalia and other items that represent your alcohol or drug use. So, dispose of those Jagermeister T shirts, you don’t need that Budweiser neon sign anymore, Uncle Charlie gets the vintage wine collection, your shot glass collection goes too. No exceptions. That is the first half of it. Change means you let go of something old and replace it with something new. You have to find new playmates, playgrounds, and playthings. It is important to recognize that in between letting go of the old, which needs to happen immediately, and forming new relationships and habits there is a lag period. You will feel lonely and empty during this lag period. Expect it and prepare for it. If you are going to at least one 12 Step meeting per day that will help a lot with the lonliness. These changes can be accomplished outpatient, although that requires a high degree of internal motivation on the part of the addict. He must be willing to change everything he thinks and everything he does. Everything. Not some things, not most things, everything. Granted this may not occur overnight but it when it does, things tend to go well. When it takes time to occur, relapse is likely. Sometimes this relapse can be just what the addict needs to prove to him that “his way” will not work; it can be the catalyst to internal motivation. Other times this relapse can be the demise of the addict; he may die on this run or the next. He may never again summon the motivation to get clean – and ultimately he will die in his addiction.
A grim tale, yes. But the reality, nonetheless.

Detox the first 3 to 5 days. You have to detox in a safe manner. Alcohol and most narcotic drugs require a medically supervised detox. Acute withdrawal from these substances can be fatal if not treated professionally. Any hospital or treatment center detox unit will work.

Next, secure a safe & sober living environment. Your home or the home of a relative can work if it is truly a sober environment consisting of people who support you in doing everything you need to do to recover. If you do not have this type of built in support there are a lot of sober living environments available to you. These are available in every price range; from free to $100,000 for 30 days.

Find a sober support group you can spend at least 6 hours with daily, anything less will not suffice. If you are living in a sober living home or treatment center this is already taken care of. If you are living in your own home or the home of a relative it means you will need to spend at least 6 hours every day at 12 Step meetings and with other recovering addicts. This may sound like a lot to manage. But once you start going to meetings you will understand that the one hour meeting most often continues at a coffee shop. Or you spend an hour talking with your sponsor before or after the meeting. Or you hang around the Alano Club (Alano Clubs are dedicated 12 Step meeting places that are open all day and accessible between meetings) and meet with other recovering addicts who help you learn how to stay clean and sober today.

You must maintain your recovery for the rest of your life. Recovery will forever be priority number one. Anything that comes between you and your recovery has to go. This is not difficult once you have developed a clean and sober way of life. If you work a diligent and complete recovery program your first year, you will develop a strong foundation that will carry you the rest of your life. If during the first year you establish friendships and relationships with sober people, you secure a job that supports recovery, or you start school that will set you up in a career that promotes recovery, and you live in a safe and sober environment these things will lay a foundation upon which you can build a healthy, happy, clean & sober life. I was recently sitting around my dining room table with 10 other recovering addict friends enjoying a New Years Eve meal. We spontaneously polled this group of addicts who have been clean and sober for 4 to 20 years. Every one of us began our recovery by attending 90 meetings in 90 days. We all changed our playmates, playgrounds, and playthings. This is not a coincidence. It isn’t exactly a clinical study either. But it is certainly noteworthy!

Let me say a thing or two about 12 Step Programs. 12 Step Programs work. Anyone who tells you otherwise has not worked a program diligently and completely. AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) was the founding 12 step program. It began in the 1930’s and has been successfully helping alcoholics get sober and stay sober ever since. In the 1950’s NA (Narcotics Anonymous) began to help drug addicts get clean and stay clean. Then in the 70’s CA (Cocaine Anonymous) came along. Through the years all addiction has been treated with a variance of AA’s program. The 12 steps treat addiction of any kind. Gamblers, sex addicts, cigarette smokers, food addicts, and the list goes on – have all found freedom and recovery with the 12 steps. The 12 step program is the only method that has consistently over time achieved positive results with treating addiction. If something else worked better, the treatment industry would be pushing that. But nothing else has ever worked as well, consistently over time, as the 12 Steps. If you’ve tried AA before and “it didn’t work” – I suggest to you that it probably wasn’t AA that wasn’t working. It was you who wasn’t working the program diligently and completely. So give it another try. Approach it this time as if your life depends on it, because it does.

As I mentioned in the first paragraph, it is typically a family member who “gets the ball rolling”. Every recovering addict I have known got clean and sober because it was someone else’s idea. The nature of the brain disease of addiction precludes the addict from being able to help himself. An intervention from outside the addict must occur if an addict is ever going to recover. In my next BLOG I will talk about How to Help Someone Who Doesn’t Seem To Want Help: The Invitational and Surprise Models of Intervention.

You can be free from addiction, forever.

Addiction not only destroys the lives of addicts. Family members can be just as devastated by this family systemic disease. My focus is to help addicts and families find peace and dignity - to go on to live healthy, happy, and productive lives.

My message is HOPE! No matter what stage of recovery or pre-recovery you or your loved one is in - I want to help you move toward health and freedom.

Yes! There is hope. You can be free from addiction, forever.