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.