Interventions

The Goal: To have the person begin treatment immediately- this means right after the intervention is completed, (Transportation should already be set up and the treatment center needs to be alerted to a new patient coming in, as well as pre-arrangement for insurance or other payment schedule).

2. Bring together the people most significant/emotionally bonded to the user, (4 to 6 is best, and absolutely no children), - the people who are concerned and who have an emotional connection/power base to draw upon with him or her. Include only the people who are comfortable with the process, and will not cause a disturbance to the formal process.

4. Make all arrangements for the person to start treatment immediately following the intervention- not tomorrow, as this is an unacceptable intervention outcome, and should be addressed by the professional to re-engage the user into treatment compliant behavior- which means going from point A to B without interruption, and to occur immediately. (Have all of the insurance details and which hospital or treatment facility, clothes packed, other personal needs arranged for, and the plan is ready to go at a moments notice).

5. Identify the objections, rationalizing, minimizing behavior you might hear from the substance user and be prepared to answer each one- these should be presented like a scripted rebuttal, and each member of the intervention should know exactly how to respond.

6. Decide what consequences you are comfortable following through with if the person is treatment non-compliant. For a teen, it could be: "Your father and I will file a petition for court ordered treatment." For a wife/husband: " "I won't remain in this relationship with you, as long as you are drinking and/or using drugs."

7. Be completely dedicated and comfortable following through with each individual consequence as it applies to each intervention member and the user. Consequences should have value for the user, and for the consequence to work; it must have an impact on the user.

8. Let the user know that you care about them; however, that you will not continue to accept the behaviors you are seeing- and these behaviors should be discussed with a professional guiding the process. Bring a list of behaviors as true to life examples. Be honest and caring.

9. The intervention should be rehearsed as many times as needed to get it right- Remember you may only get one attempt at getting the user into treatment. The professional should assign each member with a role to play, and each member needs to know his or her role.

10. Get a firm decision from the person that they will go into treatment immediately.

Learn more about Treatment- Check out our Treatment and Treatment Locator Pages at:

A         Intervention is the coming together of important relationships to a
            substance abuser in a well prepared, heart-felt, respectful
            interaction.

A I see every intervention as different. No group of participants is the same; therefore, no intervention is the same. I individualize each intervention to the participants and the substance abuser.

I prepare participants on one day and intervene the next. Once a decision has been made to go ahead the intervention can happen quickly. Also, it is important to know what it is we are asking the chemical abuser to do and having that all set up so that all he/she has to do is say “Yes.”

A The importance of the relationships is much more important than the number of individuals participating in an intervention. I have done many successful interventions with 3 individuals and others with as many as 20. I generally request at least 3 participants.

Q Does the spouse need to leave if the substance abuser won’t enter treatment?

A Making threats, in my opinion, is counterproductive to the intervention. We want to bring down defenses not back the substance abuser into a corner so he/she becomes more resistant.

Q What if the spouse has seen an attorney for divorce or the employer is ready to terminate the abuser?

A If the job is on the line or divorce is eminent if the person doesn’t enter treatment, that can be mentioned without saying “If you don’t …”

Q How successful is an intervention that does not state “If you don’t …”?

A I have found if a family is prepared properly the chemical abuser enters treatment 95% of the time.

A Preparation makes or breaks the intervention. At the end of the preparation, I want to know that we have the best chance for success that we can have.

A I meet with the participants after the intervention to discuss the best course of action.

First off, let me say one thing to you. Forget everything you know about alcoholism and drug addiction. What is going to work, what you need to know, is not what you read about in a book. What you need to know is how to talk the language of an alcoholic/addict. If you don’t learn this, they will twist, manipulate, drive you crazy, make you feel you are the problem, make you think something else is the problem, make you end the intervention without accomplishing anything. In other words, you will come out of the intervention more confused and neurotic than when you went in. Alcoholics/addicts are masters at selling family members on pure, excuse the French, BS. If you are going to have an effective intervention you are going to have to learn the language of the broken record. You are going to have to learn the language of manipulation and how it works, and how to combat it. You are going to have to stick to a script and know what rebuttals to stick in and when and where to stick in the right ones. Interventions are attempts, and I recommend they be performed with the guidance of a skilled professional counselor, by a group of friends, family or co-workers to try and get an alcoholic/drug addict into treatment. Interventions, are typically painfully emotional, and are critical for those alcoholics and/or addicts who are in denial that they have a problem.

Some of the methods that do not work should be addressed here first. Trying to help the alcoholic/addict by not allowing them to meet with the natural consequences of their lifestyle can be deadly. If there are no consequences, there is no motivation for change. Also, while thinking you are saving their life by not allowing them to have consequences you delay their hitting bottom, which allows them to continue doing their drinking and drug use, and the next time they drink or drug may be the time they overdose, or they get into an automobile accident killing themselves, and worse someone else- and you play a part in that by allowing them to not hit their bottom. So, the rule here is, STOP!!!

Family should not bail out, pay bills, or let them stay for free. This is enabling behavior. STOP!!!

Avoid preaching, especially when the person is drunk. STOP!!! The best time to talk is when they are filled with remorse-The next morning for the alcoholic, and probably 2-3 days for the addict.

And finally, it's alright to argue as long as you keep one rule in mind. If two people get into a discussion and they do not agree with each other, as long as each person can walk away from the argument with their ego intact it was a good argument.

Now let’s talk about the intervention and some tips for setting it up. There is much work to be done ahead of time if it is to be a successful one.

Find those family members, friends, co-workers, and employers who would be supportive of being involved in an intervention. It is important that you hand select those who you want to be there, and that they will be calm and supportive to the individual without being assaultive. Each situation is going to be different so each approach needs to be different. Some pre-intervention set ups may take weeks, while others may need to happen in days, depending upon the consequences and dangers involved. A person may be at the point where they are going to lose their job. While one person may work at a fast food place, and another at a Wall Street firm it is easy to assess which would need an intervention sooner than the other. One person may be single, while another may be at risk of having their children taken away. One person may be smoking marijuana once a week while another is smoking meth. amphetamine 24/7. These factors must be taken into consideration as well as others.

The pre-intervention work is probably the most important part of the intervention strategy that you will do. This is the work you put into the intervention that will decide if you have a success or a failure. You must decide who will be in attendance. Who will be supportive. I like to think along the lines of, I oppose catch and punish, I advocate identify and help. Who then would follow along those same lines of thinking. It would be those same people who you would want to invite to the intervention. You will want to talk with these people before hand about what your goal is, what you want said, what you don’t want said. You will want to write out all the possible things that your loved one will possibly say when they are confronted by the group. Then you will want to write out what you will say in response to each of them. You will want to write out, generally, what you would like each of the people who will be there to say. They can put in their own words how they want to say it, but just have them convey what you want said. It is important that the alcoholic/addict understand that all bets are off. In other words, no more enabling, no more safety nets, no more money, no more anything until he accepts that he has a problem and he gets help. Is this controlling? You bet it is. But if you don’t have control of this environment guess who will. You will then need to decide on the next important element.

During the intervention, you will want to have a leader. This person will be the one who steers the group towards its desired outcome. The goal is to get the person to admit that they have a problem and to get help for that problem. I like to look at the leader as like a plane on a trip from New York to Los Angeles. You know the destination and the planned route. If a plane gets a little off route, let’s say it veers off the radar beacon to the left, a bell goes off, if it gets off a little to the right a buzzer goes off. The leader of the intervention therefore is the bells and buzzers of the group. The leader needs to sound off if someone gets into shaming the person. Let’s face it we need to focus a little bit on the problem- just enough to get the person to acknowledge there is a problem, and then focus the rest of the discussion on the solution. There are some interventions where the problem part of the intervention may take some bit of time and convincing, but if the pre-intervention work was done it should come off without a hitch. We have included some more helpful tips from one of our Coalition Links in Section "F" below.

I mentioned the language of the broken record. This is one of the most important tools you can learn. Let's role play something that will more than likely happen during an intervention. For added flavoring I'm going to color the alcoholics/addicts words green and the intervention persons words bright blue. We will begin with the intervention person confronting the addict on their isolative behavior. This is a mother/son situation, but it could be others. Every time I come home from work you are in your room drinking and doing your drugs. I am depressed. You would be depressed too if you couldn't find a job. I stay in my room because I don't want to bother you, as I know how hard you work to pay for this apartment, and I am just another reminder of that stress on you, and I don't want to do that to you. Oh is he good or what? It would be very easy to get off the topic here as the addict has thrown out many hooks and manipulations. These are manifested by playing the victim- I'm depressed, making mom out to be the persecutor, You'd be depressed too if, and setting mom up to play the rescuer by, the later part of his statements of not wanting to bother her, praising mom for being so strong, and not wanting to be the burden on her that he is. Did I mention how good he is- In three sentences he has accomplished what a therapist would need 3 to 6 months to undo. Spend any amount of time with an alcoholic/addict and you'll go neurotic. The key for mom here is to play the original sentence over and over, no mater what the son has to say. Let's continue. I am not going to discuss any of that right now, What I want to discuss is your alcohol and drug use. Mom, I told you, it's just the way I'm temporarily able to cope with my life right now. Without a little beer every now and then and a tiny tiny bit of pot I don't know if I would still be here. If you miss this opportunity you will never forgive yourself. That's it. Come out of that room right this very minute.

This kid just told mom he's been thinking about suicide. In psychology it's called suicidal ideation. Did I mention that going into an intervention without a trained counselor is important. They may not have to be there, but you should get some input from someone who has done their fair share of interventions. Did I mention that NICD has a trained and experienced interventionist on board. See her contact information below.

Back to the broken record approach. The key to this approach is, that no matter what the alcoholic/drug addict says, you go back to a statement like, I understand you are depressed, or yes, you must be hurting inside, or wanting to be alone right now seems like a good idea, and the list goes on as to the lead in to the following statement using whatever excuse they may give you as to why they are behaving they way they are behaving, and believe me they will come up with some real creative reasons for doing what they are doing, but you must stick to the script here at all costs, and this is the broken record part, "I am here to talk to you about your drinking and/or drug addiction problem today and right now."

If you plan on doing an intervention please follow these guidelines, and if you can, contact our intervention specialist Carol delaCruz, as she loves to help. Contact Carol at: caroldelacruz@comcast.net 925-458-1031 or visit her web site at: http://www.coadventure.com I have included some additional comments from Carol below, and don't forget to check out our resources below as well.

INTERVENTION by Carol delaCruz

My intervention service, CoAdventure, is a gathering of concerned individuals witnessing the misuse of alcohol or drugs interfering with someone's life. I offer a new understanding of the disease and a solution to the problem of addiction. Intervention is motivating an individual to enter treatment through a well-prepared, heartfelt interchange. The intervention is very respectful and the person is empowered to make choices during this time. I spend an entire day preparing individuals to intervene effectively with over 95% of individuals misusing chemicals accepting help. When concerned individuals are prepared properly and the intervention comes from the heart, the substance abuser is very responsive to the process and enters treatment that has been prearranged. After the abuser has agreed to treatment, I involve him or her by asking if I may call the treatment center and say he/she is coming. I ask how long the person needs to pack and get ready to leave. This involvement helps the person to accept the help and process the reality of going to treatment.

I do not have a set program that I do with all participants as all families and concerned individuals are different. After a thorough evaluation and history gathering session, I do what I believe is necessary for a successful outcome. I expect the chemical abuser to enter treatment the day of the intervention and he or she almost always does. I play a very active role during the intervention using whatever counseling skills necessary for a successful outcome. I do not find that threats work in this process. Threats seem to only back the individual into a corner and raise his or her defenses. I see intervention as bringing a person's bottom up to him or her and lowering defenses thereby empowering the individual to willingly accept appropriate help.

NICD has teamed up with AIR, (Addiction Intervention Resources), and Addiction Resource Guide to provide you with important information and resources.

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