For concerned family and friends, nothing devastates more than watching someone self destruct through the use and abuse of alcohol and or drugs, and we feel powerless to effect change for the better.
Common wisdom has that only the using addict can make the decision and commitment to get help and change their ways, and until the addict commits to treatment and a better life of sobriety, there is little that family can do.
Thankfully, this is one of the many times in which a popular conception is a falsehood, and research has shown that family can exert an enormous influence towards an addict acceding to a need for treatment, and once in treatment, the recovery odds are about equal for those that initiated help on their own, and for those who were otherwise compelled to accept this help.
If you can ever convince someone who needs help to get treatment, they should go, and even if they don’t admit to the need for it, they are more than likely going to change their tune through the process of therapy and sobriety, and have a great chance at ultimate sobriety with the culmination of treatment.
Families know all too well that pleading, nagging and scolding exert little power over the using addict, and these strategies can indeed backfire, with the addict or alcoholic using these familial pressures as self justification for ever further abuse; but families do have a powerful weapon towards treatment,
The family intervention
A well run, non confrontation and caring familial intervention works most of the time to convince a using addict to accept offered treatment. They may not yet admit to a need for it, but they will more often than not go. Conversely, a poorly planned and negative intervention experience is worse than doing nothing at all. If you’re gong to do it, it needs do be done well.
What is an intervention?
An intervention is a powerful tool of non confrontational confrontation, in which all people close to the using addict assemble together to show the addict the harms they have wrought.
A strategy of denial loses it’s effectiveness when confronted with this unified and compelling evidence, and when faced with a united, concerned and caring group of loved ones, it’s hard for an addict to deny the existence of a problem, at least on some level, and once they have publicly admitted to the problem, it’s hard for them to deny offered treatment.
The ultimate goal of a family intervention is to have the alcoholic or addict proceed immediately to a treatment facility, and to facilitate this transition, everything should be prearranged and ready. The addict needs only pack some clothes and get in the car…everything is already taken care of.
You may need outside help
The key to a successful intervention is planning and preparation and the family should ideally meet and rehearse at least once before the actual intervention, to ensure that things proceed smoothly when it really counts. Family often feel a jumble of conflicted emotions, and this rehearsal and preparation ensures that things will not disintegrate into recrimination and acrimony on the day of the event. The time for amends can come after; the day of the intervention has to be a time of concern, honesty and love.
Because family sometimes has difficulty both organizing such an emotionally conflicted event, lacks the experience to arrange for appropriate treatment, and lacks confidence in an inability to run the intervention effectively, the services of a professional interventionist may be considered. These professionals can help a lot with their experience and can ensure that things go as planned on the day of the event.
