Interventions

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When we do a good, structured family intervention for addiction, we use the power of love and concern in a specific and organized way to break through our loved one’s defenses and denial and bring them to a moment of clarity. The goal is to get them appropriate addiction treatment, and further, to create a family in recovery — to make a home for recovery in our home.

Whether you are working with a professional interventionist or not, developing a comprehensive plan of action is vitally important. One-to-one sessions, bargaining and threats don’t work when we’re trying to reach an addicted loved one. We need the power of a group.

One of the greatest blocks to taking action is the false belief that we have to feel readyto take action. We don’t need to feel ready. We need to get ready, get new information and take action. If everyone waited until they felt ready, very little would get done in the world.

The disease may be our adversary, but the addicted person is not. We can imagine the alcoholic or addict as a hostage who has been brainwashed by his captors. He no longer knows the good guys from the bad guys, and he’s confused when the rescue party arrives. We are calling out to him, but he doesn’t know he needs saving.

Intervention is a plan to subdue the addiction long enough to allow us to convince our addict that we are the good guys. Then we can move him or her into treatment.