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Intervention Process – What It’s Really Like and Making the Call

 The following is a list of questions that arise most frequently regarding the Intervention process. 

General Questions

Question: What is an Intervention?

Answer: An intervention is an orchestrated attempt by family, friends, and typically and professional Interventionist to get someone to seek professional help with an addiction. Typically they are used when loved ones are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol.

Question: Who typically calls for an intervention?

Answer: Typically, the person(s) who call for an intervention are family members and friends. Generally, it is somebody who cares about the addict, who has already confronted the addict about their usage, and tried to help.

Question: Who is an intervention appropriate for?

Answer: It’s appropriate for anyone with a serious drug or alcohol problem, or other type of compulsive behavior. When efforts short of an intervention have failed that may be the next step.

Question: Why should a loved one try confronting the addict first?

Answer: Because they may not need an intervention. It may not be appropriate. A wife says to her husband, “I need you to get help,” and her husband might say, “okay.” It’s important to have the conversation before calling an interventionist. It doesn’t hurt a future intervention to let somebody know you’re concerned.

Question: What’s the biggest concern loved ones have when they finally make the call for help?

Answer: Often times, and it depends on the addict of course, is that the biggest concern is that the addict might hurt him or herself, or someone else. There are alos a lot of questions about the rehabilitation process. If you would like to learn more about rehab, visit our questions and answer page about “what is rehab”

 

Making the Call

Question: When someone calls for the first time, typically what do they ask first?

Answer: People who call in for the first time have doubts about the Intervention process and want to know if it is like on television?

Question: Is it like on television?

Answer: NO, it is not like on television. A lot of is edited for the ‘entertainment purposes.” Rarely do they show coaching and education that comes along with the process, and focus a bit more on the dramatic points of an intervention, and rarely is the actually intervention a fifteen minutes long.

Question: What type of preparation is needed for an intervention?

Answer: It starts with an initial assessment of the family situation, safety concerns and who would be willing to participate? When the decision is made to do an intervention a more in-depth assessment of the situation of the addict, the family and the dynamic between them is done. In addition to this, it is important provide education about the disease of addiction, family dynamics, and family dysfunction. Often times the family sees addiction as ‘bad behavior’ and they don’t understand that the brain of an addict functions differently than the non-addicted. It is a mental condition of an addict and the family, and is not a character, moral or willpower issue. It is a brain disease.

Question: What is meant by ‘mental condition of an addict and the family?’

Answer: Addiction is a compulsive disorder that continues despite negative consequences. The addict has lost control over consumptions and behavior. Those closest to the addict are also affected by the resulting behavior and circumstances surrounding addiction. Overtime things get progressively worse. Everyone is affected mentally, emotionally and physically to some degree. The addict’s job is to sustain his addiction, with lying, cheating, stealing, and manipulation-whatever works. The family’s job can be to try to stop, or change the behavior, control the damage, hide the problem, or save themselves, but the problem is too big. Everybody is stuck doing things that are ineffective or even making things worse. Fear, anger, hopelessness, anxiety, grief, rage, isolation-the list goes on and on. Some families are healthier than others; some members within a family are healthier than others, but when something like addiction is going on in a family for a significant period of time it can be mentally and emotionally devastating. Oftentimes families have been suffering from addiction, codependency, and mental illness for generations. These families tend to be extremely dysfunctional.

If you have any questions about detox or treatment for yourself or a loved one, please call us 24-hours at (888) 426-6086 or contact us here.

 

Continue on with Educating the Family

If you have any questions about detox or treatment for yourself or a loved one, please call us 24-hours at (888) 426-6086 or contact us.