An intervention is one way that you can help your loved one make a decision to resolve their ambivalence and access treatment. Often families are like a solo musician playing acoustically – it’s not too loud, not too far-reaching. An Intervention is getting all the band members playing together in sync and wired into amplifiers and speakers – the effect is so much greater.
Running a successful intervention is about turning the volume up sufficiently for someone who’s become somewhat deaf over the years. No, it’s not about screaming and shouting, it’s about playing the right tune with the right level of intensity, at the right time and in unison.
Interventions are particularly popular in America and are not yet formally practised much in South Africa or in the UK. Please ensure that you seek a professional, trained and experienced addictions counsellor to assist the family with the intervention.
We often hear stories of recovering addicts or alcoholics that have no formal skills or training taking families through pseudo-interventions with very little success. Aside from this being an expense the family could do without, more importantly, it’s a wasted opportunity and may make the addicted or alcoholic person less susceptible to a successful intervention the nest time.
If they feel they’ve managed to get through one before without any changes to their addiction or in the family, then why’s this ‘second’ intervention any different?
An addiction intervention is a meeting of a group of people (usually family but can sometimes include other appropriate stake holders, perhaps good friends or even employers) who are concerned about somebody’s drinking or drugging. The aim is to persuade the addict or alcoholic that the problem has reached such proportions that the only way out for them, the only appropriate level of attention, is an immediate admission to an alcohol treatment centre or a drug rehab clinic.
The difficulty in an intervention is to focus all the family and friends’ energy and attention in the right place and the same time.
It’s almost like a solo musician playing alone and acoustically – it’s not too loud, not too far-reaching. But if we can get all the band members playing together in sync and wired into amplifiers and speakers – the effect can be so much greater.
Running a successful intervention is about turning the volume up sufficiently for someone who’s become somewhat deaf over the years. No, it’s not about screaming and shouting, it’s about playing the right tune with the right level of intensity, at the right time and in unison.
An intervention is not:
- An opportunity for family and friends to voice their anger and frustration with the alcoholic’s or addicted person’s behaviour.
There will be time during the alcoholics rehab for the family to present collateral to this effect. Bringing to bear the substantial and useful family experiences and presenting it in the most useful way for the alcoholic or addicted patient to benefit, is an important part of any quality addiction treatment process.
During the addiction treatment process, the clinic will also arrange for your loved one’s focal addictions counsellor to mediate a family conference to further explore the past, the present and the future.
This family therapy is a very important aspect of addiction rehab and effective treatment.
An intervention is no place for family and friends of an addicted person voicing their hurt, anger and frustration and shelving their emotions to best deal with the task at hand, which is getting the patient admitted to a suitable rehab. The most important task is to get the addicted loved one into an appropriate addiction treatment centre and not to raise old hurts.
There will be further opportunity to explore the family’s hurt and anger during the addiction treatment process. By allowing the family to focus their attention on the immediate crisis and get their loved into a clinic, they buy themselves some much needed time to recoup and get on with their lives.
An addicted or alcoholic person has the ability to suck up huge resources both financial and emotional and the family needs this time with the patient in rehab to reconsolidate and determine the best way forwards.
If you use a professional addictions counsellor to run the intervention it’s likely to have a successful outcome and the immediate admission to rehab which will be therapeutic to everybody involved.
An intervention is:
- Making the family’s needs clearly known to the addicted or alcoholic person.
- Clearly stating what’s going to happen (immediate admission to a pre-determined addiction treatment centre) if the addicted person wants to continue to have the support of the family.
Interventions are widely regarded as being an effective means of persuading somebody to enter into a drug rehabilitation (rehab) clinic. Even if the addict decides to go out on their own and not enter rehab, they generally capitulate within a matter of days and come back into the family fold and enter a rehab programme.
Professionally run interventions are generally successful in arranging and immediate admission to a suitable addiction treatment centre.
When should you stage an intervention?
Successful interventions are about orchestrating different sources of pressure and bringing them to bear in one movement upon the addicted person with the intended objective being entering an addiction treatment centre. This may involve family, work or legal pressure, perhaps all three.
If you have spoken to the alcoholic and she has failed to enter an alcohol rehabilitation center then you could consider an intervention. Make sure that you have gathered up enough evidence to be able to confront your loved one’s denial of their addiction. Remember that the addict is often the last to admit that there is a problem and you will need plenty collateral information to confront his or her denial.
Probably the greatest misconception about addiction treatment is that the patient has to enter rehab entirely willingly and of their own accord for treatment to be successful.
This is entirely untrue.
Most patients come into rehab under some form of external pressure form family friends and loved ones. Even employers of court orders are brought to bear to squeeze the addicted person into effective addiction treatment.
The interesting thing is that whilst many addicted people are forced into rehab that has nothing to do with whether they’ll have a successful treatment outcome. A good long term prognosis and recovery from addiction or alcoholism has nothing to do with pre-admission levels of motivation. Interesting hey?
So the key is just to contact us and we’ll help you to stage and run a successful intervention and get your addicted or alcoholic loved one into rehab today!
Don’t waste time waiting for willingness
Waiting until you are “ready” could be wasting valuable time.
It is quite often believed that an alcoholic must be entirely willing and self-motivated for treatment to work. This is untrue.
The reality is that most people enter alcohol rehab under some form of external pressure. Often patients in alcohol rehab have been pushed by family members or forced via intervention or court order.
This type of pressure can actually help ensure a positive treatment outcome. So the old myth that they have to ‘want it for themselves’ is entirely untrue.
How long is long enough?
Most alcohol rehab programs will begin with an intensive primary care period, including the all important detoxification – as detoxing alone, without medical supervision can be dangerous – thereafter this can be followed up by a secondary care and aftercare or tertiary care program.
The length of treatment, for severe dependencies, should ideally be around 90 days. This is not to say that patients who suffer from less severe dependencies or who cannot afford this length of treatment would not benefit from a shorter treatment program.
There is a direct link between the length of alcohol rehab and better outcomes for those with severe addictions.
Relapse is not failure
Overcoming alcoholism is more often that not achieved after repeated attempts, it should not be assumed that if a person suffers a relapse after treatment that the treatment was unsuccessful or somehow ineffective.
Addiction is an illness and like any other illness relapse is a possibility, this, however, does not mean that time spent in alcohol rehab was wasted as any time spent in treatment will contribute towards achieving long term recovery from alcoholism.
In fact, addiction treatment is about as effective as treatment of other disorders like diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma and is absolutley cost effective!