Interventions and Drug Rehab
August 8th, 2008 by Terry Keith
Most of us know at least a few people who are having difficulties with drug and alcohol. You see there behavior deteriorate. You see the light gradually go out in their eyes. You see them start to look more and more unhealthy. They break boundries. They break promises. They need to ask for help and money. Rent becomes a problem every month. Often their phone is disconnected or "broken" for periods of time.
So when do you step up? When do you ask questions? Where do you draw the line? How much poor behavior or destruction does it take before you feel compelled to do something? Obviously there is no cut and dried answer to this question. I think the sooner the better. Simple but powerful questions such as "What do you ultimately want in your life?", can often deflect focus to behavior withour judgement and justification. If you could change some things about your life what would they be? If you could start over again, what would you do differently?
These are all questions to show your concern without immediately jumping on the "your addicted and have a problem bandwagon". Why not try many early and "mini" interventions, instead of one big emotional and expensive one. At least it is worth thinking about.
This entry was posted on Friday, August 8th, 2008 at 8:11 am and is filed under Drug Addiction, Drug Rehab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 11th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
[…] Originally Syndicated via RSS from US Drug Rehab Centers […]
September 25th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I think that for many people, the signs that a loved one has a problem with substance abuse become clear fairly quickly. Deciding when to take action is probably one of the most difficult decisions there is when there is so much at stake. You risk driving the person away, making them feel cornered, betrayed, and persecuted. I agree wholeheartedly that immediately jumping all over somone with the “you have a problem” conversation can be counterproductive. Anyone with a drug habit walking into a room full of family members likely knows what is coming, and if they aren’t ready, you risk driving them away for good. Small conversations are a good place to start. Don’t wait until their behavior has destroyed most of their life or until you feel their life is truly at risk. Start early, ask questions about what they what their goals are, what the want from their time on this earth and all the things that substance has taken from them. A full blown intervention is what you do when all else has failed and the person has to choose between their life and their drug. Don’t let it get to that point before you speak up. Getting a loved one to acknowledge that they do have a problem is the first step towards getting them help.
January 20th, 2009 at 3:01 am
Intervention can be a difficult thing if you are a family member or are close to the person who needs help. Many times it can blow up in your face and you end up distancing yourself from the person. When a professional guides you through the process, you are more likely to make the situation better than worse. Wonderland Center has helped me, and many people like me, set up interventions for loved ones that need help. You should check out their website at http://www.wonderlandcenter.com
March 8th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Well, I started blogging because my web guy told me to, but I’m rather enjoying being a part of these web based dialogues and I may be able to help on this particular subject since I’ve done hundreds of interventions and so far this year - and for most of the latter part of ‘08 I have maintained a 100% success rate. It’s not because of any particular magic, it’s just that I know the neighborhood of an addict, having been once since I was about eight or nine (yes, literally).
A couple of assumptions in this thread seem to include the idea that if an addict accuses you of betraying him when you try to help, that that’s a reaction on his part based in logic when it’s really an attempt at control. The other thing I’m hearing is the assumption that an intervention has to involve, “jumping all over” someone, or telling them that they have a problem, neither of which I have ever done, and I get people into treatment all the time. But these are understandable positions considering the data that’s available on the subject.
First of all, I always make sure that the family is clear on what their goal is in doing the intervention. Is it to make the person wrong and feel bad and to show that the family knows about their addiction? Is it to get some sort of confession from the addict? If so, then you’re way over complicating an already difficult, albeit simpler task. The task of getting an addict to agree to go to treatment.
Getting an addict to admit to his problem is an absolutely unnecessary hangup for a lot of families. They base this logic on the idea that, “if they don’t admit to having a problem that they’re not ready to seek help.” In fact, I woud open my heart to my dealer before I’d go to my own mother with the truth abut what was going on with me. It’s called denial and it amounts to little more than the covering up of the truth. But any addict who is very stuck is probably also very smart and knows full well that he has a problem. The crux is that his pride will not allow him to reveal the nasty details of his habit. And, they are really irrelevant to the intervention process. You know he has a problem, he knows it, so move on and get to deal making. This saves him face, and makes the process much simpler.
Second, the whole ambush by the family thing is a tired, over used, only occasionally effective tactic. If it is going to be employed then you’d better be ready, and not go into it thinking you’re going to unload on the addict. This is because you’re right, the addict will not respond well and you’ll probably end up with a big fight on your hands. Two hour bitch sessions accomplish very little.
Real tactics come from a couple of things. First, keep it extremely simple. Know your goal and don’t make the intervention into group therapy. It isn’t. The sole purpose of an intervention is to get the person to agree to go to treatment, without force, humiliation or intimidation. So I’ll end here since this isn’t a book, but I wanted to shamelessly plug my site if I may, which is dedicated to my work helping families find intervention strategies, http://www.intervention.pro/interventionstrategies. Call anytime.