How To Properly Conduct An Intervention

The first thing you have to know about an intervention is the reality of the situation, which varies depending on where you're located geographically, and/or your financial wherewithal. In 99.9% of the cases, it's not going to be like it's depicted in the A & E Series - "Intervention." That would be nice, but for most people in North America, that's not the reality. We'll explain more about that in a moment.

There's a bit of debate right now in the addiction and recovery industry concerning interventions and it has to do with the concept of whether an addict or alcoholic actually has to reach a personal "bottom" in their addicted life before an intervention will work. Some contend that no matter how well-planned the intervention is, and no matter how skilled your interventionist is, unless the addict has made a subconscious decision that "enough is enough," the intervention just won't work.

Others argue that the intervention actually "manufactures," or "raises" the addict's bottom, so what you're actually doing is intervening before they go any lower. For lack of a better expression, you're "bringing things to a head," so to speak.

Most people in the recovery community, particularly those that have actually been through it themselves, would agree that before you can help someone with their addiction long term, the individual must, to one degree or another, reach a certain level of awareness and acceptance that they do indeed have a problem that's out of control. This is in effect, a "bottom." And depending on the person in question, that "bottom" could be a variety of different things.

For some very fortunate people, "bottom" could simply be waking up in the morning with little recollection of the night before and just not liking that feeling of being out of control. Or their drinking, substance abuse, or compulsive activity has cost them something minor, but they still have the foresight to realize that if they continue on this path, ultimately they're going to lose something major.

But frankly, this type of person is rare and probably doesn't really fit the mold of the person with a strong predisposition to addiction. For most people who are actually in various stages of addiction, bottom is a lot lower because by this point, their brain has convinced them that the addiction is a dependable friend and is actually necessary in order to cope. As a result, they usually hit "bottom" much harder.

It might be losing their job, their marriage breaking up, a drunk driving conviction, or simply waking up in jail with no recollection of how they got there. The fact is, it's hard to describe to someone what "bottom" is because it's an intensely personal and subjective thing. But one of the cornerstones of the phenomenon of addiction is that despite negative outcomes and consequences, the individual continues to do it.

Here at All Positive Options, when we speak to "at risk" groups of kids or adolescents, we try to get them to understand what "bottom" is for an addicted person by using the simplest, most general terms possible. Here are the two descriptions we use the most:

In either case, no matter how you describe it, hitting bottom and being prepared to ask for help is a form of surrender. So we look at a well-conducted intervention as a way of possibly "raising" that bottom and inducing an early surrender before there are any more casualties. It might be just the little wake-up call the person in question needs to see what's so evident to everyone else. It might make them feel that the pain of staying in the addicted life is becoming too great, or that they just don't want to lose their friends and family. The truth is, we never know until the intervention is actually being conducted.

For those who don't personally suffer from addiction or work in the addictions field, the idea of having to hit "bottom" before you ask for help probably wouldn't make much sense. However, you have to understand two things. First, addiction is a gradual process that worms its way into your life while pushing other things out. But it is gradual, at least in the eyes of the addict, and normally the person in question hasn't really noticed how bad it's become. One of the first effects of addiction is the creation of distorted and delusional thinking - nothing is seen clearly for what it is, priorities are turned upside down and the addict is literally operating with a re-wired brain. Logic does not apply.

In fact, one of the reasons why they're starting to take another look at the controversial (though not new) idea of LSD as a drug treatment for alcoholism is because LSD enables you to "step outside of yourself" and see things more objectively, or at least, from another perspective.

Secondly, addictions are solidly "shame-based." In North American society, and many other societies, acknowledging that you have an addiction issue is still seen as an admission of moral failure and character weakness. There's still a huge negative stigma associated with addiction and it's still something many people are ashamed of admitting. Society in general is not only massively ignorant about addiction, they can be vindictive as hell, particularly if you're successful and/or famous.

If you want proof of that in the extreme, have a look at how Kate Moss was recently hung out to dry when her problem with drugs surfaced. She went from being a cultural icon to being trashed as "Cocaine Kate." She was called, weak, a bad role model, spoiled, the recipient of "too much too soon," by practically everyone. Everyone of course, except people who understand that addiction has absolutely nothing to do with moral failure, character weakness, wealth, race, gender or anything else. Addiction is the ultimate "equalizer."

Of course once she returned to being "commercially viable" again, (which took about a year or less) she signed several new multi-million dollar contracts. As usual, money does talk....even louder than addiction.

But since most of us don't have the star power of Kate Moss, it's not too hard to understand why the average person is reluctant to stand up and declare to the world that they need help. In part, this explains why most people with addiction issues have to hit a personal "bottom" and humbly seek recovery. And in the past, there was really no other alternative than to simply allow the individual to reach that bottom - whatever the bottom might have been. Today, it doesn't always have to be that way. In most cases (not all) an intervention can do just that - intervene before bottom is reached.

Before you do anything, you must first determine whether an intervention is right in the first place and usually this is a fairly easy decision to make. Normally, right before the intervention, the situation has become intolerable and it's about the only alternative left. So once you decide to go ahead, then you must decide which type of intervention is most suitable - the traditional "ambush" style, which comes as a complete surprise to the person in question, or the "pre-notified" style, where the person in question knows full well that an intervention will be taking place soon. Each one has inherent advantages and disadvantages, depending on your situation.

First, when you're dealing with addicts and alcoholics, you're not typically dealing with people who are in a calm, rational, and accepting state of mind at any given moment. The first reaction of most addicts or alcoholics that walk into an intervention is rarely "Oh, thank you, what a nice surprise!" In fact, usually the reverse is true. The moment they realize they've been ambushed, they become agitated, irrational, and shut their mind down to any form of suggestion. In short, they feel duped and betrayed. Remember, the average addicted person is extremely mistrustful of other people to begin with, and sometimes being deceived just makes them shut everyone out that much more. However, their initiasl feelings of betrayal will subside if the intervention is conducted properly.

Secondly, by necessity, addicts and alcoholics are master manipulators and actors. You can have cases where they'll be totally cooperative during the actual intervention and agree with everything everyone has said, and they'll agree to enter detox or treatment. But they may be doing so under a false pretense, and that's just so they can get the hell out of the room and get everyone off their back. So if you're using an interventionist, make sure you get someone with a real good "B.S. Detector," because no one is better at dishing it out than an addict or alcoholic.

Alternatively, they may agree to go into detox or treatment, but they may still have a real nasty attitude about it and only agreeing because they felt they were forced to, or because they made a decision on the spur of the moment. (After all, they were probably under the influence of their addiction when they made the decision.)

And a bad attitude will seriously affect how successful treatment is. When you go in for treatment, as much as your friends and loved ones encouraged you, and as much as you want to make them happy, you have to be going in because you really want it and as selfish as it may sound, it's for you and you alone. When you go in for treatment, you leave your attitude at the door and the only thing that should be going through your mind is that you want help and you're open to anything. And this is one of the areas where your interventionist should earn their fee because part of their job is to do everything possible to make sure the person in question enters treatment with at least a reasonable level of open-mindedness and they're willing to give it a shot.

In other words, someone has to convince the addict or alcoholic that they themselves are really making this decision and for their own reasons.

One of the advantages of the "pre-notified" style of intervention is because it gives the person in question time to think and reflect. Most good bosses know that when they have something serious to communicate to a failing employee, they don't say "I'd like to see you in my office right now." A wise boss approaches the employee at 9:00 a.m. and says, "I'd like to speak with you at 4:30 this afternoon." That way, you can rest assured that for the next seven and a half hours, that employee is going to be focused all day on what they've done right and what they've done wrong. This tactic is not meant to scare people, it's designed to make them think and reflect on themselves.

So when you approach the addict or the alcoholic and tell them that there's a meeting that will be taking place soon, you give them time to review the recent past and in our experience, in most cases they will show up, if for no other reason than they think they can actually defend their position because addiction does make you quite pompous and defensive.

Your interventionist should be able to help you decide which style of intervention to do, once they've had a good long discussion with you about all the circumstances relating to the addict in question, the addiction in question and so on. If they have a set way of conducting all of their interventions, you might want to shop around because in our opinion, how the intervention is styled and set up is highly dependent on a great many factors.