What is an Intervention?
The National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics reports that there have been more than 700,000 deaths in the US due to substance overdose.
If you too have a friend or family member that suffers from this same addiction, this statistic may be just too close to home.
You can learn more here on what is an intervention all about. Follow these steps, and you just might save the life of someone you love.
What is an Intervention?
An intervention is a conversation strategically arranged where friends and family confront someone and asks them to seek help to stop their addiction.
This conversation includes telling the addict how their habits are hurting them and the others in their life.
Whether you’re addressing a drug or alcohol intervention, your goal is to provide your family member the opportunity to pursue professional assistance.
How to Plan an Intervention
A substance or alcohol abuse intervention comes in several different models. An intervention usually occurs at different stages during the addiction cycle. Each intervention form, however, contains these basic elements:
Collect Your Intervention Players
Your intervention players are your partners who take part in your intercession effort. These players can include the user’s family or close friends. You might also include the addict’s co-workers as well. Just don’t include the addict themselves, on your team.
Draft an Intervention Plan
Ask your intervention team to develop a plan with goals, milestones, and other tasks that outlines how the intervention works.
Some tasks might include asking the abuser to perform everyday tasks like heading to work or exercising. Other goals can include meeting regularly with their addiction counselor.
Research the Disease
As a team member, you should learn what you can about addiction. You should also familiarize yourself about sobriety. Once you know these facts, you can customize your intervention to meet the addict’s needs.
Set Consequences and Boundaries
Intervention includes guidelines for a team member to avoid turning into an enabler. Enablers are someone who tries to solve an addict’s problems for them or ignore their destructive behavior.
These relationships should be prohibited and consequences should be identified if a user doesn’t want to cooperate.
Assign Roles
Assign responsibilities to your team members throughout the abuser’s recovery process. For example, ask a team member to provide rides to any group support meetings. Ask a member of your intervention team to stay on top of the outcomes from these vital meetings.
Finalize the Initial Intervention
Choose a time to launch the conversation when the abuser is neither high nor drunk. Schedule this talk with other intervention team members without telling the abuser why you have these meetings.
Request the intervention team to share their observations and how they can help the abuser through their recovery process.
Are You Ready to Stage an Intervention?
Consult your family doctor for their guidance on staging an intervention. They might refer you to other professionals who can help find what is an intervention that’s right for your family member’s case.
Addiction recovery professionals can also help you if your loved one has a relapse on their road to recovery.
If you’re still asking do interventions work, check out our website. You’ll find other articles there that can help you put your children or friends back on their road to full recovery.