Family Intervention
Family intervention is designed to bring the entire family and the substance abuser together with the best possible opportunity of obtaining willingness from your loved one to accept help. When we tell families that family intervention is just as much for them as it is for the addict or alcoholic, families react confused, initially. Many people are under the impression that family intervention is simply about inspiring an addict or alcoholic to want help in the form of a treatment center. Although that is a small part of what we do, inspiring them to change is not enough to keep them on t
rack for the long term. With family intervention everyone has to change, family included. The reality is, 90% of all addicts and alcoholics go to treatment when family intervention is performed. The sad reality is that only about 5% to 10% of families allow the family intervention to happen. It is very difficult to bring families on the same page. The translation is, it is far easier to draw willingness from a substance abuser to accept help than it is for the families to let us help. We are not saying family intervention is easy by any means, or that the overall intention of the family is not pure, they are just easier than the family allowing the actual intervention. Families do a tremendous job of convincing us as family intervention professionals that they do not need a family intervention and that they can do the family intervention themselves. Even worse, families think their loved one will change if they just implement "tough love". Family intervention requires a non family mediator to take the focus off of the family and put it on the substance abuser. Substance abusers can be master manipulators and any family member emotionally attached is likely to give into the addicts promises and pleas if a professional is not present.
Family Drug Intervention
Addiction is a family illness, the family has to change as much as the addict or alcoholic through the family drug intervention process. If the family does not change with the addict or alcoholic, it almost always decreases the over all success of long term sobriety. People, places and things need to change starting with families. Because changing the substance abuser alone is not enough. Family drug intervention sets healthy boundaries for the family in regards to the addict or alcoholics behavior. No addict or alcoholic in and of themselves is capable on their own resources alone of getting drunk or high. There is almost always in every situation, somewhere, some form of enabling that helps the addiction get worse. Even if it is because the family is doing nothing at all except sitting back waiting in a "holding pattern". Families tell us that all the time when they call about family drug intervention, that they are in a "holding pattern". Sounds like the definition of insanity to me, spinning around and around in a circle waiting for a different result. Do you think your loved one suffering from drug addiction or alcoholism is in a holding pattern? No, they are getting worse and worse why the family waits for one of the other family members to do something instead of calling upon family drug intervention.
Family Alcohol Intervention
The worst that we have ever heard is a family member telling another family member that they will not be part of a family alcohol intervention because either they think it is not right or it won't work. Any family member that says that they will not be part of a family intervention has motives outside of the family alcohol intervention that they are not sharing with others. In a breakdown of an unhealthy family system, this family member could be considered a potential saboteur. Family alcohol intervention is about bringing the family together to identify these unhealthy family roles so that they can change. Once these family behaviors change, it increases the likelihood of the substance abuser getting better. It is important to remember that these unhealthy thoughts and behaviors by the family are almost always a direct result of manipulations and behaviors of the addict or alcoholic.
