Feb 12, 2016 | By Tim Powers

7 Things to Avoid During an Intervention

Addiction Treatment Drug and Alcohol Intervention

If you had a loved one who is in the grips of an addiction to drugs and alcohol, you and your family are feeling that you are like an old time preacher wrestling with the Devil himself. When your family is attempting to get a loved one the help they need, there can be tremendous difficulty in getting them to a drug and alcohol rehab and on the road to recovery.

You may feel that you are running out of options, and you decide to pull the trump card and decide to plan an intervention on your loved one. Interventions can be highly effective, but the steps that you take for an intervention must be carefully thought out. Addiction can bring forth emotions and attitudes from family members that have been long buried. It is extremely important that you are mindful of those obstacles to the intervention process and account for these in the intervention plan you create with an intervention specialists or other addiction professional.

The following are 7 things to avoid during an intervention.

Not Having Professional Help

Perhaps one of the biggest things to avoid is trying to plan and move forward with an intervention without professional help. For many families with loved ones struggling with addiction, they feel they can shoulder the burden and take on this huge responsibility on their own. It is only human that you want to help your loved one at all costs, but interventions can be a make-or-break event, and one wrong move can not only make an intervention a failure, it can drive a loved one further into their substance abuse and further away from help. As already stated, interventions can be highly emotional affairs where tensions can run high and the safety of both the addict and family can be a concern. A trained addiction specialist needs to help you plan every step of the intervention so there is order, safety and security for all involved.

Speaking with Anger

As a family trying to deal with an addicted loved one, you are experiencing a wide variety of emotions and there is no doubt that anger is near or at the top of the list of those emotions. The effects addiction has on family members are often devastating and each family member can feel a great deal of anger and resentment. Since an intervention is based on confronting the addict about their behavior it is easy to let that anger loose, but with anger the addict can totally shut down and be totally unresponsive. It is important to maintain a gentle and supportive tone and all involved should communicate concern and empathy towards the addict.

Having Everyone Speak at Once

There are many important components that go into making an intervention as supportive and successful as possible. All of the hard work that your family puts into the intervention process leads up to the main event which is the actual intervention meeting itself. While you and your family may have taken every precautionary step imaginable, everybody present at the intervention wants to speak their mind about how the addict’s behavior has affected their lives. One of the most important things to avoid during an intervention is allowing everyone present to speak all at once. When everyone speaks at the same time, it can intimidate the addict and as a result they can shut down. Ideally, the addiction specialist leading the intervention should elect someone from the group to be the “spokesperson”

Giving Up After the First Try

Many families who go through the careful and meticulous planning of an intervention obviously want to see success. The truth is that many drug interventions don’t work on the first try. Since denial is at the root of drug addiction it may take several attempts before the addict finally accepts help. Throwing your hands in the air and claiming defeat is a something you definitely need to avoid during an intervention. Despite the resistance and denial you and your family are dealing with, you need to keep focused on getting your loved one help and trying until the message takes hold and the addict fully admits their problem and accepts the offer for treatment.

Being Confrontational

Perhaps one of the most difficult things to avoid during an intervention is confrontation. During the intervention process, you must keep in focus that you are confronting the problem and not the person. It is easy to act as judge and jury, especially when the addict’s behavior has hurt you and your family and your trust has been violated. Keeping the focus on the addiction itself and not the person will help ease the anxiousness the addict may be feeling during the intervention.

Not Holding the Intervention in a Familiar Place

Addicts have many defense mechanisms they employ in order to keep their addiction alive and to protect them from any dangers they perceive. As a result, the addict can become highly suspicious especially if they are asked to meet family somewhere that is unfamiliar to them. Interventions should be held in places where the addict feels comfortable and is a familiar place to them. Whether it is in their home or a public place, the addict will be less likely to be suspicious that an intervention is about to take place.

Doing the Intervention While the Addict is Under the Influence

Some people may be under the impression that interventions work if the addict is “caught red-handed.” If the addict is under the influence of drugs and alcohol during an intervention, they either will not be responsive or may become combative causing an unsafe situation. Ideally, an intervention should be carried out when the addict is lucid and can think and understand things clearly.

There are many things to consider when attempting to plan an intervention. As stated at the beginning of this article, interventions can be a make-or-break proposition — and it can mean the difference between the addicts getting help and the addict falling further down the rabbit hole of addiction. It is a necessity that you work closely with a highly trained and experienced intervention specialist or other appropriate addiction professionals. Many of the best drug treatment centers feature dedicated intervention teams that can assist your family during this stressful time and can provide the information and support you need to make your intervention a success.