What is a Drug Intervention?

An alcohol and drug intervention is one of the crucial first steps to admission into an addiction treatment and rehabilitation center. Although many people use this word on a regular basis, few of them understand what it means and what the process entails. Read on to find out more:

Understanding Interventions

A drug and alcohol intervention refers to a meeting where loved ones intervene in the lifestyle of someone - particularly their behavior with regards to substance abuse. The goal of this meeting is to get these people to change their behavior as well as overturn the situation that they find themselves in.

In many cases, loved ones will host an intervention when they notice that the addict among them has been spinning out of control. By so doing, they would be looking to help the addict turn their life around.

However, they can also use this meeting to inform the addict that they are going to stop their enabling behavior. They would ideally do this by presenting certain ultimatums that they are going to follow through with unless the addict agrees to check into a professional addiction treatment and rehabilitation program.

How It Works

But what exactly happens in this meeting? Essentially, the loved ones will form a group that will come together with the primary aim of confronting the addict about their substance abuse. They would also use the meeting to persuade the addict to change their lifestyle by specifically seeking help from an accredited rehabilitation center.

If you are planning this type of meeting, you would ideally invite family members and close friends of the addict. You might also include some colleagues and other figures that the addict respects.

Before hosting the intervention, it is essential that you first gather as a group to discuss what you are going to talk about as well as decide the course of the meeting even before you include the addict in the actual meeting. This is because it is essential that you plan and prepare well in advance.

During this initial meeting, you will discuss how you plan to host the event as well as what everyone is going to say. You will also come up with scenarios about what is likely to happen, and how you can direct the meeting to go according to your plans. You can also use this opportunity to choose a leader for the meeting - which could be a professional addiction interventionist or someone else who has the skills to ensure that the intervention goes according to plan.

The initial meeting will also provide a safe environment where everyone can discuss everything that they know about the addict - as well as their patterns of substance abuse and addiction. Further, people can write a common letter or list that will be read during the actual intervention. Through this letter, the group may be able to highlight all the different ways in which the addiction has been affecting them both professionally and personally.

The goal of this communication would be to get the addict to realize that the group is no longer going to tolerate their substance using behavior. Additionally, it would serve to inform the addict that they have to get help for this condition otherwise the members of the group are going to enforce the ultimatums they talked about.

These ultimatums would typically be comprised of consequences about what is going to happen should the addict refuse to get help from a professional rehabilitation program. They will also define all the outcomes that are going to transpire in this event.

At the end of initial intervention meeting, the group will look for a good reason to get the substance user to a particular venue and time. Tis should be at a time when the addict is not intoxicated - so that they can be in a vulnerable and honest situation.

When the addict gets to the designated venue, they will find that everyone has gathered waiting for him or her. You can then ask them to take a seat before commencing the meeting.

Goals of Addiction Interventions

Like anything else involving substance abuse, lack of planning often leads to failure. To this end, it is important that you have a particular goal - or set of goals - in mind before you host this type of meeting.

The primary goal should be to talk the addict into getting help from an addiction treatment center. This should not be difficult to do in many cases. In fact, research studies have shown that addicts have a higher probability of agreeing to this type of help when their loved ones have gathered to talk to them about the problems that their substance abuse and addiction have been causing.

Although this will not have any bearing on the outcomes of their addiction treatment, the important thing would be to first get them to realize that they need this form of treatment in the first place.

This is because many addicts are in denial about their substance use disorders and other related problems. Unless you host a meeting comprised of other loved ones and friends of the addict, it is highly unlikely that they are going to overcome their denial.

That said, most of how interventions work revolves around the boundaries that it allows loved ones to create. For instance, you can use this opportunity to inform the addict that you will no longer be providing them with shelter or financial help in the future unless they are enrolled in an inpatient drug rehab program.

The meeting would also work well if everyone present got an opportunity to express how addiction has been affecting them in various ways. By so doing, everyone you invited to the meeting would be able to stress to the addict just how their substance abuse is getting out of hand and affecting more people that they realize.

What Happens After the Intervention

While organizing the intervention meeting, you should also realize that you need to act fast immediately following the meeting - irrespective of how it turns out and whether or not the addict agrees to check into a rehabilitation program.

If they agree that the time has come to seek help, you need to have a car waiting to transport them to the center that the group decided on. You should also have a packed back ready for them to enroll for treatment immediately following the meeting.

This is because if you give the addict time to weigh their options, they might decide to turn to drugs immediately following the meeting. After that, you would have to go through the entire process again - without even knowing whether the addict will agree to attend another such meeting.

On the other hand, if they refuse to check into a rehab program after the meeting, it is imperative that everyone present follows through with the threats and ultimatums they outlined during the intervention. This will ensure that they face all the consequences that were talked about at the meeting.

Only through these consequences and the pain and suffering they entail would an addict come to realize that the people at the meeting were serious. After that, they might finally come to accept the help that the intervention group was offering - because it would entail fewer hardships than refusing such help.

Organizing an Addiction Intervention

It is difficult for most people to talk about hard truths - especially with a loved one. This is why many people who are in the life of an addict have a hard time planning an intervention that works.

Further, there are many things that you need to consider before organizing this type of meeting. For instance, you should ensure that the meeting is run by someone who has the right kind of experience and who will be able to mitigate all defensive reactions that the addict adopts.

You should also realize that this meeting can become emotionally charged. This is because of the main personal and professional relationships that will be at play - and most of these relationships would be intricate if the meeting is to work.

It is for this reason that you should consider talking to a professional addiction interventionist to help you organizing and planning the meeting. These specialists are professional. This effectively means that they would be able to detach themselves from the emotional charged environment of the meeting - which could be helpful to meeting the goals of the intervention.

In the presence of these professionals, it is also highly likely that the addict you plan on confronting will be naturally inclined to minimize any problematic behavior that they may have adopted.

However, the nature of addiction is such that the loved one may try to guilt everyone present at the meeting. They may also adopt the victim mentality in an attempt to get out of the thought situation they find themselves in.

With an intervention specialist at the meeting, all these maneuvers will be seen for what they are - half-hearted attempts to get out of going to rehab and stopping substance abuse and addiction.

Getting Help

Now that you understand what is a drug intervention, it is important that you ensure that you organize one that has the highest chances of turning out to be successful. It is recommended that you get a professional intervention specialist to help with the process - just so that you can get the addict into an alcohol and drug rehabilitation program at the end of the meeting.