If you and your family have determined that it is time to intervene in the life of a loved one who has been abusing, or has become addicted to, drugs and alcohol, there are ways to conduct an intervention on your own.
There are intervention specialists who will assist you during the steps leading up to the actual intervention, or you can have the assistance of the interventionist during the whole process, if you’d like.
Home Interventions
Home interventions can be helpful for drug addiction, alcoholism, gambling addiction, eating disorders, sex addiction, compulsive self-harm behaviors, internet addiction, and any other behavior that is limiting the life of the individual in question.
How can you tell if the person is addicted to the substance or behavior, to determine if a home intervention is necessary?
- Has this person progressively lost the ability to control his or her drug or alcohol use, or harmful behavior? Does the substance or behavior take up almost all of his or her time, or is he or she drunk or high when going through other life activities?
- Has the person become obsessed with drugs, alcohol, or a behavior? Is it all he or she can seem to think about and talk about?
- Has the person continued to use drugs, drink alcohol, or engage in the behavior, even after bad things have happened to him or her, to other people, or to his or her life? Lost job? Fighting with family members? Legal consequences? Financial issues resulting from the addiction?
- As far as the addict is concerned, there is not a problem? Denial of a problem when you, and others in the addict’s life see it clearly, is a sure sign of a drug, alcohol, or behavioral addiction.
- Has the person tried to stop drinking, using, or partaking in gambling or another behavior, but it seems hopeless that he or she can even stop without help? Continuous relapse points to an addiction, and a good time for a home intervention.
Intervening before any irreversible consequences have occurred is a good time for a home intervention.
In the preparation time for your home interventions, there are many things to consider.
- What method will work best for the addict in question?
- What neutral location can be selected that the team of your choosing, of friends and family members, can meet to first be informed on what to expect, and then for the actual intervention?
- Who should be involved?
Intervention Team
It is important to determine the best group of people that will comprise your home intervention team. Each person should prepare a written account of how the addict’s drinking and drugging behaviors are negatively impacting them, and how hard it is to watch this person destroy his or her life. Honesty, sincerity, and love are vital in each letter, and reading the letters aloud to the addict is something each member of the team should be prepared to do.
Together, you and your home intervention team should determine what bottom lines you will each hold. In other words, if the addict is your son and he has been living at your house, or you have been paying his rent, you may decide that if he does not agree to go to formal substance abuse treatment during the home intervention, then he is no longer able to stay at your house, or you will no longer pay the rent at his apartment.
Family Members And Friends
Other family members, or friends, need to come up with bottom lines too. The most important part in choosing your bottom lines is that you must be able to stick with them, to really enforce what you have said you will take away or stop doing. The addict needs to feel that you are serious. That if he does not go to rehab, then he will essentially not have a place to live.
Some families decide that the home intervention is a great time to include legal consequences. Maybe the addict or alcoholic has been known to drive while intoxicated, or he or she is in violation of their court-mandated requirements, so the family will have a law enforcement official available to take the addict to jail if treatment is not agreed to during the home intervention.
Ultimately, you want to do whatever you have to do to get your loved one clean and sober.
Ken Seeley, founder and creator of Intervention 911 can answer yes to the question do drug interventions work?