Risks of Doing Your Own Intervention

We understand under certain circumstances people have no choice but to do an intervention on their own. However, people sometimes do an intervention on their own for bad reasons, such as saving money, which may end up backfiring. It puts finances above the well-meaning of the family member. If you are honest and upfront that you have serious financial concerns, most individuals in the intervention community are going to say we will work with you and help you despite that.

Frankly, if a person knew what they were doing in terms of intervention, they would already be doing it. Families, however, have already been compromised by the addiction. If you’re a member of a family where an alcoholic or addict is present, you’ve been impacted by that illness. That addict or alcoholic has significant information about the family dynamics, and they use that information to their benefit. You’re already compromised. It’s imperative that a family – and you only get one first shot – make sure that first impression is an effective one. There’s a very valid series of needs met by having a professional, well-trained interventionist present.

Note that I said a professional, well-trained interventionist should be present. There are people out there that have gotten sober or watched a couple of episodes of A&E Intervention who think they’re an interventionist. And I can assure you that watching that show is not going to show you how to do an effective intervention in the real world – it doesn’t work like that. You can’t have a rational conversation with an irrational person. You can’t interact with an irrational person – an addict, an alcoholic – and think you are going to reason with this individual, or threaten this individual. You are not going to know how to not get cornered by the alcoholic or addict. Countless times I’ve been on the phone with a family and they’ve said to me, “Look, we think we’re going to give this a shot on our own, and if it doesn’t work we’re going to come to you.”

An example: A guy comes to me and says they’re going to intervene on a male member of the family. He says they have a go-to guy that people tend to listen to when he speaks. He’s the kind of guy that when he comes in the room and says, ‘Get up, we’re going to treatment now,’ that’s what’s going to happen. And if he doesn’t, we’re prepared. This member of the family is going to tell him that he’s never going to see his children again.’   He was very proud of this plan, but had not considered what would happen if he said, “OK, I’m not going. I won’t see my kids again.”  I asked him if this family member had the authority to take his kids from him.  He answered, “Well no, he doesn’t.”

So in essence he was bluffing.  It’s never a good idea to bluff with an alcoholic or an addict, because that person has nothing to lose. A good percentage of the time when you try to get someone to go to treatment they are going to say “No.” Now what do you do? Have you cornered yourself?  Have you lost all credibility because he’s called your bluff?  This isn’t checkers; it’s chess. You have to be prepared no matter what the response. People think they are going to have this event, and the result will be the individual going into treatment. Intervention isn’t an event; it’s a process.

There’s a pre-intervention element that’s profoundly valuable; it’s the key to the success of the rest of the intervention. Then we have the intervention itself. Then we do the post-intervention work. That post-intervention work depends on whether the person goes into treatment or not. Most people think the intervention is through when the individual goes to treatment, and that’s absolutely not the case. There’s more family work to be done.  There’s work to be done to prepare for when that individual returns home.

It’s a very bad idea for families to go into this very detailed, intricate process of intervention that’s fraught with obstacles and concerns without a guide to help them through it. There is absolutely no way to consider all the things that might happen along the way. You have to have somebody in the process with you, so that when things begin to unravel or accelerate, or a step gets skipped, or the addict rejects an idea, you have the professional there to help you plan the next move. You need somebody who knows how to factor those variables into the circumstances as they stand in that moment, and be able to effectively move you forward without getting cornered. You never want to end up with no next move. You always want to be able to honestly and honorably respond rather than react to the next set of circumstances that you’re presented with.  Your chances of success are dramatically improved with a qualified interventionist leading the process.