A Successful Drug Intervention Requires a Skilled Drug Interventionist

Staging An Intervention

If someone you love is addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, you already know that the pain involved in the accompanying struggle is, at times, unbearable. Years of watching someone you care deeply about lose the battle with his inner demons can take a tremendous toll on the innocent bystander. The mixture of disappointment, resentment, and grief you as that bystander must feel at this point can often make hope for your loved one’s recovery seem a far-off, illusive notion. After all, you have probably exhausted your resources and tried to reason with the addict in your life time and time again. The problem here, however, is that addiction is categorized as a disease that pushes the bounds of reason or rationality; addicts will typically continue to use in the face of both light and serious consequences, defying all logic. The addict who has continually demonstrated that he cannot (or refuses to) help himself aboard the recovery train may very well need an intervention.

The Importance of Selecting Skilled Drug Interventionist

While unmediated, family-planned interventions can be successful in some cases, the presence of a neutral moderator, or a drug interventionist, is often essential to an intervention’s success. Most addicts have burned more than a few bridges between themselves and their families. Thus, the addict is often plagued by shame and guilt in a situation like an intervention, where he must meet with his family face-to-face to discuss what, to the addict, can sound like his own “shortcomings.” It is also no secret that addicts and alcoholics feel as though they need their drug(s) of choice to cope and survive in this world, so an intervention can often feel like a “me-against-them” situation. As ludicrous as it may seem to anyone on the outside of addiction, the addict may even feel like his family is trying to steal the one thing in the world that makes him happy. It is the job of the drug interventionist, as an unbiased source who is simply there to help, to explain to the addict in simplest terms that: 1) his family loves him, 2) he needs and deserves help, 3) recovery is immediately possible.

Successful Drug Intervention Is Possible

Ultimately, the addict himself determines the “success” of a drug intervention. The goal of the process is usually for the addict to agree to a pre-arranged stay in an inpatient facility. Therefore, if the addict says “yes” to treatment, the intervention can be deemed a success. But how do we get the addict to this point? How do we get him to think rationally about the consequences of his using and drinking when he has been thinking irrationally for months, years, or even decades? Once again, this is where the drug interventionist comes in. A professional, experienced, and accredited interventionist will know exactly how to talk to the addict so that he might actually hear something – so that your family’s pleas for him to get help might actually resonate. At the end of a professionally mediated intervention, the addict will more often than not choose treatment as opposed to accepting the consequences his family has laid before him. This should be encouraging because once the client has agreed to treatment, we know that he is at least somewhat willing to recover. Sometimes, a little willingness is all it takes to begin.