Addiction Intervention Techniques

Addiction Intervention Techniques: How to Do a Drug Intervention

Wake-up calls come in many different shapes and forms, but for drug addicts and alcoholics, the most common form of a wake-up call is an addiction intervention. The purpose of an intervention is to help struggling substance abusers stop their addiction before it starts causing them extreme financial, physical, and emotional harm, but how do you perform an intervention? Where do you begin? In this article, we are going to look at how to properly set up a drug intervention by dissecting some simple drug abuse intervention techniques.

Addiction Intervention Techniques: Start with a Plan

Wandering into an intervention blindly and without a plan will mostly likely result in a very hostile and confrontational situation. While this may seem like exactly what you want, it is extremely ineffective, and will most likely push the struggling addict further away from the people who care about them. To help prevent this, it’s always best to set up an intervention plan. How are you going to confront the abuser? Is it smart to confront them? Is there really a problem here, or is this just a perceived problem?

One thing to consider when creating an addiction intervention plan is whether or not a professional should be involved. For many, discussions like these can get extremely heated, meaning they will fall apart very quickly. A good way to prevent this type of failure is by getting a professional involved who can mediate for the family. This ensures a certain amount of order, and hopefully it will also encourage the addict or alcoholic to listen and acknowledge the importance of this moment.

Addiction Intervention Techniques: Get Informed

Before staging the intervention, it’s important to know what you are going to be talking about. You want to be able to directly confront your friend or family member’s addiction with specific instances, evidence, and events. Addiction breeds dishonesty, your loved one will most likely deny everything you accuse them of, and that’s okay. You want to share as much as you can, in an effort to help them understand your point of view as someone who cares about them.

In addition to gathering information about your own feelings, experiences, and observations, you should also have an idea of the types of treatment centers and help you are going to point your loved one towards. One of the best drug abuse intervention techniques we can offer is taking advantage of an addict’s openness to help while you can, because if you don’t give them help when they are willing to accept it, you may find it much harder to get them to accept help later on.

Addiction Intervention Techniques: Define Your Consequences, Boundaries, and Feelings.

Once you know what type of help you want to offer your loved one, then it’s time to figure out what needs to be shared, and whether or not you need to put your foot down as a family or group of friends. While it may be surprising to most learning how to do a drug intervention, interventions are much more than just sharing feelings. Addiction interventions are also about putting an end to enabling someone’s drug use. That means clearly defining boundaries and consequences for an addict’s actions. Some good examples of putting an end to enabling addiction are: no longer giving alcoholics and addicts a place to stay, no longer assisting them financially, no longer giving them rides to places you know they use at, no longer aiding them legally, etc. While many of these things may seem like harsh things to do to someone close to you, they are necessary steps. If you continue to assist someone who is abusing drugs or alcohol, they are going to continue taking advantage of every bit of help you give them until their substance abuse ultimately drives them further and further away from the people who care about them.

While sharing your feelings isn’t the only thing that needs to be done during addiction interventions, it is one of the drug abuse intervention techniques that need to be present. It’s important that you let the struggling addict know how their drug abuse makes you feel. Do not speak for other people’s emotions, or even the addicts intentions, simply let them know how you feel about their actions. When people ask us how to do a drug intervention, we highly recommend that everyone involved in the intervention write down what they want to share during the intervention. This helps everyone involved stay on track during the extremely emotional meeting.

Addiction Intervention Techniques: Following Through is How to Do a Drug Intervention

While what is said during an addiction intervention is important, the most crucial piece of advice we can give anyone when it comes to how to do a drug intervention is that you need to follow through with your threats, and advice. Don’t tell your struggling family member or friend that you are not going to assist them financially during the intervention, and then give them money the next day. If you tell them there will be consequences for continued substance abuse, those consequences need to be real. Otherwise, they will never take your threats, advice, or emotions seriously. We cannot stress enough how important this is. Addiction is a deceptive, manipulative, and brutal beast that will take any chance you afford it. Stand by your word and follow up on everything you promise.

If you or a loved one needs help with abuse and/or treatment, please call the WhiteSands Treatment at (877) 855-3470. Our addiction specialists can assess your recovery needs and help you get the addiction treatment that provides the best chance for your long-term recovery.