Watching a loved one struggle with addiction can be challenging. There are many downsides to addiction. Some of these include; a decline in one’s emotional, mental, physical, and psychological health. Many times, those struggling with addiction begin to drift away, get into problems with society and law, and even lie to feed their addictions.
Once you’ve noticed your loved one in such situations, it’s necessary to find out how to host an intervention. Successful interventions are those that were properly handled and achieved the required result, which is providing treatment that helps deal with your loved one’s addiction. To help you, we’ve listed below the key elements of a successful intervention to help guide you.
The Need for Trusted Family and Friends
For an intervention to successfully pull through, you need to involve a family or friend that your loved one trusts and cares about. The message shouldn’t be passed across by just anyone, like a mere acquaintance. If this is not taken into due consideration, you may end up not achieving a successful intervention.
Approach With a Plan
You don’t just go for an intervention for your loved one without a unified front. Everyone that will be involved in the intervention must have the same message to meet the required goal.
There should be a time set apart when you all will come together to rehearse what everyone will say and how they’ll react. Everyone must participate and take concrete notes to follow the exact plan throughout the intervention.
Stay with the Solutions
It is important not to drift away from the major focus of the intervention, which is the addiction’s destructive behavior and the solution. These points need to be emphasized by everyone involved. Therefore while they focus on how the addiction is affecting them(making use of ‘I’ statements like ” I’m afraid”), it’s also necessary to stay on the solution to the problem that brought them together.
State the Consequences
Everyone involved with the intervention should state the consequences their loved one will face if they fail to agree to the treatment solution that is proposed. It can be personal consequences put together by everyone, and they need to lay out what those consequences will be. Ensure that idle threats that are unserious, unproductive, and ineffective are avoided.
Avoid any Arising Conflicts
During an intervention, it is normal for your loved one to want to take the information in a hostile manner or an angry manner. Those reactions can be reduced if everyone involved avoids blaming, judgemental statements, and accusations. Everyone must stay focused on the proposed solutions. However, your loved one may likely not accept they are addicted; as such, possible answers should be prepared to deal with opposing situations.
Be Prepared with Treatment Solutions
A successful intervention is typically going to end with your loved one agreeing to seek treatment. Possible treatment programs and centers should be prepared ahead of time to be offered immediately after an intervention is achieved. Also, have transportation handy and a bag packed to immediately send your loved one to any of the agreed treatment facilities.
The Need to Seek Guidance from Experts for a Successful Intervention
To stage a successful intervention, there’s a need to seek the guidance of experts. There are different reasons you should do this. Firstly, interventions are tricky with a lot at stake, and with no prior experience, you can get it all wrong. However, an interventionist would have participated in several interventions and had the experience to aid a successful intervention.
They have been trained specially for this purpose and can help make timely decisions and give the right approach to use. An interventionist will not only carry out the intervention but also put together the necessary preparations. They make sure everyone involved knows the plan, follow through with rehearsals, and provide feedback on the processes carried out.
Lastly, an interventionist is an objective mediator. As much as an intervention should be done with love, it’s also confrontational. During the intervention, tension, and resentment can easily arise and become uncontrollable, which would only elevate the situation. With an interventionist objectively observing, he can calm down arising conflicts and ensure the conversation remains productive.
When to Propose an Intervention for a Loved One
An intervention should be proposed immediately after the addictions of a loved one begin to affect everyone around them, especially when they have been living in denial. Having everyone participating in the intervention share how much they’ve been affected by the addiction of their loved one can also help them understand the need for immediate treatment.
Do not be scared to propose an intervention for a loved one struggling with an addiction. It’s a way to show that you care and want your loved one to break free from the addiction. With an intervention, you are encouraging them to seek treatment and get immediate help.
