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Is Holding an Intervention the Best Way to Communicate with a Loved One

Having someone in your life who is struggling with a drug or alcohol addiction can feel overwhelming. Seeing someone you care for as they start to lose themselves to their addiction is a heartbreaking experience. It can be a delicate balancing act when you want to offer your help and support without enabling or encouraging their damaging addiction. If you’ve reached a dead end with your loved one, it may be time to consider an intervention.

An intervention is a meeting with your drug-addicted loved one that puts them in front of friends, family, and sometimes professionals in the hopes of inspiring a change in their behavior or in encouraging them to attend rehab. An intervention gives you a space to discuss with your loved one the effects of their addiction and encourage them to seek help.

However, is an intervention the best way to communicate with someone suffering from substance abuse issues? While you learn more about interventions, here are some ways we believe you can structure an intervention to spark the change needed to overcome addiction.

  1. Be specific

When you’re telling someone the ways their addiction is harming your relationship, it’s best to be precise and not use emotionally charged phrases. Instead of saying “your addiction is ruining our marriage,” say “your addiction has caused you to alienate me, ignore our children, and spend $40,000 of our life savings”.

  1. Don’t shame them

Interventions are emotionally charged events where families and friends often look to make clear to the addict the worst-case scenarios that are going to happen if they don’t seek treatment. However, shaming someone or yelling at them is not going to spur the change you’re hoping to see. An intervention isn’t the place for guilt trips. It’s a place for a structured discussion on how a person’s addiction has harmed their loved ones, but the person experiencing the addiction shouldn’t leave feeling guilty or inadequate. This will usually trigger them to seek out drugs or alcohol.

  1. Choose your time wisely

Don’t schedule an intervention for a time when they are most likely to be drinking, high, or very stressed. If they have just gone through a breakup, lost their car or their job, or it’s a Saturday evening when they’re likely to be indulging, this is not a good time to have an intervention. Communicate with your loved one when they’re at their most clearheaded and willing to listen.

  1. Plan ahead

Know exactly what you want from an addict before demanding they change. Just saying: “I need you to change” can be overwhelming. Instead, have a plan ready for them and a rehab in mind. Give them a means to achieve the plan you have for them and have things in place like who will care for their home or pets, will their insurance cover rehab, and what will happen to them at rehab are all critical pieces of information to have ready before starting to demand change.

  1. Involve professionals

Having a certified mental health professional or addiction counselor on hand can prevent the intervention from spiraling out of control or turning into a battle of he said/she said. Instead, allow the professional to guide the session and coach your family beforehand on what is expected of you. Having an expert on hand also means that your loved one will be able to access rehab immediately if they decide it’s time at the end of the intervention.

Comments

  1. Mary A Ambrosino says

    Good advice for those who need it,

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