Robert Lefever explains about “INTERVENTION”

Is it necessary to hit rock bottom before getting treatment and for those families looking to get help for their loved ones what options are available when the individual is still not sure about making that change?

1. “old timers” sometimes say that addicts have to hit “rock bottom” before they get better. They are wrong. Even in Chapter 1 of the “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions” there was rejoicing that those “who were scarcely more than potential alcoholics” joined A.A Furthermore, how could these “old timers” be sure that an individual’s “rock bottom“, the time at which he or she is prepared to admit defeat is not below the normal mortality line?
2. The Johnson Institute in the USA first developed the principles of intervention, to bring the bottom up to hit the addict, i.e. to make the addict aware of just how uncomfortable life can be right now, let alone in the future.
3. For an addict the use of the addictive substance, process or relationship is the central feature of life, almost its purpose, certainly the only thing that makes it tolerable. The only thing that will change this attitude is pain. The addict therefore needs to see that. If things continue as they are, life will be more painful than if they change. Yet how can change be contemplated when it is perceived as jumping into a pit of despair? At this point the encouragement of others who have done the same, and who have survived and flourished, is vital because it brings a sense of genuine hope.
4. Addictive disease is a disease of mood and also of perception. The disease itself makes us feel a deep sense of inner emptiness. We use addictive substances, processes and relationships to help us to feel better. Yet at the same time, through “denial” (the perception defect) the disease “tells” us that we haven’t got it. What a truly fearful disease it is that can do that: progressively killing us while leading us to believe that it is the outside world that causes all the problems rather than our own inside world!
5. To change this perception needs more than the love of the family or the advice of well-meaning doctors, employers or friends, or even the punishments of an offended society. Only when all these are harnessed together in structured format, and with absolutely clear choices given and consequences threatened, will the addict be able to listen. Even then he or she will duck and dive, wriggle and prevaricate, and do everything possible to find a weak link so as to divide and rule.
6. Formal interventions therefore have to be planned and rehearsed so that each participant is totally convinced of his or her own powerlessness to get through to the addict on his or her own. Each needs to be reminded of the various attempts which have been made to change the addict’s behaviour but which inevitably failed.
7. At the formal intervention itself, preferably with a specialist Twelve Step addictions counsellor to guide things,  each participant says to the addict:
   
   
   1. I love you ( or am fond of you )
   2. AND (not but) I’m concerned for you
   3. These are the things I observe.... (facts not opinions)
   4. This is what I want you to do......
   5. And this is what I shall do if you don’t
8.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but we need to remember that if we don’t take risks now there will be even bigger risks to take later on. If it doesn’t work, and the addict doesn’t seek help, then the pressure has to be kept on so that the painful consequences accumulate. Don’t back out, don’t cover up: that kills.
9. Family members, in particular, need support from an appropriate “family” Anonymous Fellowship at this difficult time.

Extract taken from “ A new Life” (healing depression) by Dr R Lefever – Available through Amazon and all PROMIS centres.