An intervention is an orchestrated attempt by family and friends to get a family member, friend, or loved one to seek help for an addiction or other similar problems. When one has tried everything possible to inspire or convince their loved one that they need help, but they will not admit into a program, an addiction intervention program is a successful tool in helping you help your loved one escape from the grips of denial, rationalization and projection.
By approaching them from a place of love and compassion, with help facilitated by a addiction interventionist, you will be helping them understand the problem that they have and that a treatment program is needed. Using a professional interventionist will not only ensure that you have taken the appropriate approach, but will also give you peace of mind knowing that you have expressed your love and concern in a professional, impacting, and very effective manner.
Addiction Intervention Process
An intervention is a very strategic process that must be facilitated and properly executed by an addiction intervention specialist to ensure desired results. In order to effectively perform a substance intervention, an intervention team will be established and then thoroughly prepared with the information required for attaining success. All parties involved will understand the purpose, process and techniques of the intervention.
- Alcohol and Substance Abuse: A Deadly DuoAlcohol and substance abuse is a dangerous combination. You need professional help in order to treat both addictions.
- User, Abuser, and Dependent: What's the Difference?User, abuser, and dependent. You've heard these words before in the context of alcohol addiction, drug addiction, or gambling addiction. What are their differences?
- Addiction DefinitionAddiction is also classified as a progressive disease. This means that the habit will only intensify as time goes on if nothing or nobody intervenes with the addiction.
- Intervention FAQsHere are some of the most common questions that families often ask about an intervention, whether for drug, alcohol, or substance addiction.
Desperately seeking help for my 27 year old son Stephen who is addicted to fentinyl now 1 1/2 years, before that he said he did heroin, coke, opioid pills. We’ve tried rehabs, methadone clinics, he’s getting supposedly suboxone off street, he’s stolen so much from family( drained me , my husband , my dad, and our cousin that lives with us), stolen from our neighbors, has done couple says in jail for stealing from us, now has court fines, & I help him wen I can so they dont arrest him, I feel if he goes to prison that will not help him . He cuts hair to support his addiction, walks and rides bike all over town to go get his drugs , has stayed out homeless off and on. Mentally &
Physically draining the family & he is getting worse and worse, skinny, doesn’t eat like he used to cause he says when he’s hurting he can’t eat, he doesn’t have the relationship with his 8 year old daughter like he used to, i pray everyday for help, I look in internet for help, I drive around looking & he won’t follow through or centers have no room . Please I beg help us , I dont want to loose my son, jail I feel would help cause he wont be in the street, but he desperately needs help for drug abuse so he can straighten up & get his life back, he’s constantly saying he’d rather die, we’d be better off him dead, he’s gotten sick with a cough and won’t seek help because he wants his drugs , I feel he just wants to give up
A lot of the times , then he cries that he wants to get well, he’s tired of this life of his.
My Mother’s name is Mary, and she is an alcoholic.
She calls is a “bad habit.”
She is 56 years old, and has been an alcoholic for roughly 30 years.
I am her daughter, Grace (23) and she has been drunk, basically my entire life.
She has one other daughter, Jessica (27) and they have not spoken in 6 years as a result of the alcoholism.
She too, lives in Nashville and fears for our Mother discovering her place of residence/employment as a result of a lifetime of verbal, physical and physiological abuse.
Her immediate family no longer speaks to her at all, I am the only one left.
Mary has undergone several treatment attempts, all have failed.
When under the influence, she makes phone calls verbally abusing family, friends, employers, etc.
She drinks to the point of getting sick and passing out. Every time.
She hides bottles all over the house, as well as secret stashes of money to buy more alcohol when she runs low.
She has served 30 days (maybe more) in jail for her 4 DUI’s (one including a head on collision with a mother and her 3 small children).
She has been arrested on multiple occasions for public intoxication.
She currently lives in Nashville, TN with her boyfriend Jim who is actively doing everything he can to provide her with food, clothing and shelter.
They have been together for 2 years, and she has progressively gotten worse over this time.
She has, to date, trashed his apartment, verbally abused him, attempted physical abuse, pawned things in order to obtain money for alcohol, thrown all the perishable goods on the kitchen floor (upwards of $100 worth), almost caused him the loss of his jobs, and filed false police reports while under the influence.
For the last two months, he has been forced to sneak in and out of his own apartment for fear of his well-being, disposing of empty/half full/full bottles all along the way.
He is STILL willing to provide her with the best treatment available, and we have been communicating all the while.
My Mother has been this way for as long as I can remember.
She goes from person to person, feeding off them, depleting their resources and undergoing binges of up to 2 weeks in length, and the breaks in between are not long.
During these breaks there is no admission of guilt, no plan to change, and complete denial of any wrong doing.
The cycle is damning and the effects it’s had, and continues to have, are life long for everyone involved.
Sober, she is an amazing, nurturing, kind, smart and hard-working individual.
She deserves better than this, and I would do anything to see her get better.
I feel as though I have done everything I can do to save her from herself, and I just want my Mother back.
Please help.
– Happy Mother’s Day
Hi my wife and I made the hugest mistake of our lives in June 2017. Well I did. By bringing meth into our home…. We did it for a year and it totally changed us. It split us up June 2018. I’ve slipped twice in 10 months now. I have been living in my van. She has continuously slipped over and over now. She has been on it and maybe heroin because of the people she is around. Using her. Her name is Christy and she is the love of my life. We dated at 14. Split up then 20 years later reunited. Poetry and opening doors and laughter and love for 3.5 years. Then meth. Please help. I don’t want to let her go April 4th she was saying how much she loved and missed me and how much she needs help. Two days later I run to her mailbox in my Camaro to drop and bracelet off and my car catches fire and burns to the ground. She drives by w a guy driving our other car. This person is not her. I love you Christy.
My brother is in dire need of intervention. He has been on drugs for approximately 30 years. He started out with marijuana and moved onto opioids and I believe he is currently on heroine. He tried treatment and was on Suboxin (I don’t know how to spell it), but he started selling that for the stronger drugs.
My parents enabled him for the majority of the time. I’ve tried to open their eyes for this disease and tried to get them to seek help for my brother. There are just no resources or insurance.
Can you please help me help my brother? He is going to kill himself if someone doesn’t step in.
I’m seeking help for my 37 year old son. He has relapsed again and is spiraling out of control. He has been in two rehabs but only completed one and when he came out of the last one where they had done brain remapping he was good. Then a woman that he is obsessed with left him because of his abuse he spiraled out of control. He has been given so many chances after he got out of prison but can’t not get the help he really needs mentally and with his substance abuse. This request for help might quit honestly might be too late. He is either going to overdose or commit suicide by cop either way I’m going to loose him. He has pulled away from his family I guess in an attempt to keep us from seeing him but we know. I see Facebook posts that are I believe an attempt to reach out even without him knowing what he is doing. Please help I don’t want to loose my son.
Hi my name is Jamie. I live in nyc and I’m am the twin of a beautiful smart well educated, sick, drug addicted, co dependent, sister. Me and my two sisters were raised by my mother who did a wonderful job putting all three us of through college. I a speech pathologist, Lisa a nurse and my twin Allison who WAS a NYC public school teacher. My biological father fell off a drainpipe to his death due to his own heroin addiction. Allison is addicted to heroin. She has literally been on the streets of New York City for over three years. She lost it all….including her three beautiful children who just want there mommy. She has been absent out of there lives basically for over five years. Up until recently we have not had one single phone call text or any other form of communication in over one and a half years. She recently contacted mom to let us know where she was and that she was alive. We love her. She is in a co dependent drug filled dependent relationship with another addict. Who by the way is always extremely smart. Anyhow please help me help my twin. Y mother has gone as far as calling police stations…hospitals, and even morge to find my sister. Now that we know her where abouts we are even in more shock to see her living conditions on the streets of NYC. Please help. Thank you in advance. The Steakin family.
Hi im looking for help for my boyfriend and my cousin. They are both alcoholics. My cousin has liver failure and my boyfriend is heading doen the same path. He has not stopped drinking since he was 16 years old. He is now 29 almost 30. I need help. Both of them are in denial.
My brother is 24 years old. He is homeless and addicted to both crystal meth and “spice”. My brother has emotionally and physically drain my family. He believes no ones tried to help him. He thinks the world is against him and no one cares. I’ve signed him up more than once for different rehabs around our area and he promises to go until it’s time to go. I’ve housed him, and him claim it wasn’t good enough. I’ve gotten him a job to try to help him get off the streets. I’ve tried everything I can from emotionally breaking down to fighting with him physically. He refuses to believe the drugs have put him here and says that everyone’s pushed him away. He doesn’t try to help himself and has even left ugly voicemails to our grandmother because she refuses to answer anymore of his phone calls. He has broken her heart and she doesn’t know how to handle it. He’s angry and feels alone but nothing I do is enough. He promises he’s not using but I see it in his face. I haven’t spoken to him in months. He recently made the news for being part of the homeless group under the bridge. They took his dog and he went hay wire. He used to be so smart and athletic. My heart hurts just having to reach out to this, I have no other options left. My family has given up and I barley sleep some nights thinking about him sleeping outside. He has mental health issues as far back as when we were kids, of course we didn’t live a love of luxury and bad things happened, I’ve cope in my own ways and have used before but I’m clean and working and doing the best I can to stay out of that life style. My brother sees as if I’ve got everything in the world but I truly don’t, I work so hard for little to nothing and I give give give and I’ve had to stop. Now I’m part of the “no one cares about me” thoughts in his head. I just have no other option, I have no way of saving him I’m lost and scared for his life. I don’t want to bury my big brother. I want to grow with him and have families to get together one day. I can’t lose him, he’s the only reason I made it out in the first place. It hurts I can’t do the same for him, it’s just not enough.
It took me a really long time to finally want to do this, but its so hard everyday to watch my father nod out always getting up to put his ciggerettes out so he wont burn his boat down or himself, and I say boat because when my mother passed away from cancer in 2009 hes just gone down hill, I feel hes given up and is ready to be with her. His addiction has been my ehole life me and my 2 brothers, my older brother and I both have kids, his grandkids and my brother will not let him see the kids, he doesn’t call him check on him nothing and it kills my father but deep down my dad knows why and yet does nothing. He has had this addiction for over 27years he spend atleast 2500 a week maybe more. I think the worst thing I go thru is when he starts to nod is me constantly check g to make sure hes alive. And im so sick of crying everyday and hurting and the worst part is because of him and his use I got curious and i started to use ive been clean for over 5 months and will never go back to it. And I just want my family back. I’m sad to hear him talk about how he doesn’t even know his grand kids. Now hes got health problems going on and wont do anything about them because hes scared of being in the hospital and wont be able to use. I think the best thing for him is an intervention so he can hear my family tell him our pain. My grandmother his mom his brother and sisters my brothers we all are hurting and we just want our father back. All he does all day is get high and lay on the couch and rots away and burns himself and everything around him. I have my own family and my own life and im worried when hes alone if hes alive or if hes gunna set fire to everything. Please help me and my family get my dad help. 27 years on heroin is to long hes going to die and I think he will get help if he hears how much pain hes causing our family.
Thank you
Hello,
My family needs help for my nephew. He is 26 years old and has been homeless off & on since the age of 18. He has recently been homeless since I had to ask him to leave my home due to his drinking and drug use. Alex is homeless, lives in his car that does not run. We live in NH where it can get below zero in the winter. He does not care. He doesn’t shower or take care of himself. He now doesn’t have a phone and has no contact with his family. He is very angry. I think he needs apologies from his parents for not being there for him. He needs to heal. I’m afraid he will end up in jail or dead if he doesn’t get help. No one in the family can let him live with them. He doesn’t go by any home rules and drinks & does drugs no matter what. He will keep pushing and breaking rules until he is kicked out. I could go on and on. I would really like the opportunity to get an intervention with him to possibly save his life. His family needs to own some responsibility for not realizing he needed help when he did. He was lost as a teenager. Please please help us help him.
My Dad is addicted to Dope he use to be my bestfriend but, he’s been using drug’s since before I was born and I’m 27 years old old now. He’s going on 52 years old this year and his addiction and behavior has gotten so much worse he had a picline in his back when I waa 16 because of bacteria build up at the end of his spine and almost died I really don’t believe he will cooperate willingly especially being on an intervention show he has too much pride to get help publicly!!!
Hi I’m looking for an intervention for my husband who’s an alcoholic and his brother who is a meth addict and alcoholic.