What is an Intervention?

Intervention has been defined in various ways by various people, since the concept was introduced about 50 years ago. Originally, interventions were oriented around confrontation and surrender; telling the addict how his destructive behavior was affecting the family, listing his wrongdoings, and giving the addict an ultimatum as a means of motivation and forcing him to eventually “give in” to the demands of the family. Many of these earlier models, some still in practice, insist that an addict must admit to having a problem, and to his need for help, as a measure of intervention success. These models, however common their practice, have left behind a legacy of as much wreckage as they attempt to solve.

Modern day professionals are apt to say that an intervention should be oriented around the love of the family, and designed to reach the part of the addict that wants to get better, while at the same time shutting down resources so that the person is essentially left with one solution, a way out, which is giving treatment a try. I agree with this approach more or less, when it is assisted by an experienced professional.

The sole purpose of an intervention is to guide the family, the circumstances, and the addict to make his own, personal choice to enter treatment, without force, humiliation, or intimidation.

Of course, this is vastly easier and much more quickly achieved with the help of a professional interventionist. Having an objective, experienced observer provides a sounding board for the family, a neutral dumping ground, as well as a “safe” terminal for the addict. A seasoned professional can direct you, and the rest of the family, minute by minute when necessary, through the labyrinth of the addiction to get the person into treatment.

It is equally important to talk about what an intervention is not , since there are a lot of ideas floating around. For example, an intervention is not a “wake up call” to get the person to realize he has a problem, and to get him looking for answers. Addicts know they have a problem, even though they lie about it in one way or another, and if you give them the task of “researching places to get help,” then you will really be in for a treat. The reason you're having the intervention is because the individual is not ethical or honest or making good decisions, so the ethic has to be forced in and the decision needs to be made by the people who know the addict, what he will like in a facility once he's there, and what will actually work, not what the addict wants to do.

Further, an intervention is not a time to get the person to admit to having a problem. This idea is usually the result of the family's desire to get control of the person, or for some sort of emotional payoff or satisfaction on the part of the family. But admitting something to one's mother is the absolute last thing an addict wants to do. It's humiliating. It should not be a requirement or prerequisite to go to treatment. If the person goes to treatment, it should not matter what he admits to his family, and whatever he admits, or doesn't admit, to his family should not be considered a measure of how badly he actually wants help.

Also, an intervention should never be a confrontation. Confronting someone who is already combative or isolated or hostile is the quickest way to get things undone and usually just results in worsening the situation.

In summary, an intervention is not a wake-up call. It is not a stand-alone event. An intervention, by design, is a means to an end, a way to get a person into treatment. A person does not need a wakeup call, he knows he has a problem, although he may not be admitting it to you. So an intervention is not a time to “open his eyes to the realities of what he's doing.” His eyes are already open – he knows it even though he may not be saying it, but he knows it. The intervention, in other words, is not therapy . An intervention is a way to get something done, to get the person through the front doors of treatment willingly and quickly.

Back to Top »

If we can't get them to get help, why should we believe that an interventionist (a "stranger") could do any better?

The most obvious answer is that because you are family, you are already working at a severe disadvantage. The person already has habits with the family, ways of controlling people. He knows what buttons to push. He knows everyone's history, whose sheets to pull and how to manipulate the group through crisis.

An interventionist has an exterior vantage point that the family has long since lost. As a result, the interventionist can get the family onto a game plan, taking into consideration each person's individual truth . While a family, working within its own confines, often just argues about whose plan is best, or will end up executing plans of their own without informing anyone.

Also, people have an emotional history with other family members, and so they will get off course and not give it another thought. With an interventionist, you have someone who's your point person, keeping the goal and the strategy alive, working and in plain view, no matter how muddy the water may get.

An interventionist should also be someone who has experience with addiction, ideally. My best recommendation is not to hire a therapist or a doctor or a psychiatrist who thinks he knows how to do an intervention because he has read a book on it somewhere or has “done some interventions.” Always get references! The ideal candidate is someone who's actually been there, and can talk to the person from personal experience. This is what reaches the addict, and this is why I succeed, time after time. Not because of the books I've read or the certifications I have, but because I have an intimate history with just about every drug, over many years of use, and in many different circumstances.

A lot of families keep coming up with new conversations to throw at the addict, believing that this new conversation will be different: if we do this it will be different, if we say this meaningful sentence, this profound phrase, if we bring his attention to this consequence, that the addict will have the correct realization at last, see the error of his ways and will go into treatment. That, sadly enough, is what families get locked into, doing it over and over. Same endeavor, different script, same results.

If you are considering hiring an interventionist, then my advice is this: don't experiment on your own, stabbing in the dark with last-ditch efforts, and then when everything is totally screwed up, in chaos or worse, you call the interventionist. An interventionist can work best when he can put as many of his cards on the table as possible. You don't want to undermine everything the interventionist is truly capable of doing by playing the cards before he can play them as part of a larger strategy. Let the interventionist play the cards from the start. Let him orchestrate things.

Back to Top »

Does a person need to admit he has a problem before he can be helped?

Absolutely not.

Ironically, this is something that causes a lot of interventions to bog down – when the family becomes focused on getting an admission from the addict, as opposed to focusing on getting him into treatment. These are not the same things! Even if the person admits he has a problem, because he is in the middle of an active addiction, his story is going to change the next day, if not in the next hour!

Bigger picture realizations can and will come after he is in treatment, when he is off drugs and beginning to get back into control of his life again. Then he can realize these things. The most important thing is that the addict eventually realizes these things for himself , not whether he admits something to his family under duress.

In large part, I think the reason people believe that an admission, or submission, is a necessary part of an effective intervention is simply because the idea was popularized in the 50's and 60's. The postulate was that if a person does not admit to having a problem, then he does not know he has a problem. But this was, and is, complete nonsense. Simply because the addict doesn't admit something to you doesn't mean that in his heart he is not completely miserable and unhappy and wants change.

For example, I myself denied, denied, and denied that my problem was as bad as it was, to my family and anyone else for that matter. This did not mean however, that I was not acutely aware that I had a very serious problem. If my family had originally expected that through some heartfelt dialogue with them that I would have some big picture realization and tell them all about it – well, all I can say is, “good luck with that,” if that is your agenda. It's a nice fantasy, and a common one, but if your goal is to get the addict into treatment, then I suggest hiring an experienced professional who will get the job done, regardless of what the person admits along the way.

Back to Top »

Is it important to understand the mechanics of the addiction?

Understanding the mechanics of addiction, the patterns, the reasons why, can become an obsession for those in search of answers for their loved one. Some families continue to “prove” that the addiction exists, again and again, determined to find clues like paraphernalia or phone records, even going so far as to put GPS systems on the addict's vehicle to track his movements.

Parents and relatives of addicts will search for answers from doctors, books and friends, in search of some explanation for why their loved one is doing the things he is doing.

But, proving something that you already know, or trying to understand an addiction that even most addicts themselves do not understand, is not a good use of time or energy, if you what you do know is that the person needs treatment. If you are determined to get someone into residential treatment, then give yourself permission to stop proving that the problem exists. If you know then you know. And, if you aren't sure there is a problem then you certainly should not be looking into an intervention, since interventions are not a process of discovery, but a means to an end.

Even with ultimate proof or understanding, your goal will be the same; how can we get this person into treatment, and how can we get him in now?

Understanding what things the addiction will present during an intervention is a little different, which is why it's important to have an interventionist who has struggled with addiction themselves, ideally. A therapist will not be able to predict addictive behavior a fraction as well as an experienced addict, no matter how many books they've studied. Working with me, a family will gain a lot of clarity in terms of what to expect, why it will happen, what the person's thinking is, etc., but it will all relate to getting one thing done; getting the person to agree to go to treatment, getting him on the plane and through the front doors of the facility successfully.

Back to Top »

What if one or more key family members is still enabling, denying, or very uncertain about the intervention?

In fact, that is usually the case when I begin. The intervention is often more about key family members than it is about the addict, just as the treatment is more about the person himself than the drugs. The intervention calls I get usually go like this:

“There is a severe drug problem, but there is one member of the family who keeps enabling him.”

So the key thing is to get most of the people on board. If you need to handle somebody who is enabling the addict, and you believe that person might be difficult to handle, hire the interventionist first , and let the interventionist handle the person who is enabling, not leaving it up to the family members who have been unsuccessful up to this point.

This is really not much of a stumbling block, ultimately, because even if a person is enabling, usually what he is lacking is not the ability to shut the door, because he could do that, but usually the person is lacking a complete solution for himself.

Each person in an intervention needs a complete solution for himself, as much as the addict needs a complete solution in terms of treatment. The addict needs treatment, but a mother, a father, an aunt, an uncle, also needs a complete solution in terms of a door to open to a way out for the addict, so that family member can shut the doors he needs to shut.

It is unreasonable to expect a parent to shut the door on his child, a grandfather to shut the door on his grandson, as a solution , because in reality that's no solution at all! That's just a way of kicking the addict down, and it's based on the whole fantasy that the addict will eventually submit or “hit bottom.” If you subscribe to that philosophy – that you will make the addict suffer until he hits bottom – then you will probably end up with a dead addict on your hands: Dead, in jail or in the hospital.

So, the enabler needs a solution as well, and what I do is provide that for each individual. Because ultimately, it's not that people don't want to help the addict, it's that they don't know how.

Back to Top »

What about legal issues, or involving the law?

Note: This section is a recounting of my experiences in the course of doing interventions only, and is in no way intended as legal advice. One should always consult with an attorney for advice regarding any legal matter.

If there are court dates, my rule of thumb, based on quite a few experiences with the courts, is that physically being in treatment needs to happen without involving the courts or probation department at all beforehand. If the person has to jump parole, probation, move out of state to go to treatment, then fine – get him into treatment first and inform the court system after .

The main qualifiers in this piece of advice are: that the facility you are using is fully licensed and could qualify as “diversion” or “alternative sentencing” in the eyes of the court (the staff at the facility will know if it can or can't), and that the person will not become a fugitive from the law. The latter does not include misdemeanor warrants, pending court cases, persons who are on probation or parole, or exaggerated or unfounded fear within the family.

Fear of the court system is what usually tangles people up on this one, such as images of your loved one being hauled off to jail for missing court to go to treatment, or some such scenario.

If you attempt to “use the system” to your advantage, however, you will inevitably end up in a bunch of red tape, warnings from a probation officer to “stick to the program outlined by the court,” hearings that don't go anywhere, or which lead to entirely the wrong destination. Unless you have a guarantee , from the District Attorney , that the private pay facility you have chosen will be on the judge's desk as the alternative, then the courts are not going to be your friend.

As an example, let's say the addict has a court date coming up. Do we wait for that? Absolutely not . Get him into treatment first , let the facility inform the courts after . The courts are much more friendly toward individuals who are in treatment . If the person is not in treatment but is talking about treatment, that is not as good. The individual tells the court, “Well, I'm planning on going to treatment this week.” The judge says, “That's great, but what have you done for me lately?” The judge will not work with an offender on the basis of future plans.

I've learned over the years not to depend on the courts for anything, as you can probably tell. One should never expect that, if someone gets arrested, the court will mandate him into a treatment center of your choosing. It just doesn't work that way, and if you think your case will be an exception, that somehow the judge will earnestly listen to the option that you have so painstakingly put together for the person, and then sentence him to it, then you are in for a rude awakening.

However, if a treatment facility representative contacts the court and says, “We have Johnny in treatment ,” then things usually change. The judge will “continue the case” and will most likely wait for the addict to graduate. There are exceptions, such as in the case that you are a close personal friend with the judge or D.A. This is not uncommon in small towns. In these rare instances all deals should be made before the court dates come around.

So don't count on the courts for anything. Get the person into treatment, regardless of what court dates he has. In fact, this is often a good leverage point when the person has a court date coming up. You can tell the addict, “Forget the court date, forget pissing in a cup each week, forget going to your probation officer or some lame-ass government funded program, All you have to do is agree go to this great place we have ready for you.” Again, this works as long as the treatment facility can qualify as diversion or alternative sentencing. I must qualify this by saying that if you're getting him into some little, lightweight, nothing program that's not licensed and doesn't qualify, then this would be an error.

I had three pending felonies myself, including drug trafficking, felony possession, felony possession for sale and misdemeanor possession. The court started out by sentencing me to four AA meetings a week plus “counseling,” which was no more than a “hello” to my P.O. each week (it took all of five minutes). The A.A. meeting signatures I was required to provide I simply forged. Not only that, but I had a whole new list of excuses (given to me by the judge, no less), as to why I didn't need to go to the residential treatment my family had researched and was willing to provide, in light of the mandated “treatment” given to me by the court. So be careful what you ask for when it comes to our court system, because you just might get it.

So don't count on the courts to do your work for you, because they won't – it won't happen. Don't be afraid to get someone into treatment who has pending court cases.

More on Legal Issues

Trying to get people busted, like the dealers or the addict, is a really bad idea except in very unusual or extreme cases, and then you should really have an interventionist guide you through the steps. You need to be careful what you wish for when it comes to the law. If you're trying to get dealers busted (and a lot of mothers and fathers, wives and husbands will know what I'm talking about), you will end up with a lot of enemies you don't want, and usually the addict is not an idiot and will realize what's happening. You will end up with a bigger rift between you and the addict, and less of a chance of getting him onto the right road, even though you may be getting a big emotional payoff by trying to get people arrested.

Another thing is that cops don't go run around at your beck and call. There are drug enforcement departments, and they only do things on actual intelligence, not based on some freaked out parent telling them that there's drug use. If the police can't prove it, they don't go pushing people around because the guy's mother told on him. They don't go arresting people because you say there's drug use, they don't go kicking in doors simply because you gave them a “hot” tip. They get tips all the time , they hear from freaked out parents all the time . So if your goal is to get the person into treatment, then focus on that . Get the person better. Don't focus on the dealers, or deal with them later.

Back to Top »

What if we suspect psychological problems?

Both my family and I suspected I had psychological problems during my own addiction. Plus the fact the various doctors confirmed our fears with diagnosis of everything from manic depression to “schizophrenic tendencies.” The fact was that my behavior (as is the case with almost every addict I've ever met who's actively using, especially in an advanced addiction), looked a lot like manic depression or bipolar disorder. I was going way up, way down, I had massive episodes of depression or isolation, and I couldn't define the cause.

If you talk to most psychiatrists about that kind of behavior, just like I did so many times along the way, he will probably tell you that it is likely the “illness of depression” or the “illness of a chemical imbalance.” A lot of parents and loved ones will buy into this because at the time, it seems like such an easy answer.

But in today's medical world, it is absolutely to the benefit, and enormous profit of the pharmaceutical companies (and the doctor) to diagnose a person with an “illness” because he can't figure out the exact cause of the depression, and to give him a lifetime prescription of a neurological drug, as opposed to actually getting down to the cause, events and behavior of the depression or anxiety itself. That's much harder of course, but it leads to an entirely different place - actual freedom from the depression and anxiety, symptoms and cause. Go figure.

I had been on Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Wellbutrin and everything else under the sun, and I realized that until I took the uphill road and actually cleaned up the past behavior, and the events, and deal with what's actually causing the depression, all I was doing was masking or dulling, not only my depression, but all my other emotions as well with those medications. The drugs don't make you happy. Trust me. They just dull your emotions and give you an excuse not to deal with the underlying cause. Easy? Maybe not such an easy answer as you might want to believe.

I'm not suggesting that every addiction is misdiagnosed as depression. What I'm saying is to be very, very wary, perhaps of your own tendency, to buy into the latest ideology that these pills, these neurological drugs can “fix” depression or anxiety. What I would suggest is get the person handled first, through good cognitive behavioral therapy, or a long-term treatment program where the person is actually dealing with the cause, events and behavior of addiction. Then later, after that has taken place, if there is an obvious psychological issue, an obvious psychiatric illness, then deal with that at that time, but not until the person has gone through a lot of therapy to handle all the years of pain and guilt and dishonesty and their resulting emotional state.

Usually the addict has been binge eating as well, or not eating at all. In either case he is eating entirely the wrong stuff, usually just junk food. So physically he will be in bad shape. Between the eating habits and the drugs, there will be nutritional deficiencies that can also contribute to emotional and psychological issues.

I believe that it is entirely irresponsible to take a person who has been on a horrendous diet, taking a bunch of drugs, lying and stealing and being dishonest for years, and to plop him down in front of a psychiatrist and ask, “What does this condition resemble?” and then for that psychiatrist to prescribe him a medication based on the idea of an imbalance. Of course he has a friggin imbalance. The guy's a drug addict/alcoholic. Of course he's all messed up. What did you expect? My prescription for a long standing addiction is that it takes months of work to fix years of emotional damage.

Back to Top »

What if there are medical issues?

This section is not intended as medical advice. For medical advice you should always consult with a doctor.

I have done interventions where extreme physical conditions have existed: one man had gangrene in both legs as a result of being immobile while he was smoking his crack. But we got him into treatment first off. He was handled by the medical staff at the facility, and his physical condition immediately improved as a result of their treatment. Not only that, because we had focused on treatment and not the medical condition, he subsequently started addiction recovery immediately.

I can't tell you how many interventions I've done where the person has been severely malnourished, emaciated, deficient, looking like a skeleton or a dead blimp. Extreme alcohol dependency for example results in vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding from various places, all of that. Usually that clears up though once the person is detoxed and through some of the treatment. The thing not to do is to go to a hospital first, except in the case of a life threatening emergency that cannot be handled at the treatment center's medical facility, because that just delays treatment and you'll bog down with doctor appointments and the struggle to get the addict to them. Any treatment center that's worth its salt will first have the addict see a doctor. So get them into treatment – that's the rule. Get them into treatment. They can go to the hospital there.

Don't approach it as a way to get the addict or alcoholic to “realize how bad it really is.”. Some family members (the mother, husband, wife) will try to get the addict to a medical facility as a wake up call – “Oh well, once he realizes how much the alcohol is damaging his liver, he will want to go to treatment.” Bullshit. He won't want to go to treatment any more than he did before he got there! So if you think that this will somehow wake him up and he will say, “Oh my God! I didn't realize what was happening to me,” it just won't happen, because the person does not have an objective, ethical perspective on himself any more than he has that perspective on the world. So just get him into treatment.

Back to Top »

What is the role of the children?

It depends on their age, of course, as to whether they would be an active part of a family meeting. It's a fairly loaded question, because children can be used as leverage, and should be used as leverage to get a person into treatment. You shouldn't be afraid to do the right thing based on things that are real, like children.

Keeping a child with an addict is much more destructive than using a child as leverage to get that person help.

Now, in terms of children who aware of the problem and who are old enough to be a part of the intervention, it's very important to keep their role as loving children, and asking their parent to get help, or to do what the family is asking him to do. I have seen interventions turn on the words of a child. You just must make sure the child has a feeling of security and safety throughout the process, that you are doing something that is loving, not doing something to harm the parent – that you are doing something to get the parent better so he can come back and be a better parent.

You don't want to push a child, of course to do something he doesn't want to do, but I will say this: I have never met a child yet who ultimately didn't want to help his parent.

Back to Top »

How does your fee compare to other interventionists' fees?

If you are shopping around, you will see fees ranging from around fifteen hundred all the way up to ten thousand dollars for an intervention. Within a certain range you definitely get what you pay for.

Watch out for interventionists, and there are many, many of them out there, who say that the intervention will take one, maybe two days. I would be very, very suspicious of that interventionist's success rate. A lot of interventionists are formula-oriented as opposed to taking the time to customize each intervention and to take the steps to play them through.

It is important to be able to get references from an interventionist –phone numbers of parents or treatment graduates that you can actually speak to. Any interventionist worth his salt will have clients who would be willing to talk to you directly. Ideally, clients he has worked with in the past 60 days.

I charge what I charge because of the amount of time and amount of heart and soul that I put into every intervention that I do. In fact, many of my clients have commented that I undercharge for the amount of time and investment that I put into my interventions. But, I charge what I think is reasonable for what I provide in terms of time, experience, professionalism and outcome. Some of my interventions do only take a couple of days, but some of them take a week. That's why I charge one fee. I figure it all comes out in the wash. And if the addict does not go into treatment, I will continue to work with the family.

With me, you are also investing in someone who has many years of experience with many different drugs and treatment facilities from first hand experience, as well as being a Certified Drug Counselor by the NAFC, NADAAC, and CADAAC, the national accreditation organizations for drug addiction and alcoholism. If you want to hire a doctor or therapist and hope he knows what he's doing, that's fine. But I spent 25 years on the street learning about addiction, as opposed to learning theory from a book or from someone else's experiences, which is why my success rate is as high as it is. 80% or more of my interventions result in the person going to treatment immediately. This is what you are investing in.

Back to Top »

Do you only work with certain facilities?

Yes. I only work with facilities that I believe in, in terms of their philosophy, their balance, their ethic, their history, their success, and the appropriateness for the person you're trying to get in.

I am open to working with any facility with a good philosophy and proven track record of success as long as it is longer than a 28-day program; in other words, as long as it is a long enough time and a good enough process to have real hope of getting the person better, and as long as it's comfortable and aesthetic enough so that the person can be happy there, and not a form of punishment the family wants to dish out.

There are many 12-step programs that combine “psychiatric therapies” in conjunction with their programs, which usually means a lifetime supply of some neurological drug after one or two visits to their doctor. I was the subject of about four different psychiatric medications during my 20 or so years as an addict, and ultimately I learned a valuable lesson when I finally did get straight and honest and happy, which is this; you can medicate the symptoms of depression all you want, but until you deal with past behavior, with the actual reasons and events that are creating the depression (not always immediately discernable) – until you do the actual work that is necessary, then the medications are just going to dull you to your emotions. For many, myself included, this can seem like such an easy answer at the time. But the fact is that you can't repair emotional scars with a pill. You have to actually do the work to face and deal with your past. I prefer to work with facilities that share that belief as well.

Back to Top »

What about choosing a treatment facility?

First, there needs to be a destination before an intervention can take place.

Having said that, it's important to pick a facility that will work for the person. The philosophy is the most important thing of course, but you want somewhere where the aesthetic is welcoming and comfy, where the person will be happy to stay once they get there.

Some things that get in the way of this: Siblings or relatives who have been hurt – “Why are we sending him to that nice place when we can send him to this harder place that he deserves ?” It's understandable that there are some difficult emotions involved, but if you want the person to succeed, then get him into a place where he can thrive, and where he'll be happy. Then you'll have a much better chance of him succeeding and following through and be able to make the repairs he needs to make in life.

I never recommend 28-day programs and will not do an intervention that is leading to one. Twenty-eight days, in my opinion and experience, is simply not enough time to address the vast array of work that an individual needs to do as the result of a long-standing addiction and all the behavior, damage, and repair that needs to be handled.

It's important to include in this answer the fact that advanced addiction tends to look a lot like manic depression or bipolar disorder, even though it really isn't. The depression and hostility, the “manic” patterns, 99.9% of the time, are the result of all the dishonesty, the guilt, depression and anger that has built up over the life of the addiction, combined with a brilliant, bright spirit inside, not the result of an imbalance, though many doctors would have you believe you otherwise in order to peddle a lifetime supply of medication from the ever-vigilant pharmaceutical companies. So, watch out for facilities that combine “prescription therapy” with their treatment of addiction. The likelihood is that the individual should take an uphill road and actually face and deal with the events and past behavior that are the framework of his current situation, as opposed to medicating the symptoms with neurological drugs.

These days there are some non-traditional programs that are extremely effective in getting people up and out of drugs, but the important thing is that you pick a place that the individual would pick were he in his right mind.

Some other things to consider when searching for a facility: don't tell one treatment center what other treatment centers you are looking at, because in all likelihood they will shoot down the others, and you'll end up confused and questioning all of them. The admissions person's job is to get your addict into their center. The likelihood is that the admissions person is a graduate of that program, and feels that recovery revolves around their philosophy, because that's what worked for them. So you need to take everything with a grain of salt. A facility should be able to stand on its own accolades, without having to shoot down other philosophies.

A facility should also be able to provide references. You are not dealing with a doctor-patient relationship, so the “patient privacy” line is bull if that's what they tell you. If a facility cannot provide you references, I say move on because there are plenty who can. They should be able to provide you names and phones numbers of graduates or relatives of graduates who are willing to vouch for the program.

Back to Top »

Can we have the person committed, or force the addict into treatment?

First, there is no facility that can legally lock a person up against his will.

Second, regarding having a person committed, if you think it through and investigate it, you will soon realize that you would need to get a judge to review a psychiatric evaluation of the individual that has determined that he is unable to make decisions for himself. Although it may appear this way to a mother or father or brother, convincing a psychiatrist of that, who is not necessarily on your side, but is on the side of the court, is a whole different matter.

In some extremely rare cases you might be able to get someone committed, but it will not be to your program of choice. The court will commit him to an insane asylum or to a mental health hospital if it is determined that the person is unable to think for himself, which is absolutely not what the person needs. Even though you would like to take control away from this person who is in this self-destructive mode, according to the laws of this country, that is not your right, however much you may care for the individual.

If you are reading this and thinking that there is no way that the addict will go to treatment on his own, let me just say that this is exactly what I deal with in every case I handle . In eight out of every ten interventions, the unwilling person becomes willing and successfully enters treatment.

A note about addicts who manifest extremely delusional behavior: About 90% of the time, they are manifesting those delusions mainly around their parents or loved ones. If you observe them in another situation, you probably won't see that same level of delusion. Yes, it's a manipulation. How pre-meditated is it? That's difficult to say. It may be very pre-meditated, or it may simply be a habit borne out of necessity, and which has evolved because it has gotten results.

Back to Top »

Do you take them to treatment?

Escorting the person to treatment is included in my fee. Having said that, it may not end up that the addict will want to go with me. The best scenario is that the addict will go with the person he is most comfortable with, as long as it isn't an obvious bad choice.

For example, Mom wants to take him to treatment, and he wants to go with Mom. But everybody knows that he will shoot her down because he doesn't really want to go to treatment, so he says, “I will go in with you, Mom,” and he will work on her the whole time, the whole ten hours of flight or driving, trying to wear her down, make her doubt her decision, all to get out of going. So that's a bad choice.

Other than that, if he wants to go with a brother or a sister, for example, if the relationship is good and solid – and what I mean is that if the relationship is such that the addict can arrive in an objective, emotionally undisturbed state, then that's a good choice. If however, there's a chance that the addict will be emotionally upset by the person accompanying him, then figure something else out.

If the addict wants to go in alone, insists on going in alone, then what I do is work on a gradient, giving him the benefit of the doubt initially, saying, “Okay, that's how you want to go, then go in that way.” That way, he owns his process, he's doing it his way, and that can be priceless.

The bottom line here is that you want the person to feel as much in control as possible, without everyone breathing down his neck every step of the way. When you push, you lose, and that's why people usually want to travel with me. I keep things extremely relaxed and easy, letting the individual do whatever he needs to do along the way – being his best friend for the trip.

Back to Top »