How To Stage An Intervention For Substance Abuse: A Guide

When you find that your loved ones are struggling with addiction, it can be hard to find the right solution. If you are subtle about your approach, they might not understand the severity. At the same time, if you are aggressive, they might feel offended.

Understanding how to help some with substance use can be challenging.

You may have tried exchanging heart-to-heart thoughts and strongly encouraged them to seek addiction treatment. Or, you may have stressed out seeing a physician.

If the person has ignored all your concerns and has downplayed their relationship with substance use, it may be the time to stage an intervention.

What Is Intervention?

An intervention is a planned venture where people who care about patients organize a meeting. This meeting is attended by the family members, friends, and close relatives who really care for the patients suffering from the addiction.

The goal of this meeting is to have a conversation with the patients, share their thoughts and convince the patients to accept addiction treatment.

The success rate of properly held intervention is around 90%. Of the rest 10% of the people who don't attend the treatment on the same day, almost half of them do within the first week of the intervention.

During the intervention, these are the few things that occur.

• The intervention participants bring forth specific things that help the patients know how their behavior is hurting others around them.
• The group shows the pre-arranged addiction treatment plan to the patients and shows all the steps.
• Each participant clarifies what they will do if the patients refuse to accept the addiction treatment.

How To Stage An Intervention?

If you need to know how to stage a perfect intervention for your loved ones, we would like you to seek professional help. These professionals are experts in this field and exactly know what needs to be done.

With that being cleared out, let's get started now with the steps to stage an intervention.

Step 1: Decide Who Should Take Part On The Intervention

Remember, you want to help your loved ones. The last thing you would want them to feel is that they are being attacked or mocked. Hence, you must select the participants carefully.

Carefully select the people who are really close to the patients and would like to help you with your intervention. While selecting the individuals ensures that the individual influences the patient's life.

Try to keep the numbers as low as possible. The more the number of people, the more pressurized patients will feel.

Step 2: Prepare All The Action That You Would Take In Advance

Whether you are doing an intervention for the first or have been part of one, it is always a good idea to seek professional help. The professionals will help you with the tips and tricks to better stage your intervention.

Intervention can give rise to different emotions such as anger and deep resentment. You must be prepared to handle such a scenario.

If you are not careful enough with your actions, your strong presence can either scare your loved ones away or make them lose trust in everyone present in the intervention.

Step 3: Gather And Share As Much Information

Before you can talk with the patients, gather as much information as possible about the patient's current state. Learn about the drug they have been addicted to, know their present medical and physical condition, and all the available treatment programs to help the patients suffering from addiction.

Once the intervention is successful, you can directly initiate the process of enrolling the patients into one of the addiction treatment programs.

Step 4: Set The Guidelines Of How Participants Should Operate

As there will be many individuals present around the patients, everyone talking at the same time would create a mess. It is important that you create a guideline for the participants to follow.

For instance, the groups can talk in order, and if the patient is not feeling comfortable, they can simply shift to another participant.

However, each person who speaks should remember the following:

• Keep the talk as short as possible.
• Speak quickly before the patients lose attention.
• Talk with affection showcasing your emotions.
• Give them an ultimatum on should the patients refuse to accept treatment.

Step 5: Deliver The Ultimatum

Finally, the consequences of the patients not accepting the treatment should be laid out in the open. The ultimatum can be anything. You can warn them about their deteriorating health, being asked to move out of the home, or might lose a close and trusted friend.

The ultimate goal of the ultimatum is to let the patient know the severity of the addiction and how it affects them.

Keys To Successful Intervention

Intervention is a process where close family members, friends, and colleagues spend some quality time with the patients and help them understand the harmful effects of addiction.

We have already talked earlier about the steps to stage an intervention. But an intervention is only successful when you do it right.

Here are a few tips that will help increase the success rate of the intervention process.

Plan the intervention ahead of time.

• Time the meeting when the loved ones are less likely on drugs.
• Expect emotional failure from the patient.
• Insist on an answer.

Positive Life Changes

When you care about someone who is deeply affected by the addiction, your support can help them find the courage they need to come out of the addiction well.

Staging an intervention is just one of the practices that bridge the gap between the patients and the people who care about them.

Intervention is a challenging and nerve-racking process. In fact, you can consider this to be the last attempt to get your loved one to accept the help and comply with the addiction treatment process.

Whether you decide to stage an intervention or with the assistance of a professional, remember that intervention is the process of letting the patient accept help and bring positive changes in their life.