Coping with addiction can be a monumental task. However, involving close family members or friends has chances of success. This is referred to as intervention. There are different intervention strategies for someone with substance abuse and addiction.
This method comes with a different approach and is tailored to meet specific needs. Continue reading to learn more about these intervention strategies.
What is an Intervention?
An intervention is a careful process planned by the family members or friends and a licensed counselor or a person addicted to drugs or alcohol. This process aims to confront someone dealing with substance abuse, educate them about the consequences of addiction, and accept treatment.
The intervention usually includes the following:
- Provide specific destructive behaviors examples and how they impact the affected person, you, and the close friends
- Offer a prearranged treatment with clear steps, guidelines, and goals to achieve
Please note that the intervention should focus on positive aspects. However, the target person should understand that their addiction affects their close family members, friends, and coworkers. The point is to avoid blaming them for preventing self-harm. Once you’ve decided what to do, you can take the following steps for the process to be successful.
Steps Involved in An Intervention
There are crucial steps you need to take during an intervention. These steps involve:
Getting Help
This involves contacting a professional social worker, doctor, or interventionist. You can also seek help from close friends and relatives. Find enough support that can help you convince the affected person.
Form an Intervention Team
An intervention team refers to a group of organizers that may or may not necessarily need to include an interventionist. You can include close family members, coworkers, or friends in the intervention team. Anyone struggling with addiction or substance abuse should not be part of the team.
Create a Plan
Your plan should include the specific location, time of the day, and guest list of the intervention. You should also develop a detailed outline of how your process will work.
Gather Enough Information
You need to be aware of the specific drugs your loved one is abusing, their addiction, and their recovery. You should also have enough information about the detox and rehab programs available for a person with the personality and needs of your target person.
Write Impact Statements
Every intervention team member should have something they can say about the target person’s struggles with addiction. These are personal statements highlighting how the target person has been affected by their dependency on drugs. Keep these statements emotionally honest and focused on love.
Offer Your Help
Members of an intervention team should be willing to support their loved ones in some way while going through rehab or detox. Examples include attending their support therapy and offering to take them to their treatment.
These are generally the steps involved in an intervention. Other procedures include:
- Setting boundaries.
- Rehearsing what you will say.
- Learning how to manage your expectations.
Now let’s focus on the types of intervention strategies available.
Types of Intervention Strategies
It’s essential to learn the specific types of intervention strategies. This helps determine and choose a strategy that’s best suited for your loved one. Let’s look at the most common four strategies that you can adopt:
Johnson Model
In this approach, the intervention plan and implements the confrontation of the target person. It’s recommendable to assess the target person’s social network and the likelihood of engaging other people in a group. The first session with the support group is to educate them about the dangers of the drugs, the goals of the intervention, and the problem-solving strategies that you will follow. With the final steps, the intervention team and the interventionist will plan a confrontation.
The Arise Model
Arise intervention focuses more on the person struggling with addiction family than that person. It allows the family member to actively engage in their loved one’s recovery and build positive behaviors. As the relationship strengthens, all the parties involved will create hope and resilience to overcome their recovery challenges.
The person struggling with addiction is referred to as a person of concern in this intervention model. The people who’ll participate in the intervention are referred to as “concerned others.” As the intervention begins, the group becomes an Intervention Network. This approach gives the person struggling with addiction a sense of ownership and control over their life and health.
Systemic Family Model
The Systemic Family Model is one of the intervention strategies that use a two-way, continuous conversation. The person struggling with addiction is invited to express their point of view while the intervention group members have multiple interactions until that person decides to seek treatment. This process eases the pressure to stage a single intervention and makes the recovery process collaborative.
In this intervention, the target person is involved in the conversation from its beginning. The family members of the addicted person will participate in discussions about recovery and make decisions together. This can also help build the damaged relationship that might have resulted from the target person’s addiction.
After this intervention, all parties involved will commit to therapy. The target person will join a residential recovery program, and the intervention group members will agree to participate actively in the process.
Love First Model
This model is outlined in a book known as Love First: A Family’s Guide to Intervention, authored by Jeff Jay and his wife, Debra Jay. This model typically follows the steps outlined above, with letter writing as the only exception.
With the letter writing, members of the intervention team write a letter, known as an intervention letter. The outline of the letter should be as follows:
- The first section: Contains a summary of your relationship between the writer and the target person. For instance, if you’re a friend, you can write how you two met and shared different experiences.
- The second section: Contains occurrences within the last year when the affected person’s substance abuse was an embarrassment to the writer.
- The third section: Known as the “statement of concern.” Here, you’ll outline the consequences of prolonged substance abuse and encourage that person to commit to treatment.
- The fourth section: In this last section, you will outline the consequences that might result if the target person doesn’t change their behavior.
Schedule an Intervention with Inland Detox Today
Different intervention strategies can be used to help your loved one with drug or alcohol addiction. The intervention model has proved to be a helpful strategy in drug and substance abuse treatment. The goal of your intervention is to assist the person struggling with addiction get into a treatment facility.
At Inland Detox, we will help you choose the best intervention strategy for your loved ones and help them get into our residential facilities. Contact us today and get your loved ones the help they deserve.