We did an intervention on my ABF in November. He is the type that will not listen to anything he doesn't want to hear. I knew going in that it would probably blow up in my face but I had to try. It was my last hope.
No facility I contacted had an Interventionist, and nobody knew where I could find one. I finally found an addictions counselor who had done some interventions before and the price was right...only $250.00.
I, along with ABF's boss, my daughter and my best friend (he has none) confronted him with letters we had written, all of them starting out listing his positive qualities. He did agree to go to rehab and while there was the model resident. He mentored some of the younger guys, thinking that a 53 year old man in his condition should be a deterrent to the 20+ age group (I shook my head at this one, obviously not working his OWN program). I supported him by attending the family weekends and he seemed like a totally different person. He was putting on a really good show because within 2 days of coming home (Christmas Eve) he relapsed.
The relapse was so bad that within a week he had been arrested for DUI and leaving the scene of an accident. This was something I had been praying for for months! God finally intervened and achieved the results that I could not.
He hasn't drank since the incident (that I'm aware of) and he's going to school and working every day. There is still a lot of stinkin thinkin going on in his head but the fog seems to be lifting. The sentencing is still pending and he's probably looking at 6 months in jail as well as a lifetime suspension of his license (9th DUI since 1974).
I think the Intervention worked, not initially, but now he has the education and the tools to make this work if he wants it badly enough. I don't trust the sobriety and I am still very leery of his motives. I don't believe he is working the AA program to the best of his ability (few meetings, no sponsor) and if I don't drive him then he doesn't go but I have to keep my nose out of that. He has been told exactly what my boundaries are and if he starts drinking again he will lose his job. Now the choices are his to make.