Hello there hellma, and pleased to "meet" you.
The concept of "bottom" has been around since before AA was started, as is the concept of "family support". "Intervention" is a little newer, it got going in the early 70's when "Employee Assistance Programs" at the large corporations started taking an active role in _proactive_ health care.
If you read the personal stories in the back of the AA "Big Book" you will see that "bottom" has nothing to do with external circumstances, finances or living conditions. Street winos get all the attention in the movies and the media, but the truth is that the overwhelming majority of people who decide to quit boozing and drinking still have a place to live and some kind of a job. "Bottom" is also refered to as a "moment of clarity". That is a moment when the alkie/druggie suddenly and unexpectedly has insight into their own behavior and where that behavior is taking them in the future. Shrinks call it "self-awareness".
What the "intervention" research has shown is that the major "enablers" of an alkie are usually the family members which pay the bills, lie to the boss and the kids, cover up to the police, etc. In order to create an artificial "moment of clarity" in the brain of an alkie, the interventionist _first_ has to create that moment in the enablers. As long as the enablers continue to enable, there really is no reason for the alkie to quit.
It is only when the alkie realizes that there are no more enablers, that all the harmful consequences of their drinking and drugging are going to come crashing down on their head, that they become aware that there is something wrong in their life. That moment is the "bottom". That moment is what the interventionist strives to acomplish.
The "support" that Ms. Jay refers to is the "switch" from enabler to non-enabler that al-anon teaches. Sometimes this is refered to as "raising the bottom". The challenge to the professional interventionist is that every person has a different level of tolerance for "bottom". Some spouses reach their "bottom" at the first public humiliation, others at the first infidelity, others at the first physical abuse. Some enablers don't reach their "bottom" until the alkie beats them into permanent physical deformity, or death.
As a general rule, the interventionist has to "bait" the enabler with soft talk that supports the enabling behavior, and very slowly educate them into the concepts of "enabling" as being harmful, and "bottom" as being helpful. Most "codies" will run if you "hit them with the truth" too early in their recovery. If you want to "raise the bottom" of a codie, you have to do it very slowly and very carefuly. It is the Higher Power that is the Professional who knows exactly the right time in life to "hit somebody with the truth". Anybody who tries to "raise a bottom" for somebody else is playing in God's schoolyard, and had better do so with a great deal of humility.
The above being the introduction to lectures I used to give long ago when I was employed as a counselor and interventionist at various hospitals in Los Angeles. I am long since retired. I am also a recovering alkie (28yrs) and a recovering codie (3yrs). No, all that experience and knowledge about co-dependency and enabling did me no good when it was my own wife that developed a pill addiction. I needed the help of other people to get me thru the tangled quick-sand of codependency.
* takes off professional hat and goes back to being just another codie in recovery *
Mike
