dasiydoc

Since I have been reading here on the forum I dont think I have heard any family members talk about the use of Interventions to help addicted loved ones. I ran across this article written by Jordan, an advocate for Heroes in Recovery, and thought I would share it with all here:

Intervention - Hitting Bottom

There is a concept in recovery that a person is not going to come out of his addiction until he is ready. There is another concept in recovery that no one enters into recovery until he has hit bottom. These are two commonly accepted concepts. Believing in these concepts leads to the question, “At what point will a person decide he has reached bottom and be willing to make a change?”

To answer this question, one must examine what someone would consider “hitting bottom.” Hitting bottom is not the same for everyone. For some people, hitting bottom can be a bad hangover, doing poorly on an exam or just feeling ashamed for displaying some embarrassing behavior. For others, hitting bottom can be much worse. There can be severe consequences, such as damaged relationships, legal problems, health problems, money problems or loss of job. For others, these things aren’t even enough. They may become incarcerated, cause the death of someone else or cause their own death. Oftentimes, families feel powerless as they watch a person struggle through life, reaching points that would make a normal person cry out for change. Yet the only things that change are the behaviors, which become worse, and the consequences, which become more severe. When families reach this point, they often ask themselves how low they will allow their loved ones to fall before they do something.

One of the most successful ways to help someone from falling too low is to seek out the help of someone who can do for the addict what the addict cannot or will not do for himself. The term “intervention” is one that most people are familiar with but may not truly understand. Most families hear the term and are scared off because they fear it is too severe, it won’t work or the addict will just drift away from them because he is angry that they attempted an intervention. I have worked with hundreds of families in situations as previously described. From my experience, the determining factor in whether the addict achieves sobriety is the family’s commitment to the addict making the change, not the addict’s initial attitude. Once the family has decided they’ve had enough, they will take whatever measures necessary to help their loved one and they seek help from a professional, the whole dynamic changes. Bringing in a professional to assist with an intervention helps the family learn to support the addict in recovery, rather than enabling his addiction. The whole process is facilitated by a professional with training and experience. This person can help the family learn ways to strategically reach the addict on emotional levels that ignite a change before he actually hits whatever his bottom may be.

By the time most families reach the point that they are seeking the help of an outside organization or individual, they may feel that nothing will work. They don’t feel that anything can be done. The number of lives that have been saved from situations this bleak are numerous. The only explanation I can give is that there is a higher power that intervenes and allows the right words or the right actions to take place.

Families can pray for a resolution to their addict’s problem and may not be able to recognize the solution that is staring them in the face. It’s like the man who prayed to God for a hole but woke up disappointed and dejected when he went outside to find a shovel, not a hole. Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.” I encourage families with a struggling addict to seek help from a different perspective when they feel helpless because nothing they have tried has worked. Strength and help are available if you are willing to receive it and use the shovel given to you.