A Guide to the Most Effective Addiction Intervention Strategies
A drug or alcohol addiction intervention is only as good as the preparation you put into it. Understanding how these key strategies fit into an effective intervention is a vital step to achieving a successful outcome.
Understanding the Role of Addiction Interventions
Many people struggle with understanding the complexities of addiction and substance use when a loved one or close friend is in the midst of a crisis. Addiction is a chronic issue that affects the brain’s structure and function. With time, it goes on to affect almost all aspects of a person’s life and is often connected to other health issues. It does not resolve itself on its own, and staging an intervention is often a critical first step to getting the individual the help they need.
When Should You Plan an Addiction Intervention?
On the most fundamental level, an intervention is a structured conversation between the individual struggling with addiction and their family members and loved ones, guided by a professional. But how do you know when it’s time to start planning one? We put together a guide of warning signs to spot a hidden addiction, but as soon as you know addiction is the issue, it’s time to start planning an intervention with a professional.
Two Common Types of Addiction Intervention Methods
Before you start planning on intervention, it’s helpful to start with a basic understanding of the two most common approaches:
Johnson Model of Intervention
The Johnson model of intervention is the one most people are already familiar with. It’s the type of intervention commonly shown in television and movies, where family members ambush the individual into an intervention without warning. For example, staging a Johnson intervention may involve leading someone to think you’re going out to dinner, but they end up walking into a room with their family and are forced to confront the issue of addiction.
The hope of a Johnson intervention is that it will shock someone into getting the help they need and end up realizing that their darkest day was actually a turning point. Unfortunately, in practice, Johnson interventions can lead to feelings of betrayal, deception, or resentment later on. At the same time, if the individual isn’t wholeheartedly committed to getting help, they may be more likely to relapse later on.
Invitational Model of Intervention
The invitational model of intervention advocates for a much different approach than Johnson interventions. With the invitational model, you perform all the same prep work as you would for a Johnson intervention but instead of springing the intervention on the individual, you first explain the purpose of the intervention to them. You let them know that you’re holding a family meeting for them. They can choose to participate or not, and you hold the meeting with or without them. Individuals struggling with addiction often agree to participate, sometimes simply out of curiosity.
While the person may not always agree to participate in the intervention initially, the invitational model can be beneficial in the long run when families consistently uphold boundaries. Eventually, the family member recognizes their need for help, coming to terms with it on their own without being coerced into rehab.
Which Intervention Model Is Best?
It’s impossible to claim that one intervention model is better than all others because it depends on the situation. For some individuals, the Johnson model may prove more effective, while it may be counterproductive to recovery for others. For example, someone who’s at a high risk of losing their life due to addiction may need the shock of a Johnson intervention to accept help, while somebody with a traumatic past may benefit from the more open-ended approach of an invitational intervention.
Sometimes, you may even have to try a hybrid of multiple intervention models to achieve an optimal outcome. When determining which intervention models to apply with a specific individual, it’s always best to consult with a professional interventionist before confronting your loved one.
What Is the Goal of a Successful Intervention?
Many people assume that an intervention is only successful if the individual agrees to enter treatment. While one of the goals is to help the individual in crisis see the impact of their behavior and motivate them to enter treatment, that’s not the only way to measure the success of an intervention.
Other ways to measure the success of an intervention include:
- Did every family member have an opportunity to openly share their perspective of how the addiction is impacting their lives?
- Was the individual willing to listen to what others had to say?
- Did family members establish and commit to specific boundaries if certain addictive behaviors continue?
- Did each family member create an individual action plan for themselves?
Even if the individual does not agree to enter at the conclusion of the intervention, achieving any of these outcomes is still a positive sign that progress is being made and the intervention was worthwhile.
What Is the Most Important Part of an Intervention?
Surprisingly, the most important part of an intervention is not the outcome but the preparation. That’s because family members cannot control the outcome, but they can control their preparation and then commit to following through. However, their loved one is ultimately free to choose whether they want help or not.
One of the most important steps family members can take in preparing for an intervention is identifying what realistic boundaries would look like if their loved one does not accept help. The answer to this will be different for everyone, and during the preparation stage, the guidance of a professional makes all the difference in setting and following through independent of the outcome.
Do you and your family need help preparing and staging an intervention? Our team is here to help you start planning with concierge addiction intervention services.
Steps To Prepare for a Successful Intervention
As mentioned above, it’s best to go into an intervention knowing that any number of outcomes are possible. You need to have specific goals in mind, but you can also measure the success of an intervention based on criteria other than whether the person agrees to go to rehab or not. To have an effective intervention, make sure to implement these five steps into your approach.
1. Know What You’re Getting Into
You can’t improvise an intervention. As we like to say at ALYST, interventions are really just preparation. It’s all the preparation that leads up to the intervention that determines its success. The last thing you want to do in the middle of the intervention is start discussing the goals of the intervention, or not have a backup plan when all else fails.
Many people approach intervention preparation as someone else’s responsibility or assume that it’s as simple as figuring out where a loved one will go to treatment, but that’s not usually the case. Working with a professional interventionist who will take responsibility for planning and guiding the intervention is critical, but every person involved in the intervention has to be willing to perform an honest self-assessment and work on themselves leading up to the intervention.
At the same time, knowing when to stage an intervention is almost as critical as knowing how to stage an intervention. Interventions are a lot like chess. You can’t start attacking other pieces too soon, or your own pieces will end up captured. If you attack too soon, you lose the game, so a big part of success is putting the pieces in the right place and knowing when to move. Similarly, with interventions, if you jump in too soon, you won’t make any progress or successfully address the addiction.
With that understanding, one of the best places to start preparing for an intervention is by setting realistic boundaries.
2. Set Realistic Boundaries
Leading up to an intervention, boundaries are the most significant area that requires preparation. If family members draw boundaries but don’t follow through on consequences when they get crossed, it reinforces to the addict that these boundaries mean nothing.
It’s a common pitfall for family members to draw extremely hard lines that they won’t actually follow through on. For example, a wife may threaten divorce, a father may use money as an ultimatum, or a sibling may warn about calling the police. However, if the person struggling with addiction continues to use and nobody follows through on the consequences, you’re essentially telling them it doesn’t matter, and they can continue using.
That’s why family members should never draw boundaries they can’t uphold. Honest self-reflection and personal improvement both help determine the boundaries and repercussions prior to the intervention. Family members have to be honest and realistic about the expectations they can establish and uphold with the person they care about, or they may end up doing more harm than good.
By setting realistic boundaries leading up to the intervention, each person has time to reflect on what behavior they’re willing to tolerate and what they’re willing and can do to stop any behavior they consider unacceptable. In our experience, the more committed family members are to establishing and upholding realistic boundaries, the more likely their loved one is to achieve sustainable sobriety.
3. Define Family Support
As much as family members may feel like it’s the problem of another family member, addiction is a family issue, and it’s the family’s responsibility to be part of the solution. In our experience, family support is fundamental to a loved one’s sobriety.
On top of setting realistic boundaries, supporting a loved one also requires upholding those boundaries and following through on consequences when they’re crossed. The good news is that planning and coordinating an intervention is an ongoing process that doesn’t happen overnight.
With the right intervention team, every family member learns how to draw and uphold boundaries in a productive way, and is supported in that endeavor. If a family member isn’t open to addiction education, intervention training, or personal improvement, they most likely aren’t ready to be a productive member of the intervention team.
Ultimately, family members need to embody an attitude toward their loved one that sounds something like, “Listen, you’re out of my control. I’m not here to tell you what to do. I’m here to support you if you want help. If you don’t, then I can’t be involved to witness your demise from the front row on the sidelines.”
While it might not always feel like support, these are the boundaries that—when they run into enough—often cause someone struggling with addiction to admit they need help.
4. Eliminate Excuses
It’s common for someone struggling with addiction to start searching for reasons for why they can’t enter treatment. Excuses can range from “Who’s going to look after my dog?” to “I can’t afford it.” Before staging an intervention, anticipate potential objections the individual may come up with to avoid treatment. Once you’ve outlined the most likely excuses, come up with a plan and counterpoints.
If the person has pets, bills to pay, dependent family members, or any other day-to-day responsibilities, make sure you set up a plan for someone to take care of these things during treatment. If you can tell them that everything’s already taken care of, you remove another roadblock to recovery and are one step closer to ushering them toward accepting help.
As we like to say, if there are any loose ends leading up to an intervention, you’re not ready. It’s always worth tying up those loose ends before staging the intervention, so you can proactively avoid excuse-making in the middle of the intervention.
5. Try Again, When All Else Fails
If it’s your first time participating in an intervention, don’t be surprised if the individual doesn’t end accepting help and entering a treatment program. Interventions don’t always end that way, particularly on the first attempt, and that’s why it’s vital to ground the success of an intervention based on outcomes other than rehab.
At the same time, just because there’s no guarantee an intervention will work the first time doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing. You have to start somewhere, and it isn’t rare for individuals to participate in three or four interventions before they’re willing to accept there’s an issue.
When interventions don’t lead to a loved one accepting help, the most important thing to remember is that doesn’t mean interventions don’t work. As mentioned above, that isn’t the only possible positive outcome of an intervention, and it may simply be that the intervention approach or the timing wasn’t right.
When intervention doesn’t work the first time, that only means it’s time to dig deeper. Past interventions can be excellent learning experiences as you plan the next intervention or decide how to uphold boundaries until the person you care about comes to terms with their addiction.
What Are the Most Effective Addiction Intervention Strategies?
When planning and staging an intervention, addiction professionals most frequently employ these strategies:
Family Therapy for Addiction Interventions
As the name suggests, family therapy involves treating the whole family, not just the individual with the addiction. When getting ready for an intervention, family therapy and preparation almost always go hand-in-hand since all family members need support to address any root issues that may contribute to the cycle of addiction.
Role of Behavior Modification in Addiction Intervention
Combined with other approaches, motivational enhancement therapy (MET) can be powerful. It employs motivational interviewing to spur individuals towards positive change, ultimately taking responsibility for their recovery.
Developing Healthy Coping Skills to Have Healthy Conversations
The key to sustaining recovery is forming healthy coping skills to deal with life’s challenges without resorting back to substance use. Interventionists may employ strategies family therapy, stress management, and anger management to keep the conversation productive. It is crucial not just for the addicted individual but also for supportive family members working hand-in-hand towards recovery.
Components of an Effective Relapse Prevention Plan
When individuals agree to accept help following an intervention, the interventionist can work with treatment teams to start developing an effective relapse prevention plan right away. An effective relapse prevention plan combines multiple strategies to ensure individuals have a resilient framework for recovery.
Relapse prevention involves adopting strategies that cater to an individual’s specific needs and vulnerabilities. Key components typically include self-care practices, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, medication (if required), continuing therapy or counseling, engagement in support groups, and access to continuous care.
Accountability in Responding to Relapses
Interventions can serve as a powerful tool for responding to the relapse of a loved one. Social support can play a major role in addiction recovery. Interventions allow relapsed individuals to share experiences, learn coping strategies, and give them a sense of belonging, all of which can be highly beneficial for maintaining sobriety.
At-Home Treatment Integration
At-home treatment programs offer services while the individual continues to live at home. These programs can include individualized therapy as well as lifestyle guidance.
Aftercare: Ensuring Continued Addiction Recovery Care
Aftercare services are an important part of the recovery process. As the name suggests, these services are provided post the initial treatment process and mainly include continued counseling, therapy, support groups, and case management.
The Role of Professional Help Following a Relapse
Recovering from addiction requires an earnest personal commitment. Combined with this, family support plays an indispensable role. Relationships can be improved, helping family members understand and better support the recovery process.
Why Continuous Evaluation and Adjustment of Recovery Strategies is Vital
Addiction recovery is a continuous process that requires regular evaluation and adjustment. Each individual reacts differently to different intervention strategies and as such, there may be a need to adjust to the unique situation. Regular post-treatment touchpoints allow personalized adjustments to continue building on the individuals’ recovery progress.
It’s important to remember that the pace of recovery should be individualized to each participant’s pace because addiction is a complex issue often rooted in a person’s personal history, lifestyle, genetics, among other factors. Due to the variability of these factors, realistic recovery timelines can look very different from individual to individual.
Navigate the Intervention Process From Home With ALYST
At ALYST, we’re committed to providing families with all the resources and tools they need to help their loved one recover from addiction at home. Whether your family member has tried rehab in the past without success or you still aren’t sure where to start with an intervention, get in touch with our team today for a confidential consultation.
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