Buddy You Have A Problem - Intervention Do's and Dont's

I was watching Intervention on A&E last night, which was a repeat by the way, and the thought that was going through that head of mine is I wonder how many people try to intervene on a family member or a friend after watching this program for they make it seem so easy. Right away interventions have the potential of going very bad very quickly with results that can be much worse then the original problem.

Visualize how you would feel if you walked into a room and every single person in there was staring at you. Needless to say a lot of people would feel very anxious which tend to lead to a defensive stance so already this process is not going well and the addition of a camera crew really does not help but I would imagine is the reason a lot of people agree to it. Now the person is asked to take a seat and the moderator goes through the basic speech on how every one in this room is concerned about your welfare so they are going to tell stories on how your messing up. If it was me this is about the time I am staring at the floor preparing my reaction and not hearing a damn thing people are saying but that is me. Everyone in the room tells their story and now they want you to agree to whatever the plan is. Most people have that part of them that wants to make others happy so they agree to what ever the suggestion is. Now if this is what the person at the center of attention wanted then the chance of recovery is much greater but if the person is getting help to please others then the outcome is not so good.

What people need to keep in mind that what this show does along with most professional intervention services is that whatever the desired outcome happens to be is in place. If the family and friends want buddy in rehab then all of the paperwork and other garbage is taken care of and they are just waiting for the person to show up. If their is time between the intervention and the entering of the program it is not going to work for the last thing you want is to give the person time to think about their decision. When it comes to substance abuse the person may go off to to get drunk or high for the last time and this can be deadly for they want this time to be one to remember and the potential of overdosing goes through the roof. Bottom line here is the time between the intervention and the program needs to be as fast as possible. Buddy agrees to getting help for his substance abuse then you put him in your car and you drive straight to detox or what have you. From a Canadian perspective to get into a substance abuse program their is the initial assessment meeting and then a waiting list to get into an available program so how you can pull off a substance abuse intervention here is beyond me.

I have seen and heard about a number of behavioral interventions over the years directed at people who their family is basically tired of dealing with. From people who cry suicide every time that they don't get what they want to the person who goes from family member to family member begging for cash or a place to stay to other behaviors that are far from healthy. In these cases absolutely everyone involved needs to be on the same page or else it is not going to be effective . If the decision is to not lend money to Buddy anymore then everyone needs to stick to it as Buddy is going to look for the "weak" link to circumvent this new boundary and once one falls they all go down like dominoes. At work every time a boy threatened to hurt himself or anything close to a suicidal gesture the automatic rule was to drive him straight to the hospital with no exceptions and the staff would say "What I hear you saying is that you want to hurt your self and I can not allow that to happen so we need to go to the hospital where you will be safe" needless to say most boys would change their minds and it would be a rarity to ever come up again. Families can do the same thing as every time the person threatens to hurt them selves or do them selves in just pick up the phone and dial 911 but every member of the circle has to do the same thing as it will be tested. Once the person realizes the new concrete boundary then chances are they will find a new way to gain attention and this can be applied to most behavioral situations as once the person knows that the response to their behavior is automatic it tends to become less of a issue but consistency is the key. As a family decide on the action that you wish to be corrected then establish a rock solid response and then stick to it as it will be tested. Examples could be every time the person starts to verbally attack someone the response could be "If you wish to speak to me your going to have to calm down and talk to me like an adult" and keep repeating it till the person realizes this is the response they will get so they will go to another family member and try the same thing and hopefully get a different answer but if everyone is on the same page then the behavior will begin to diminish. By not following through your enabling the person which turns you into part of the problem.

The intervention is almost done and the person at the center of attention turns around slowly looking each person in the eye and says "You are all a bunch of pathetic people who know nothing about me and if you cared then you would not attack me so each and every one of you can go to hell" this is a possible reality but probably with a lot of swear words included. There is a chance that this person will completely lock out their family and friends which may lead to a long separation or it may lead the person to ending their life as what they thought was their support circle now appears to be gone so they are suddenly alone. This is a complete perception from the person involved and there are a number of factors at play which need to be fully understood before taking the chance of an intervention or it may blow up. My mother once told me that she thought that if she took the hard road with me that it might jar my brain into a better place, she now understands my disorders by the way, but what she figured would happen is I would just turn my back and walk away possibly for good and a completely honest answer from me to this approach is that is exactly what would happen and I doubt I would even think about it before I did it as that is how my brain works on its core level.

When it comes to interventions there are really two possibilities life or death and this needs to be considered before hand. I understand that you want to help the person but there is a real chance that you may alienate yourself from this person forever. There is a real strong logic point behind the thought that interventions are a last resort effort for it is too easy for them to go either way and the outcome could be brutal.