If you're concerned about a loved one who is addicted to drugs or alcohol, an intervention can seem a useful idea. If you're like most people, however, you see an intervention as a kind of family confrontation: you call everyone in, they try love and reason to secure some sort of cooperation, and if it fails, they resort to some sort of force in an attempt to strong-arm the person into accepting treatment. Our experts in drug intervention in Cuyahoga Falls have seen chaotic interventions in families everywhere, and they recognize why they fail most of the time.
While the movies often show interventions as family affairs where every part of the process is informally planned and prepared for by a couple of proactive family members, the drug intervention was never intended to be "tried at home." They were created as professional therapeutic programs to be conducted by experienced interventionists. Nine out of ten of such professionally managed programs for drug intervention for addiction do succeed.
Informal interventions go wrong in a number of ways. To begin, it can take a lot of work to read up on addictions and understand what they really are, work that is often missing in these attempts. For instance, studies have found that when addicts resist treatment, they don't do so for reasons of apathy or contrariness. Instead, the changes to the brain brought about by addiction genuinely make it hard for them to understand the seriousness of their condition. Participants in a drug intervention program who are not aware of such challenges faced by addicts may accuse them of being uncooperative, something that is likely to cause offence.
Unplanned interventions also go wrong when participants head in with little appreciation of the scientific facts that matter — that addictions are a mental disorder. Family members who are unaware of the nature of the addiction disorder may find it baffling that an addict doesn't respond to direct logic.
It takes an interventionist to ensure that an attempt doesn't go wrong in these ways and many others. The training and experience of the interventionist can be invaluable to success in an intervention.
Informal interventions often go wrong at the very first step — the timing of the attempt. Many people remember having heard that addicts only become amenable to reason when they've hit rock bottom. Families, then, often patiently wait for something of this nature to happen. This is a bad idea, however. A professional interventionist can advise a family on the benefits of quick action: the longer an addiction is allowed to continue, the harder addiction treatment in Cuyahoga Falls becomes.
Interventionists work to put together the most positive and productive intervention group possible, by leaving out members who may be negative-minded. At our center for drug intervention in Cuyahoga Falls, our interventionists are at pains to educate entire families about the science of drug addiction and treatment. They coach them on the ways that they may use to gently and firmly counter illogical arguments by the addict. They help them maintain self-restraint at all times.
Interventionists also help save interventions by ensuring that families do not give in when they don't need to. Often, addicts will make halfhearted conciliatory gestures, but stop short of concrete promises. When a family is inexperienced in the manipulative ways in which addicts negotiate, they will often give in and call it a day. With a professional supervising proceedings, however, the family can make sure to never accept anything but full cooperation for treatment.
With the presence of a knowledgeable interventionist during the intervention, the addict can learn a lot about addiction and the treatment process, something that can help during the course.
Rehabs are not all created the same. Most aim to maximize profit, and offer incomplete treatment — detoxification but not a thorough relapse prevention in Cuyahoga Falls, for example. Often, they offer no professional intervention advice, either. Rehab that offers complete addiction treatment is a far better option. They are more likely to adhere to scientific principles, and to deliver evidence-based treatment and results. It is vital to put in research to find a rehab that is truly run well.
This could involve interviewing the specialists who will offer treatment, and going from rehab to rehab to find the best possible approach. At our center for drug intervention in Cuyahoga Falls, we welcome such research, and we're always glad to speak to patients and their families. It only takes a phone call to make an appointment. Call us now at (877) 804-1531.