Planning an Intervention for Drug Addiction Treatment

If there is someone in your family who is into a drug dependency, it is certainly your responsibility to bring them to the right kind of treatment. You must note that drug addiction is a mental condition. People who are into such types of dependencies are challenged in their way of thinking. For that reason, it is highly rare that a person with a dependency will walk into a treatment center him- or herself. It is up to you, the caring family member, to get them to the right treatment mode. Also, you must know that they will be in denial. It is again very rare that a person who is in an addiction will accept to get enrolled into a rehab center at your first suggestion itself. You might have to bend backwards trying to convince them that they need treatment.

This is done professionally through an intervention process. Basically, an intervention is when you participate in someone else’s addiction treatment. This is always the case because there is always someone helping someone out of their addiction. They will never do it themselves. But when you are planning an intervention program for someone in your family, you have to make sure you do it in the right way. The right way here means that you have to ensure the person gets into an appropriate treatment program and stays there until complete recovery.

These are some tips that you can use when you are trying to implement an intervention program for someone who is under a drug addiction influence in your home.

The first thing that you must do is to educate yourself as much as possible about the person’s addiction. Learn how to read the signs and assure yourself that the person is really using the substance. You might ask then directly, but because of the denial, there might always be a very reticent or misleading answer, if at all. Hence, you must get yourself assured. The Internet is a good place to find out information about the different kinds of addiction signals. You might also get in touch with a substance abuse counselor who can expertly help you with this subject.

Now, you must find an intervention program. You can form an intervention group all by yourself too, but this will not be a professional group and there will be no expert in the substance of substance abuse on whom you can rely for guidance. You can find some good intervention programs through the Internet or your nearest healthcare center. Even looking in the telephone directory could be of help. But when selecting your intervention program, make sure that they will provide you with what you are looking for. Most intervention programs will be with you from the start of the program till the very end, i.e. till when the person has come to a sustainable addiction-free state.

The interventionist will help you form a group of people who will be dedicated towards getting the person into treatment. This professional will let you know on what criterion you must invite people into the group and how you can assess whether they will really be a good asset to the procedure.

Once your group is set, which will typically be of three to seven people, the interventionist will tell you about how you must proceed with the motivational exercise for the patient. Quite likely, there will be a meeting of the group, in which the possible contribution each person can provide in convincing the patient will be discussed. With that as the ground material, each person of the group will be asked to write a motivational speech to encourage the patient to get into treatment. The main theme of the speech will be to demonstrate to the person how his or her life is going out of control because of the dependency and what he or she can get after the recovery. Love is a recurrent theme too, as each member of the intervention group will make it clear to the person that they love him or her.

The interventionist will have these people rehearse their speeches so that the meaning is quite clear and the emotions are properly included within the words. There will be discussions and deliberations, after which a meeting will be set with the patient in attendance. This is where the speeches will be performed in front of the patient and every attempt will be made to convince them.

It is not necessary that the person will be convinced at the first attempt itself. If the first meeting fails, the interventionist will help you with a more rigorous approach and so on again till it works and the patient is ready for accepting the treatment.