One of the most reliable ways to inform a friend or family member that they have an addiction and genuinely need help is to plan an intervention. Interventions offer a safe space to communicate the impact that addiction is having on friends and family and to offer aid in finding a personalized treatment plan. The most successful intervention strategies have consequences: design the attendees carefully, rehearse what will be said, and have reliable treatment centers at the ready.
Establishing Consequences
One of the more challenging aspects of successful intervention strategies involves laying out consequences. Family members often enable a loved one in their addiction without meaning to or realizing that they are doing so.
Understanding this impact is important as it allows family members to recognize that the most compassionate thing they can do for a loved one is to establish consequences when a loved one breaks the rules or surpasses boundaries.
This is an important point to express during an intervention: from now on, a loved one has to follow rules, such as not using drugs in the house or getting high at family functions. If those rules are broken, there will be direct consequences, like not being allowed to live at home or attend family functions.
Interventions can be a safe place to establish those consequences moving forward while also providing your loved one with options for help so that they avoid those consequences.
Picking the Attendees and Location
Successful intervention strategies involve carefully selecting the attendees and the location. When staging an intervention, you want to be selective about who will be present, picking people with whom your loved one has a good relationship.
Just because someone is a family member does not mean that they have to be present. In fact, if there is a negative relationship or problems with certain family members, your intervention is more likely to be successful if that person is not there.
The people who attend do not have to be direct blood relatives. They can also be close family members, godparents, or friends of your loved one. The goal is to have people that your loved one trusts to whom they will listen.
The location should also be neutral ground, not necessarily in the middle of the living room but sometimes in an office or other third-party space. It should be a place where your loved one feels safe, not attacked, and comfortable expressing themselves.
Rehearsing What to Say
Rehearsing what you plan to say is another key step. Successful intervention strategies hinge on not only writing down what you want to express to your loved one but also saying it out loud and practicing how you will deliver your words in as supportive and clear a manner as possible. This also extends to how you will deliver the consequences that you have set up.
Having a Treatment Center Ready
It is important to have a treatment center ready in the event that you have successful intervention strategies and your loved one decides they are ready to get help. Places like The Differents can offer several levels of withdrawal management as well as outpatient care with access to outdoor activities that encourage individuals to rediscover their purpose.
However, it is equally important to prepare yourself for different outcomes. While it is imperative that you have a treatment center ready in the event that your loved one decides to get help, you need to be aware of the fact that they may respond with things like anger instead and deny the need for help or even that they have an addiction.
Preparing yourself for all of these possible outcomes and responses can ensure that you have a more successful intervention.
Getting Help at The Differents
With The Differents, we believe that clients need a chance to discover fun activities with a purpose behind them. Gone are the days of traditional offices, couches, and closed-door discussions. Now is the time for a different approach to healing, where individuals can foster a bond with nature, build skills and self-esteem, and learn to find a passion for nature and purpose beyond addiction.
For this, we offer activities like:
- Paddleboarding
- Hiking
- Skiing
- Kayaking
- Horseback riding
- Snowboarding
- Basketball
- Bowling
- Spa pampering
Located outside Tahoe, our addiction treatment center specializes in holistic treatment for addiction and co-occurring mental health disorders that extends to things like motivational interviewing for those clients who still have trouble taking action, as well as outdoor therapy, recreational therapy, yoga, and sports medicine.
If you have a loved one for whom you are seeking successful intervention strategies, presenting them with our focus on creativity and holistic care in a reimagined way can give them access to treatment that stands apart.
Overall, the most successful intervention strategies incorporate boundaries and consequences, present information lovingly by rehearsing what you want to say, and do so with a strategy for who will be present and where the intervention will take place. Having a treatment center on hand should your loved one accept help is equally important. With The Differents, we can offer several levels of outpatient care that don’t require your loved one to reside full-time at a facility but still offer a personal experience in addiction treatment that’s unlike any other treatment center.
Contact our team to learn about rehab reimagined.
