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Drug and Alcohol Addiction Intervention Helpline for Families

Drug and Alcohol Intervention is not about tough love and ultimatums. It is about helping the family understand that co-dependency and enabling are preventing their loved one from wanting help and hitting bottom.

Partnered with Family First Intervention: We’re focused on helping families make a change.

Intervention Helpline offers resources to families who are looking to help a loved one conquer their struggles with addiction with a drug or alcohol intervention. Our brand is proud to be partnered with Family First Intervention, who has experienced intervention counselors that are ready to help families today. Check out our partner brand by visiting the website: https://family-intervention.com/

Who We Help

Intervention Helpline Helps Families Help Their Loved Ones

There are so many opinions as to the “best” approach to help an addict or alcoholic surrender to treatment. Different family members speak with different people, and they consult with healthcare providers, work colleagues, friends, and neighbors in search of the right way to proceed. The problem is, none of those people are experts in addiction nor do they know with any certainty how to deal with it.

But what if they say no?

Addiction is the only fatal illness a family member can have where the experts are the last to be consulted.

The family spends day after day, week after week, and year after year figuring out how to fix the problem themselves. The family is expecting their loved one to ask for help, which he or she is unable to do. Having conducted thousands of interventions, we have found a consistent common denominator: no situation is unique.

Just as the addict and alcoholic share nearly identical behaviors, so do the families we help.

Almost every family we speak with begins by saying, “Well, our situation is complicated,” but we soon find ourselves listening to a story that we have heard time and again. We are in no way insinuating that people are all the same, that all interventions are the same, and that the addict or alcoholic’s treatment and recovery will be the same. The point is, every addict and alcoholic can relate to one another because they share the same disease, and so does the family.

Helping an Alcoholic

Helping a Drug Addict

Helping The Family

Why Families Should Take Action and Plan an Addiction Intervention?

An intervention is a means to take action to improve a situation. Most families with a loved one suffering from addiction don’t take action. Instead, they maintain a holding pattern waiting for the addict to want help or hit bottom.

The addict and alcoholic both suffer from internal problems. However, many believe that by changing the external situation, such as a change of scenery, a new significant other, or securing employment, the horrible nightmare will end. Unfortunately, addicts and alcoholics don’t stop that way. Some form of addiction intervention is required with the family setting new boundaries, thus forcing the addict or alcoholic to face the consequences.

In most cases, it isn’t that addicts don’t want help since they feel they don’t need help. If they are comfortable, then everybody and everything else is the problem. Why would they seek to fix a problem they don’t think they have?

Does The Pain of Addiction Outweigh the Change of Sobriety? Families Must Decide.

The family has the ability to intervene and offer their loved one a gift, to say: “We are sorry for any mistakes we have made. Your pain is our pain, and neither of us should live like this anymore.” If the addict or alcoholic chooses to remain in the addiction, the family can opt not to continue their enabling and codependency. What a family is expecting of their loved one, they must also do for themselves. That means following professional guidance without trying to fix the problem themselves. If the loved one had any other fatal illness, would the family wait for something to happen before taking action? If all that was needed was an intervention to prevent harm from the illness, wouldn’t the family choose that course of action? Those are questions families should ask instead of trying to fix the addiction problem on their own.

Avoiding Unsuccessful Intervention and Addiction Treatment

An unsuccessful outcome can occur when the addict or alcoholic checks into treatment, but the family fails to change its behavior. Addiction is a family disease, but if only one side receives treatment and gets better, it becomes very difficult for the addict or alcoholic to maintain long-term sobriety. Over the years, many families and their loved ones seeking intervention and treatment have complained of failed attempts at recovery. Frequently, they want to blame the treatment center, making comments such as “we already did that, and it didn’t work” or “our loved ones didn’t want treatment; they weren’t ready.”

A common characteristic unsuccessful addiction treatment is the family allowing the addict or alcoholic to choose the form and length of recovery, following the path of least resistance that provides the most comfort with the promise of a quick fix. Just because an addict or alcoholic has decided to get well and check into a treatment center doesn’t mean it’s the right one with the appropriate level of care. The success rate of treatment is greatly increased by listening to professionals, but most of all, by not doing the things that were previously unsuccessful.

Whenever someone tells us a treatment center has failed or that an intervention was unsuccessful, it is almost always resulted from not following directions and not heeding professional advice. The family, the addict, and the alcoholic are the least qualified of any to be steering the recovery ship. If nothing has worked up to this point, why would it start working now?

Einstein is said to have observed: “The definition of insanity is doing something over and over again
and expecting a different result.”

Treatment Center FAQs

The Path to Successful Addiction Treatment and Recovery

Having performed addiction interventions and treatment assessments, we have seen every possible outcome and heard every possible excuse from the family, the addict, and the alcoholic for not seeking help.

The family clings to doing it their way or nothing at all while watching their loved one rationalize insanity. The pattern is similar for many suffering through addiction, which is difficult to understand as they believe their situation is unique, and our solutions won’t work for them. Therein lies the problem. Too often, people insist on doing it their way versus professional intervention, as if their way will be more successful.

It is far more difficult for several family members to take direction than it is for one addict or alcoholic to do so. Families think their situation is unique, and their loved one will never say yes to treatment. They believe nobody else can convince the loved one to accept help, to be going through their experience, or that an intervention would never work in their situation. Addiction is the only fatal illness where people put their care in their own hands.

Until people start trusting in professionals about what is most effective and stop listening to the addict, alcoholic, or codependent family member about what isn’t effective, attempts at treatment will have little chance of success. Addiction treatment and intervention are dependent on one’s ability to follow directions.

Codependency and Enabling

Drug and Alcohol Addiction Intervention Helpline for Families

Intervention Helpline Helps Families Help Their Loved Ones

Why Families Should Take Action and Plan an Addiction Intervention?

Does The Pain of Addiction Outweigh the Change of Sobriety? Families Must Decide.

Avoiding Unsuccessful Intervention and Addiction Treatment

The Path to Successful Addiction Treatment and Recovery

Successful Drug and Alcohol Intervention Stories

Drug and Alcohol ResourcesAddiction Intervention Blog

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