How to organize an intervention

The truth about interventions
The concept of interventions is now mainstream, largely due to A&E's hit reality show, "Intervention," which draws in millions of viewers on TV and online. The series follows the efforts of friends and family members – with the help of a counsellor – to intervene in the life of an addict and send them off to treatment.

Interventions work on TV. Each episode of the show ends with the sufferer embracing a new, healthier life after a couple of months in recovery. But what about in real life – and in the long run?

A&E reports that many of the people on its show who appear to be on the right path have relapsed – and for good reason. Experts from coast to coast told Canadian Living that the series is promoting a method of intervention that yields little or no long- term success. "It's the 'Jerry Springer' of interventions," says Toronto addiction counsellor Mark Elliot.

Elliot has seen an increasing number of angry individuals in Canadian detox and rehabilitation centres who are there because family members have seen the TV series, held similar interventions, and then ordered their loved ones to go into treatment. "I call them the new addict on the block," he says. "They're not there because they want to be. They're forced. And that's not going to work."

So what does work?
Sadly, there is no right answer, no one-size-fits-all, say the experts. But there is one common denominator: the addict must want to change. The good news is that family members and loved ones can help move the person toward this realization.

Taking the first step
The first step to helping a loved one with an addiction isn't to rally family and friends and stage an intervention. Instead, experts say it is recognizing what need the addiction is serving for the sufferer. "Nobody wakes up one morning and decides to become an addict," says Gabor Maté, a Vancouver doctor and author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts (Vintage, 2009), a book about addictions. "The addiction (drugs, alcohol, gambling, even an eating disorder, which is considered an addiction) serves some kind of function. It is killing some kind of pain."

The second step, says Gary Nixon, a psychologist, and an associate professor and director of the Addictions Counselling Program at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, is for loved ones to move their gaze from the person with the problem to how they can improve their own lives. "The toughest thing for a family member to hear is, 'You cannot control what that person is doing,'" says Nixon. "But you can control, and you need to take control of, what you are doing."

Elliot, who conducts interventions (albeit very differently from those on television), starts by meeting with family and loved ones separately and studying the dynamics of their relationships with the individual who needs help. "I've seen families held hostage by a child who is using drugs," he says. "They walk around on tiptoes, afraid to say no for fear they will trigger more drug use. They continue to give the child money, afraid he will cut off all communication if they stop."

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