An intervention can be an intensive and emotionally draining process. Because of this, we have provided this manual to help you during this process while also assisting you in the days, months, and even years following the actual intervention. Ideally, over the next couple of days your interventionist will be using this manual as an educational guide to help you better understand and grasp the fundamentals of: addiction, enabling, tough love, and the intervention process itself. In addition, use this manual as an ongoing resource of tools for your family to help effectively handle any future problems that may arise because of continual drug or alcohol use or a relapse after treatment. Ideally, with the fundamentals that you will learn, you can be empowered to such a degree that you no longer find yourself in the same situation again.
Within this workbook, we have provided tips and suggestions for how to handle your loved one once they are in treatment as well as how to handle their return after completing treatment. The interventionist will be guiding you directly during the initial consultation and the following intervention. Afterwards, they will also be available, as needed, via telephone consultation. However, the interventionist’s main goal is to make themselves as unnecessary as possible in the future. In other words, their goal is to educate and empower your family so that you can effectively handle any situation that occurs in the future relating to your loved one’s addiction.
As mentioned earlier, the primary areas that will be covered within this manual are:
- The Fundamentals of Addiction
- Understanding Enabling
- Tough Love or “Bottom Lines”
- The Intervention Process
The proverb “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he’ll eat forever” stood foremost in our minds when we designed this handbook. We hope that this manual will be an informative and useful tool for you, both during the intervention, and for the many years to come afterwards.
Our attitude is that the intervention process is not truly over until the addict achieves at least one year of continuous sobriety. Getting someone to stay sober is always better than just sobering them up. Hopefully, with this workbook and under the guidance of your intervention specialist, both you and your loved one can receive the gifts and blessings of long-term recovery.
