How a Professional Addiction & Mental Health Interventionist Can Help Your Family

The professional interventionist is one of many members of the intervention services team. Throughout the intervention process, two specific goals of the interventionist are to educate and provide insight to the family on alcoholism, addiction, and mental health behaviors, and secondly, to safely escort your loved one to treatment.

The desired outcome of the intervention process is that, regardless of your loved one’s decision to accept or refuse help, the family will understand how to cope and navigate either outcome.

The interventionist helps families understand their role in the addiction and mental health recovery process, the addiction and mental health behaviors, and the family’s reaction to those behaviors. An intervention is often believed to be an interventionist acting as a motivational speaker for the loved one with a substance use or mental health disorder to talk them into treatment.

Although there is much communication through motivational interviewing to increase desire and move the person who is an alcoholic or is experiencing drug addiction or mental health concerns through the stages of change, an interventionist’s role is to help build the bridge to the family’s recovery.

When seeking a professional intervention company, please understand that there is much more involved than a single interventionist. There are many wonderful people new in recovery who want to give back, and with the gift of gab that attempt to inspire your loved one with a substance use or mental health disorder to go to treatment. Your interventionist must be knowledgeable on a clinical level, too, as the gift of gab and relatable experiences are only half the battle.

What a Professional Addiction and Mental Health Interventionist Should Be Doing from Start to Finish

Intervention is a process, not an event. Think of the professional addiction and mental health interventionist as a clinical instrument who comes to your home to begin the recovery process for both the family and the intended patient. 

Our intervention team is involved to ensure the family and the loved one with addiction and mental health disorders have the most significant opportunities to start a new path of recovery.

The Initial Inquiry of the Intervention Process

The intervention process begins with an inquiry into how we can help your loved one experiencing negative behaviors associated with addiction and mental health disorders. During this process, the intervention coordinator seeks to identify each family member’s various roles and behaviors. This will help to identify where each family member is in their willingness to follow through with a formal intervention.

For those family members who so choose, a goal at this point is to begin a family consultation process. This is when the intervention is explained, and family members can interact and discuss their feelings and thoughts about moving forward with a professional addiction and mental health interventionist.

Intervention Scheduling and Assessment

Once the family has committed to the intervention process, the two to three days required are scheduled. An assessment utilizing ASAM, DSM-5, and ASI criteria is completed with the family. Clinical staff from the intervention team oversee the assessment data and are consulted to arrange a treatment plan.

The treatment plan is discussed with the family based on the family’s assessment data. At this time, the intervention team discusses which interventionist best fits the family, their loved one, and the overall situation.

At this time, the family receives guidelines for the intervention letters to be written and read to their loved one. Family members are encouraged to write their letters before the interventionist arrives. While writing the letter, there should be no worries about whether they are right or wrong. Once the interventionist arrives, they will process the letters with each person who wrote one.

Lastly, it is expected that the family will get last-minute jitters, which is OK. The professional interventionist team should be available to answer any questions or concerns you may have.

“Many interventionists try to play therapist and clinician while adding on family recovery and coaching services. None of these interventionists is qualified or licensed to do that. Interventionists must stay in their lane after the person accepts help. The best outcomes come from your loved one’s treatment team and the treatment center’s family program. If you choose an interventionist who offers support services after a successful intervention, it will create friction and discrepancies in your loved one’s treatment; we have gone down that road, and it does not work.”

— Mike Loverde, MHS, CIP

Interventionist Arrival and Family Education

During this meeting, the interventionist discusses your situation utilizing our S.A.F.E.® (Self-Awareness Family Education®) intervention e-book as a guide. Understanding addiction and mental health is beneficial to help a family understand what the substance user is experiencing. Furthermore, families will learn that the behaviors of their loved one may be the result of drug or alcohol-induced psychosis, in addition to or in the absence of a mental illness. 

This process aims to help families see the effects of the addiction on their behavior and mental health and learn strategies they can utilize to encourage their loved one to accept help. When families know how this process connects their behaviors to comforting the loved one with addiction and mental health, it gives them confidence in the boundaries they set for themselves.

In addition, we will review the letters and discuss any possible objections or manipulations your loved one may have during the intervention. 

The In-Person Intervention with Family Members and Their Loved One

During the intervention, the addiction and mental health interventionist takes on the role of facilitator and directs the intervention. The family is brought in when asked to read the letters they have written and reviewed during the family education phase.

At this point, the family should be prepared for the intervention, have decisions made on boundaries, and follow through regardless of their loved one’s decision. The intervention can take a couple of minutes to a couple of hours, depending on forward momentum. If the interventionist gains ground, the process moves forward until help is accepted.

If your loved one digs their heels in, the intervention team regroups and consults with the family. At this time, the interventionist and the family will decide whether their loved one should hear the boundaries and consequences they will face if they do not accept the help offered.

Acceptance or Refusal of Help

Two outcomes are possible: the loved one either accepts or declines the help. 

Regardless of that decision, a professional interventionist will inform you of the next steps. If the loved one in need of addiction and mental health treatment accepts help, they are escorted to the facility or to the care of the facility’s transportation services that day by the interventionist.

Suppose your loved one declines help for addiction and mental health treatment, and the family agrees to explain to the loved one their boundaries and consequences. In that case, the interventionist regroups and, with the family, processes what has happened.

The family must commit to following through with their boundaries, irrespective of the manipulations of the addict or alcoholic with mental health concerns. The family should be ready to remind the loved one that any further discussion will focus on the consequences of not seeking help. The interventionist team should be prepared to assist the family until their loved one agrees to accept the gift for addiction and mental health treatment.

“An intervention is not about how to control your loved one with a substance use or mental health disorder; it is about learning how to let go of believing you can.”

— Mike Loverde, MHS, CIP

Intervention Myths and Facts

Let’s address some common myths about interventions and set the record straight. You can also find answers to intervention FAQs here.

Myth: Interventions do not work and employ confrontational tactics that make the situation worse.

Myth: Our loved one will never accept help. He or she has already told us that if we try an intervention, we will regret it, and he or she will never speak to us again.

Myth: There is nothing we can do. Our loved one has to want help or hit bottom first.

A Professional Addiction and Mental Health Interventionist Should Have a Goal of Providing Closure for the Family

An intervention can certainly help convince a substance user with a possible dual diagnosis of addiction and mental health to accept assistance. Intervention can increase the likelihood of continued sobriety and mental health treatment compliance within the family’s boundaries. And when effectively and professionally executed, family members should feel better after the intervention than they did previously, regardless of the outcome. Not all outcomes end with the substance user accepting help or advocating for their own mental health care. Not every addict or alcoholic who accepts help stays in treatment or maintains sobriety, and not everyone with a mental health disorder maintains medication compliance from that point forward. Having no direct control over what the substance user is going to do is all the more reason for the family to do everything they can to empower themselves through their own recovery. The only control a family has is control over itself. A family is most likely never going to be satisfied if their loved one declines help, leaves treatment early, or relapses. An interventionist can help family members understand enough about the behaviors, mental health, and addiction, and their relation to it, so that, should the loved one decline help, the family can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing they did all they could.