Do You Need Everyone’s Permission to Stage an Intervention?
Interventions that never happen are not because the intended patient is suffering from substance use or mental disorders. Interventions that never happen are because families are more worried about what will happen when they intervene than about what will happen if they do not. When addiction and mental health tear through the family, it is inevitable that family members will be affected and affected differently. Almost every family member who calls us will say, “Everyone is on board.” Not once, in our history of interventions, has this been true; not once. There are times when family members are on the same page about getting the person help, but never on the same page about how to do so. When family members finally decide to intervene,
It is because the fears of the situation finally become greater than the fears of addressing the problem; families have finally hit rock bottom.
Families wait for their loved one to ask for help or hit bottom, and rarely think of why their loved one is not getting there. Families also rarely consider that they are at the bottom and are allowed to get help at that point, too.
Treatment for your loved one is like an intervention for your family; the same fears, excuses, and principles apply. A substance user is certainly worried about letting go of substances and mental disorder behaviors. A family is equally worried about letting go of the maladaptive behaviors they have acquired. This is why it is so difficult to help a family seek help through an intervention. Like the patient, the family is more worried about what is going to happen than what is happening. Substance users are equally, if not more, afraid of what life will look like when they are better than what it looks like while they are sick; the same for families. Both the family and the intended patient are struggling to let go of their illusion of control.
“Before you can adopt new ideas, you must first let go of your old ideas. You can not have both. Until that happens, you and your loved one will struggle with and hang on to an illusion of control. That illusion is hanging onto old ideas and trying to make them fit with the new ideas.”
Behavior is not necessarily defined by being either good or bad. Behavior is defined by whether it is rewarded. As clinicians, when we ask a substance user what they like about their life and their addiction or mental health struggle, they will almost inevitably reply in anger or sit silently, puzzled. Regardless of the response, they will go on to list an overwhelming amount of negatives to the addiction, mental health, or destructive behaviors. When we ask why they continue rather than doing something different, they can never answer the question. They can’t answer it because they do not know. They do not know what they are up against; they don’t even know what they are fighting for or running away from. Newsflash! The same principles apply to a family. They will call our office and talk for hours about how horrible things are and how badly they want this to stop, and yet they can’t and they won’t, why? Because, like the intended patient, they are receiving a reward for their behaviors. What is that reward? Those answers run long and deep. If you surrender and say yes to the intervention, just like you would like your loved one to say yes and go to treatment, we can help and show you why.
Interventions are complex clinical instruments that are taught and delivered only by trained intervention professionals, not by an interventionist in recovery or by a treatment center’s staff member who comes out to talk your loved one into their program. Interventions require expertise and help families understand the complexities of what both themselves and their loved ones are experiencing.
Why Do Some Family Members Talk Other Family Members Out of Doing an Intervention?
Building off of the comments above and being blunt, because they are equally as unwell as the person who needs help. Nobody likes being pulled off their square. The current situation is the family’s new homeostasis. Whether they like it or not, it is where they live. Like anything else, the fear of changing this delusional safe place comes with excuses and objections to any change, even a positive one.
Perhaps your family is intimidated by a stranger stepping in to fix a problem you have not been able to solve. Either way, there is a benefit to not doing the intervention; there is a reward for allowing things to continue. What are these rewards? They are called positive consequences. The reward for negative behavior is a delusional, maladaptive belief, like avoiding change to stay in an unhealthy yet familiar safe place. Some of these rewards include continuing to play out the dysfunctional family role, such as the hero, martyr, or enabler. Other excuses include hiding family secrets or harmful acts committed by a family member(s) against the intended patient, either knowingly or unknowingly. Before you react to that last sentence, that is not always the reason, and unfortunately, it often is. These harmful acts could be as simple as your guilt and shame for waiting so long to intervene and help them, as you fulfill your acquired maladaptive family role.
You may not even realize you’re doing any of these things. What follows is the conscience or subconscious guilt and shame of knowing you’re not throwing a life preserver to a drowning individual because you were more concerned about what would happen to you rather than them if you did. For those whose excuse is hearing no, that is an illusion of control. That is not even your question. Families should ask, instead of “what if they say no?”, “what if they say yes?” Families should just say, “We are afraid they will say no because we will give up our illusion of control and are afraid of change.” They could also just say, “We are afraid of the end because we do not know what it looks like or what will come of it, and it is easier to live with the unknown than to have an ending that will take away our illusion of control.”
So why do other family members talk others out of it? Because they benefit, there is a reward for maintaining the status quo. It is just like the substance user or person with mental health issues manipulating your family into enabling and providing comfort, and/or not addressing the situation; there is a benefit to them and not to your family, and you somehow find a way to make it a benefit. The reason could be avoidance, fear, and anxiety, and for others. There is also something called the mere exposure effect.
“People mistakenly equate familiarity with comfort and a solution.”
Before we move on, keep in mind that nobody in the family is wrong or bad for what they are doing; they are just equally as sick and unwell as the intended patient with a substance use or mental disorder. It should never be this hard for families to follow through with an intervention program, and it is. Name one other medical concern and ask yourself if you would go about it the same way you are now. As you will read later in this article, we do not need the people at the intervention who try to talk you out of this; they do not need to be there. Do not give them that power; take it away from them and leave them out of it. In some cases, if they are an important part of the family, such as the primary enabler, we intervene with them first before the loved one they are holding back from seeking help.
“The power this has is the power you give it.”
Regardless of the reasons for not taking action, there is a benefit to everyone, including the intended patient. When you look at this from the outside, the whole family system is imploding. Everyone is trying to find a benefit in an otherwise horrible and toxic situation, and the benefits are not what you might think. The benefit is almost always the reward of avoidance and change, which prevents you from discussing or facing something you are afraid of. No worries, as your intervention services team, we will not ask you to air any family secrets, that is, unless you want to. Our job is to help the family take action and give everyone a chance to restore their family and their sanity. Our goal is to make the intervention and the outcome less stressful than where you are today. That is, of course, only if you want that.
What Happens If We Include Too Many People in the Intervention Planning?
There is really no hard-and-fast rule about how many people should be at an intervention. Those who should be there are the ones who want to be there. A true intervention professional can make it work with 20 people as well as with 1 or none. With that said, the average size of an intervention group is approximately five to eight people. We would prefer to have the primary enabler there, and sometimes we have to intervene on them first. We would prefer to have the family members with the most leverage and influence there, and it is not a deal-breaker.
Interventions are often two days. The first day is family day and preparation, the second day is the intervention with the family, the interventionist, and the intended patient. When your loved one says yes, we escort them to treatment; they do not travel alone.
We encourage as many as you would like to attend family day. We can always have people sit out if need be. It is a professional and group decision. The others’ input is helpful. When it comes to reading the intervention letters, this is where too many people can compromise the outcome. You do not want to lose the intended patient’s attention and focus, or lessen the emotional impact, by spending an hour reading letters. With that said, everyone will have the opportunity to write their letter. Any letters from people who are not physically present at the intervention will still be given to the intended patient to read later.
After you schedule the intervention, as we move forward with treatment selection and logistics, we will help you determine who should be there and in what capacity.
Can I Do an Intervention with Only One or Two Family Members?
You can do an intervention with no family members; we have done it. We have had moms send us out of state to find their homeless loved one to intervene. Although not ideal, it has been done successfully. As we stated above, a true intervention professional can make an intervention work regardless of the number of participants. The intervention is for those who want to be there, not for those who don’t. If there are only a few people, the interventionist strategy will change based on who they have to work with.
You can conduct an intervention with no one other than the interventionists and the intended patient, and you can have up to 20 people. Although neither 0 nor 20 is ideal, your professional intervention team will help you determine who should or should not be there.
“Your family should be more concerned about who you choose to include in the decision rather than who you should include in the intervention. It is not who is there that will change the outcome. It is who is going to talk you out of it that creates no outcome at all.”
How Can We Invite Resistant Family Members to the Intervention
If you read the last comment in bold italics, you will realize that this is the part that prevents interventions from ever happening. The video attached to this page explains the most significant challenges of an intervention. It is not the person saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It is not where they are going for treatment. It is not even the question of who should be there. The hardest part of this entire process is separating the true decision-makers from those who will derail it.
“If you don’t accept any other suggestions, please consider this one. You DO NOT need permission from the ones who do not want to do the interventions. DO NOT invite people to or ask for their opinions on an event you have not yet set up.” The decision makers on the front lines decide on whether or not there is an intervention, not the opinionated family members on the sidelines.”
Once you have made the decision and taken action to move forward with the intervention, you ask the others who may be resistant to attend. In fact, you should wait before inviting anyone who is not the decision-maker until the intervention is confirmed. We will help you determine whether you should even ask certain people to attend, and, if so, how and when to include them. When you set up the intervention first, it completely shifts the conversation to when others should be there rather than to their opinion of the intervention. Not following these suggestions is where families lose all their momentum.
“It is often one or two family members who make the initial call. We have a great conversation, provide next-step strategies on who to include on the next strategy call, and, against our clinical and professional advice, they call others they shouldn’t have. We never hear from them again.”
Is It Really Harder to Convince the Family Than Their Loved One With Addiction, Alcoholism, or Mental Disorders?
It is overwhelmingly more difficult for a family to do an intervention than it is for their loved one to accept help during the intervention and enter treatment. The reasons both the loved one and the family have waited are the same: fear of the unknown and the illusion of control. The intended patient is more fearful of what will happen if they go to treatment than if they don’t. Just like a family, they are more afraid of what will happen with an intervention than of living in the current situation. Families are also more worried about what we will say to their loved one during the intervention than about what the family can or should do differently. The best way to explain why families are more challenging is simple: too many people to get on the same page, all affected differently by hidden maladaptive behaviors and agendas. For simplicity and ease of explanation, let’s explain it this way:
During the intervention, we need one person to accept help who is not in true denial and knows there is a problem. Families often mistake denial of having a problem for denial of needing help for a problem; there is a huge difference. Setting up the intervention requires us to convince multiple family members to accept help. When speaking to a family before the intervention, we are doing an intervention on the family at this time; they don’t know it, and we are. The whole time, the family is asking us what if their loved one says no, the majority of the family is saying no to the very thing that will get their loved one to say yes. Now, imagine that during the intervention, our interventionist has your loved one say yes and accept help. The interventionist then says, “Here is my phone. I want you to call 5 or more of your acquaintances and ask them if you should do this.” Depending on who they call, what will the outcome be now? Exactly, they are not going. Seems ridiculous? That is because it is, and we would never do that. And that is what a family is doing, in theory. All that is required of the intended patient to say yes is surrendering to the fact that where they are is worse than where they are going; that is it. They are surrendering to the professionals because they need help and do not have the answers they thought they had. The same principles apply to the family. What has happened during an intervention when the intended patient accepts help is that they have let go of their illusion of control over a situation beyond their control. The same principle is all that is required for a family to say yes to an intervention.
We do not need everyone on the same page; we just need the family to reach the same place they desperately hope their loved one gets to: surrender. All the excuses a family makes, all the reasons they think this will not work, all the uniqueness and stubbornness they feel their loved one has are all a diversion from the truth: fear of change and letting go of their illusion of control. With all these excuses and objections, families want to know everything, every detail, because they need to feel they are somehow in control. The intended patient does not fight nearly as hard or raise as many objections as the family. They do not hold us there for three days, needing or even wanting to know every single answer to what is going to happen when they get to treatment. They say yes, and they go; they surrender. It would not be possible to take as much time with the patient, overcoming every question, excuse, or objection to treatment, and yet we do that with families. Although families try, it is not possible to do the intervention over the phone.” Families want as much detail as possible; they want to know how much control they will lose. They want a guarantee that this will work, as they know there is no guarantee that what they are doing is working.
If your loved one came to you tomorrow and asked for help, would you say to them that they have to guarantee you that they are going to complete treatment, follow every suggestion of the professional treatment team, and stay sober forever, or would you not help them?
“What families are doing to us on the phone is like the intended patient trying to complete his or her treatment at the intervention and guarantee us lifelong sobriety.”
The family does this because they are afraid of the unknown and have not yet reached their bottom. The substance user who says yes is afraid of their current situation and realizes that anything, even if unknown, is better than where they are, and they take that leap of faith. If you want to help your loved one, you must lead by example. Treatment and surrender are hard for your loved one. Set an example by intervening and showing them you are all in this together. The intervention sends that message that this is hard for you too, and you surrender to the fact that you have not had the answers your loved one needs. It is ok to ask for help; it is not ok to prevent it from being sought or achieved.
