What If They Say No During Drug Or Alcohol Intervention?

At some point in a conversation with one of our professionals, your family or a family member will ask us what happens if they say no to the intervention. Having done interventions since 2005, I can’t recall a time when a family member had not asked us that question. So let’s break down what that means and where that question comes from. Our website, under the resources section, has an article called “Excuses Families Make to Not Do an Intervention.” We also have a webinar that covers “what if they say no” extensively. You can find this webinar and many other topics by following this link.

What Saying “No” Really Means During an Intervention

We can start by helping family members understand what “no” means at an intervention. When your loved one refuses help at an intervention and says no, they’re not saying no to treatment. They’re saying no to the fact that they’re not going to stop using substances. They’re saying they will continue not to address their untreated mental health disorders; they are saying they will continue punishing you and blaming your family for their problems. They are saying you will continue to put up with this the way they see fit. A no to you is disrespectful and selfish. No, is saying you will do as I say and continue helping me stay unwell—no means they say no to all help. Your loved one doesn’t get to decide how you set boundaries, nor do they choose the help you offer and will provide. When enabling and codependency are present, and resources are provided, your loved one saying no is suggesting the only option is for that to continue. A family should be less worried about a no from their loved one, and their loved one should be far more concerned about a no from their family. You’re signing on to their dysfunction by choice. You can detach from your loved one at any point in this journey. When you have multiple family members, you have much more strength as a group than you do as an individual.

How Anxiety and Fear Within Families Play a Key Role in Why Addicts of Alcoholics Say No

One of the most complex parts that families must digest is that some people would prefer to hear a no, and I will explain why I said that. A yes means significant change for both you and your loved one. A yes is a world of the unknown. Most people live in fear of what they know and see. It’s real. The anxiety they attach to a fear is where people become stuck, just like their loved one. The woulda, coulda, shoulda, ifs, and buts are excuses and objections families make for their loved one to convince themselves they will just say no at the intervention. Most of the anxiety is about scenarios that have never happened. Mark Twain says, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, none of which ever happened.” As families sit in what they call a holding pattern, they create anxiety in their minds about a situation built on unrealistic perception. The anxiety becomes so profound that they scare themselves from addressing the problem. At this point, the family’s only resolution is to return to the known fear and the day-to-day routine they’re comfortable in, because that’s what they’ve been doing.

Families can make an entire consultation call about them, saying no, while they are doing the same thing on the call, and saying no to professional help. Your fears of change are the same as those of your loved one. 

“When we speak to your family on the phone, all we hear is a manipulated and broken-down version of yourselves as designed by your loved one. The call is like an intervention; only you’re making the excuses for them beforehand and saying no to the intervention before they have a chance to say yes at the intervention.” 

When you see how families behave after an intervention, when their loved one refused treatment versus the ones where they accepted help, you would most likely believe that the families whose loved ones said no struggled far more. And that isn’t true. Families struggle more after an intervention when their loved one says yes. The phenomenon results from a clinical certainty that the broken family system repairs itself and begins the return home to health and normalcy. Please do not be intimidated by this. Although there will always be some turbulence regardless of the outcome, it can and will get better if you say yes to accepting professional help.

“Families and the intended patient always underestimate the power of alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental disorders. Families and intended patients always overestimate their power to fix it themselves.”

What Happens If They Say Yes to Treatment?

Families struggle more when their loved one accepts help than when their loved one refuses help. As stated earlier, this is because a lot more work and change occur as the family has to undo everything that has led them down the current path. 

“A no is easier to process at an intervention because the family has operated for a long time with a no and has adapted and built a family system around coping with that refusal of help for a long time.” 

Think about how long you’ve been living with a no. Consider how long you have done things, being subconsciously directed by the insidious manipulations and guidance of the loved one experiencing substance use and mental disorders. When you spend all the time trying to sell us or convince us that this won’t work or they will just say no, you are passing what your loved one has convinced you of onto us. Families dare to call us salespeople at times when the only thing we were doing was trying to show you how you have been sold a dysfunctional way of thinking that you bought from your loved one, and now trying to resell it to us. Your loved one, the intended patient, is the salesperson!

Over time, you forget how to operate any other way and no longer remember what operating in a healthy family system was like. A yes will take you to a healthy place that you can’t remember and may not even be afraid of returning to because you have operated in a dysfunctional way for so long. Rather than ask, “What if they say no?” why don’t you ask, “How do you turn a no to a yes? Can you help us reset our family back to health and happiness?” 

“When families ask us what to do if they say no, they indirectly ask how to let go of their illusion of control that they can fix the problem themselves. What would that say about us if we had spent years trying to get them help, and you could get them to say yes in two to three days? Are we ready to look at ourselves and see why and where we went off track?”

You’ll almost always get a no at some point in the intervention journey. Most people will say yes to the intervention and then fight us when they get to treatment. Some will try to leave against medical advice. You will inevitably hear a no at some point, so you have to be prepared for it.

Consider why your loved one says no to treatment while in treatment or at an intervention. It’s because they don’t want to stop getting high or acting out their dysfunctional behaviors by way of a mental disorder. The intended patient is not done trying to hurt you for the pain they feel you caused them, and they don’t believe you will follow through with your boundaries and consequences, and hold them accountable. No matter what excuse they give at the intervention, it will always come back to those reasons. The excuses the intended patient will make have the same hidden messages as the excuses families will make not to do the intervention. Your loved one has programmed you, and the anxiety you’ve put on top of the fear of change is what paralyzes you.

Your loved one will say no for the same reasons a family will say no to the intervention. Both are afraid of what life will be like after, and your loved one is afraid of what life will look like when they’re clean and sober. Families fear what life will look like in a healthy family system because that is something they haven’t seen in a long time. We often ask what happens if your loved one says no at the intervention before a family member can ask us. We will process the topic and move on. Later on the call, the family, almost like it’s a reflex, will ask us, “What if they say no?” And I’ll say, “We’ve already gone over that,” and then there’s silence. It’s so ingrained in you, and you’ve been living with a no for so long that it is as if you’re afraid of what would happen if they say yes. That scares many of you because you have no idea what it will be like if they say yes. You also know somewhere inside of you that you will have to let go of everything you were doing and reset to a healthy family again.

“As soon as the phone call ends with us, families start asking others for their opinions. Families look at this from an unhealthy perspective, as they are all affected differently, and they call us salespeople. What is happening is that the family is insidiously talking themselves out of the intervention and looking for something that feeds the narrative of comfort for themselves based on what their loved one has sold them, and the family has sold themselves. The family is acting out the broken family system we are trying to help you repair”.

We understand the difficulty of this and the need to hold your hand, walk you through the real fear, reduce your anxieties of things that have not happened yet, and help you move forward with this regardless of their decision. Please remember: when they say no, they’re saying no to all help that you provide, not just the no at the intervention. Let’s ask, “How do I turn that no to a yes?” And then let’s start looking at where the question is coming from. Are you prepared for a yes? Or do you silently and secretly want to stay in a no? And that’s the question we need to help you dissect. 

“It is not that you do not want a yes and for them to go to treatment; you’re asking how we get back to normalcy after they say yes.”

Deep Down, They Do Want Help, and the Family Does Too

I know you all want your loved ones to be better. We do not believe you genuinely want them to say no, and you want them to accept help more than anything. It is a scary outcome because it has been a long time since things were different, and you were much happier as a family. We are not saying anybody is evil. When you’ve been beaten over the head as long as you have, with the illogical ideas and thoughts from this problem, your brain has lost the ability to form rational thoughts. So, you may be afraid of change because of your inability to create logic and the anxiety you’ve attached to the actual fear. That’s why you’re asking the question. 

They want help. That’s why they use substances. They want help. That’s why they act out their volatility in mental health disorders. Where their fear lies and why they say no is because they’re afraid of the unknown that comes with accepting help, just like your fear is the same with moving forward with an intervention, because it’s an unknown. And that’s what we’re here for: to walk you and your loved one through that. We can help you move the no to a yes and help bring your family back together to a place you truly want to be.