Intervention Quiz: Does a Loved One Need Help?

Connecting with a Professional Interventionist

At Family First Intervention, we empower families to help get their loved ones into treatment. We understand that communicating with a loved one who’s abusing substances can be extremely difficult without the right support. That’s why we encourage friends and families to work with a professional interventionist.

Our Intervention Quiz May Help You Identify How an Intervention Can Help Your Family

1. Do you or other family members make excuses or find justifications for the way things are?
2. Are all members of your family on the same page as to how and what should be done to help both the family and one abusing substances?
3. Do you have family members who say the loved one has to want help and hit bottom while others continue to enable?
4. Is your family in agreement with how each family member is dealing with the substance user, or do family members have suggestions on dealing with the current situation?
5. Are some family members waiting for the substance user to just find that right job or significant other so that things will be better?
6. Do some believe the addiction is caused by someone or something such as another person he or she drinks or take drugs with or a spouse you don’t like?
7. Do some in the family feel an intervention will never work because the loved one will never accept help?
8. Are your children or other family members mad with how you are addressing the situation?
9. Are some scared to take action for fear of how the substance user will react?
10. Do some family members believe that previous failed attempts at sobriety were the fault of the treatment center or the place they sought help?
11. Have some family members set deadlines or given ultimatums that are never met by the substance abuser or upheld by the family?
12. Has the substance user sold the family continuous hope that he or she is working on or thinking of making a change, and yet no changes are made?
13. Does your current situation feel like a new normal or a bad dream that won’t end?
14. Do you or other family members feel as though your loved one goes from one crisis to another, producing chaos and confusion in the family?
15. Do any family members hold their breath hoping the most recent crisis will be the one that ends the addiction, and the substance user will have learned his or her lesson?

How Interventions Can Be Effective

Therapeutic confrontation is one of the most effective tools a group facilitator can use to foster  change and produce positive outcomes for group members. What would a group look like if nobody talked about their transferences or issues with other group members? What would happen to a recovery group if someone attended while under the influence every time, and the group carried on while ignoring the 800 pound gorilla? Would members benefit from a confrontation that was not delivered or controlled properly? How would it affect the group if it turned into a shouting match or a personal attack while the members developed resentments toward each other? Eventually, the group would descend into chaos, people would stop coming, and some would relapse. If your loved one was in treatment in such a group, would you be OK with that? As a matter of fact, your loved one is essentially in a group while at home, similar to the one above, dismantling the family and destroying it. With all the family members emotionally involved in the situation but without the guidance of an experienced group facilitator, how could the situation at home improve?

The case above exemplifies a lack of skills needed to improve group outcomes. Add unhealthy family roles, maladaptive coping skills, enabling, and codependency to the group, and it becomes even more difficult to solve problems. Interventions are designed for families to learn how and why they have allowed the situation to get this far. It is difficult to resolve a problem when you play a significant part in it. Interventions benefit families by making an impact and drawing attention to the situation in a different way from what has been done in the past. We know that the substance user is going to have an intervention at some point. The family can choose when that happens before it is imposed on the loved one. Understanding which behaviors have been helpful and which have been counterproductive allows the substance abuser to be held accountable and to see the need for change. The substance user is going to make a choice as to what to do. The family is the only one with both a clear choice and the ability to make a rational change. The substance user is most likely not going to change because of a speech; it almost always requires a change to the environment that has been an impediment to change. This environment is the family system that often reacts counterproductively to the substance user. Intervention can benefit a family by taking the first steps with the likelihood that the substance user will follow through with change, too.