Addiction is a complex and debilitating condition that affects millions of people every year. It’s one of those diseases that doesn’t discriminate. It can even affect you regardless of whether you are – rich, poor, young, or old. Addiction can be of a lot of types like drug addiction, alcohol addiction, gambling addiction, and sex addiction – to name a few. In this article, all you need to know about the best intervention strategies for addiction.
However, regardless of the type of addiction, the effects are devastating. Addiction can have its effect anywhere from relationships to careers. It can destroy your life, and can even lead to death. One such strategy is Sober Living. Sober Living involves supporting and guiding individuals in early recovery from their addictions.
Addiction is usually very difficult to overcome. But, if you follow the right path long enough with efficient intervention strategies in place, recovery is 100% possible. To ease the process, here’s our guide to help you get rid of your addictions. Let’s start by delving into the definition of what we are dealing with.
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Intervention Strategies For Addiction
As addiction is a debilitating disease that affects several aspects of life, intervention strategies help in addressing the problems. They provide support to individuals who are seeking recovery. There are mainly 3 steps involved in intervention:
Step-1: Pre-Intervention Preparation
Preparing for something you might be afraid of is quite overwhelming. But, such things are crucial for the success of the process.
Building awareness by understanding addiction and its effects
Having a sound understanding of addictions and their effects on one’s life is the first step. Always remember the goal: Intervention is to help an individual seek professional treatment to improve his/her life and make it sober and healthier.
Building a support team for emotional support and guidance is also equally crucial
As stated earlier, diseases like addiction are usually chronic in nature. They affect both – individuals and their loved ones. A support team of people like family and close friends is a good idea to ensure a positive outcome.
Setting boundaries and consequences is vital
Setting boundaries when creating a support team is important. This prevents enabling behaviors that might hinder the individual’s recovery. The support team must stand firm with confidence in their decision to intervene. It’s one of their vital responsibilities to have a plan in place that ensures a structured and effective intervention.
Step-2: Choosing an Interventionist
This step is as important as the preparation part. The quality of the whole process depends on this step. Let’s start by understanding the different types of interventionists are – (a) Professional and (b) Non-Professional.
Professional interventionists are the ones who are trained officially with proper certification in the field of addiction. These certifications are from a credible organization. Non-Professional interventionists usually lack such things as credentials and experience and so on. Also, the costs can vary by a significant difference, so it’d be better to have a budget in mind.
Above all this, it is important to research and verify an interventionist’s credentials and experience to prevent any mishap. The goal should always be providing your loved one with the help they need.
Step-3: Exploring Intervention Techniques
The step where this process begins is what Intervention Techniques are. It is that breakout point where you confront a loved one about their addiction – where you encourage them to seek treatment. There are a lot of Intervention Techniques nowadays. The most popular ones include The Johnson Model, The Arise Model, The Invitational Model, etc.
1) The most traditional, confrontational, and most importantly, safe approach is the Johnson Model. It advises you to plan a meeting with the addict’s family and an interventionist. The main unified purpose of the meeting is to let the people in the meeting know that addiction is destroying both the addict and their loved ones.
2) If you want a compassionate, empathizing, and nonconfrontational model, the Arise Model satisfies all those requirement checkboxes. It involves a lot of meetings with loved ones to work together and support the addict’s recovery.
3) The most non-rude and relatively new approach is the Invitational Model. It talks about the importance of making the addict feel loved and supported rather than accused and attacked.
Just like every other thing, every model has its advantages and disadvantages, strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, regardless of the approach, loving and supporting an addict to seek intervention is a huge as well as important step in itself.
Step-3: Post-Intervention Support
Taking the first few steps towards intervention is most probably one of the most challenging experiences an addict could face. That’s why, to maintain sobriety and avoid relapse, post-intervention support is crucial.
1) Start by finding the most suitable treatment plans for the individual like CBT or cognitive-behavioral therapy.
2) If necessary, consider taking the help of support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) or Narcotics Anonymous (NA) to provide peer support.
3) Couples and family therapy could also help support sobriety. This includes counseling family members and spouses to address any mishap caused by the addiction.
Summary
In short, addiction is a complex issue. But, following the right path such as efficient and organized intervention strategies and support, recovery is possible. A long-term commitment is important for lasting success. Our guide delves deep into the basic information that can help give you a push-start approaching an intervention for yourself or your loved one. At last, always remember, recovery with the right tools and resources is very possible.
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