As a professional interventionist I've seen family members take these positions all the time and the damage it can do. "Just because we have no experience doing interventions doesn't mean we can't do one," (even though the family history strongly indicates it's a bad idea). “Maybe this time we can pull off an intervention ourselves and save money...

Brute, Emotional Force “He who angers you conquers you.” ~ Elizabeth Kenny   When I see an addict ripping into his mother in response to an offer of help, I see an addict trying to control the outcome of the argument using brute, emotional force. I see someone who doesn’t want to do something, improvising ways…

Anyone who has done anything repeatedly has the advantage of being able to identify and recognize patterns. Having done hundreds of interventions, one pattern I’ve come to recognize is something I call the greenhouse effect. In short, it’s when the family members are not only confronting a difficult problem, but do so without sleep, eating,…

The following is an excerpt from my book, More Than Hope – Intervention Guidebook. Hopelessness: 1. Without hope [a hopeless prisoner] 2. Causing one to lose hope; discouraging [a hopeless situation]. Using addicts and alcoholics often attempt to destroy interventions by creating feelings of hopelessness in those around them, especially in their parents, spouses, children –…

~ Life As An Addict  The most powerful tool in my arsenal is my ability to see things from an addict’s point of view, and to work from that. Had I not experienced the mental, emotional and physical effects of drug and alcohol addiction I could not accomplish what I do now. My experience is what enables…

If drugs or alcohol were an addict’s fundamental problem, recovery would be academic. Simply detox and it’s done. But  –  that isn’t how it works. The fact is, addiction is a set of low conditions which cut across multiple aspects of a person’s life. One becomes more and more degraded as he turns to self-medication….