My family and I are concerned about my brother’s drinking and we are considering doing an intervention. My parents are hesitant and don’t like the idea of secretly meeting with an interventionist. I’m afraid they won’t follow through even though they are very concerned. My brother really needs help. Is there anything I can do?
–Susan M., NYC
Susan, you deserve a lot of support for encouraging your family to address your brother’s drinking. However, we agree with your parents that meeting secretly and surprising your brother with an intervention is not the best approach. For over 30 years, using many different intervention methods, we have worked with families to help resolve their alcohol, drug and other addiction problems. We have come to trust the Invitational Intervention (I.I.) as the safest and most effective choice any family could make.
Unlike the intervention you are describing, there are no secret meetings, surprise ambushes, rehearsals or scripts to follow. You and your family would be encouraged to communicate openly and honestly with each other. This element of genuineness, missing in some intervention styles, will reduce your family’s stress and greatly improve the likelihood you will achieve the results you are hoping for.
INVITE THE WHOLE FAMILY
We suggest you begin the I.I. with a two-hour information session and invite the whole family, including your brother, to attend. This all-inclusive invitation lies at the heart of this approach. During this session, your family and the interventionist simply exchange information with each other (the interventionist is trained to lead this process in a non-threatening manner). The interventionist gets to know you and your family and to understand, in depth, what your family’s concerns are. You and your family gain a sense of the intervention professional, to see if their style and personality feel right for you. And you all learn exactly what the I.I. is.
When you first hear about this approach, your initial fear may be that your brother will just refuse to come. Experience shows, however, that there is a nine out of 10 chance he will come. It has a lot to do with how you invite him. To do this well, it helps to understand that addiction is a family disease and not just the addict’s. To help explain this, we use the formula 1 + 2 = 3, or put another way, The Addict + The Enablers = The Family Disease of Addiction.
CHANGING THE FORMULA
Family members often enable the alcoholic by trying to get him to stop drinking. Whether they pay the bills, clean up his messes or make excuses, their helpful intentions actually do harm. The focus of the I.I. is to change this formula by helping the family to identify and stop their enabling behaviors. It’s as hard for the family to stop enabling as it is for the alcoholic to stop drinking. So, when you invite your brother to the information session, you can honestly tell him that the session is as much for you and your family as it is for him.
After gaining confidence and comfort during the information session, nine out of 10 families decide to go forward with an intervention, which involves a one or two-day session where treatment options are discussed for each family member.
It usually takes approximately six months to stabilize a family. Having your brother agree to treatment is a relatively easy task compared to what it will take for him to remain sober six months down the road. Unfortunately, half of the clients in any given treatment center today have been in a treatment center before. Your best antidote for this revolving door scenario is for you and your parents to maintain your own ongoing recovery. The positive changes made by the whole family will provide your brother a powerful example of the physical, emotional and spiritual benefits recovery can bring. There’s no better incentive to join you. Good luck to you and your family. You are doing the right thing! Let us know how you make out.
Vincent Casolaro, LCSW, MAC, CASAC, and Robert Smith, LCSW, are addiction specialists in private practice in New York City. In 1999 they founded the Together Family Foundation (TFF), a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation, now the parent organization of Together Magazine and Together Warmline. Send your questions to: asktheinterventionists@casolaroandsmith.com
