Intervention

Healing doesn't happen on its own. That's an important lesson, for drug addicts and their families: Drug treatment and drug recovery aren't self-generating phenomenon. On the contrary, drug rehab can only work when it's sought out, and those individuals who check themselves into drug rehab centers are very often individuals who've been motivated to do so by an intervention. To put it as simply and as starkly as possible: Interventions save lives. If someone you care about has succumbed to a habitual pattern of drug use and abuse, you can't afford not to act.

It bears noting at the outset that there is no such thing as an easy drug addiction intervention. An intervention, after all, is ultimately a crisis-response mechanism…and that which can be easily resolved wouldn't be a crisis in the first place. The point, of course, is that those individuals who commit themselves to conducting an intervention commit themselves to hardship, and to struggle. Anyone who approaches an intervention without being ready for a challenge is, unfortunately, only kidding himself.

But the fact that interventions are hard doesn't mean that interventions aren't worth the effort. Again, interventions really do save lives…and they really can be effective, as difficult as they might be, if the individuals involved in them are able to maintain supportive and loving attitudes. If you really want an addict to get better, you might say, you've got to show him how much you care in the course of the intervention process.

The information contained here is by no means the final word on interventions, but it should at the very least illuminate the key dynamics at work in a successful intervention event. The Storti model, rightly applied, fosters the sort of warmth and compassion that are so very vital to intervention success. If you're going to conduct an intervention, you've got to do it right…and if you're going to do it right, you've got to understand how the thing works. For the sake of the addict you care about, let today be the day you start leaning what you need to know.

Drug Addiction and the Importance of Interventions

In studying the drug and alcohol intervention process, it's important to first put interventions and drug addiction in a larger social context. No matter how you size up the issue, drug abuse is a serious problem in the United States and around the world; addiction wreaks havoc wherever it exists, and is hugely damaging both to addicts themselves and to the communities of which they are a part. Interventions, in this sense, aren't simply about individuals; they're about society as a whole, and the interpersonal bonds which work to make life worth living in the first place.

Even a cursory examination of drug abuse statistics reveals the pressing importance of intervention and drug treatment. Most studies suggest that as many as fifteen million Americans show symptoms of unhealthy dependency on drugs or alcohol: fifteen million Americans, in other words, who are waiting for someone, anyone, to save them in the course of an intervention. The lesson: If you're thinking about conducting an intervention for someone you care about, you're a long way from alone.

And make no mistake: Your success or failure in the course of an intervention, even with the best intervention specialist, has far-reaching repercussions. Yes, an intervention is crucially important insofar as it can change the lives of the individuals involved in it…but drug addiction isn't merely an individual phenomenon, and the benefits of drug treatment aren't limited to individual drug addicts. On the contrary, the social costs associated with drug dependency make interventions vital to the interests of those communities in which they occur, and mean that the intervention process is in a significant sense an instrumental part of the country's struggle to beat drug abuse for good.

Again, interventions are never easy…but the most important things, in the end, are very often those for which you have to work the hardest. If someone you care about has slipped into a habitual pattern of drug use and abuse, please let today be the day your resolve to undertake the intervention process. For your sake, for all of our sakes, don't wait to start making a difference.

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