Compassionate and Respectful Addiction & Drug Intervention Strategies:
Never Coercive and Always Sensitive to Shame!
Intervention is never to be confrontive or threatening:
In the event that our intervention “candidate” refuses to accept the care that has been offered, team members shall be encouraged to follow appropriate measures for their personal self-care. Even if our intended drug abuser refuses the recovery options offered by our intervention efforts, you will be prepared to uphold your own on-going motivational leverage.
The intervention process assures that enabling family members learn to stop helping others remain addicted. Just why wold anyone help a loved one remain "stuck" in addictive behavior patterns? Your chosen “actions of self-preservation” exert an ongoing influence on your loved one's life style. Remember, few people can uphold their own problem with addiction without others enabling them to continue.
Do you inadvertently finance your friend or loved ones alcohol or other drug use? Do you help the abuser stay "stuck" by paying rent, credit card debet, insurance premiums and the like? Perhaps you are enabling your loved on by simply "ignoring' their problem as they deteriorate. Have you bailed someone out of jail and effectively helped that person continue engaging their addictive behavior? Are you enabling the other because you "just don't know what to do?" If this is the case, just give me a call to schedule a consultation to explore your options.
Such actions of self-care include the cessation of old patterns of interaction that have served to “enable” or help your loved one to remain on a path of progressive deterioration.
Loving Leverage:
Your personal statement of self-preservation:
Through the intervention planning process, the entire “family system” is provided a path toward mutual well-being. Family Intervention must never involve rude or coercive "bottom line leverage" to force unwanted change in another. We learn how not to help or "enable" the user to destroy their life with addictive behavior. Through the intervention planning process, family members become clear as to exactly how to uphold themselves and preserve their emotional, financial and physical well-being.
When loved ones learn to stop enabling addictive behavior (learn to stop helping the drug user to remain stuck), such choices exert an ongoing motivational influence on the abuser's addictive behavior patterns. The motivation to “awaken to reality” is clearly enhanced when families learn to stop enabling.
By changing your own patterns of enabling, you are effectively (and compassionately) encouraging the abuser to take constructive action. When you stop enabling, this motivates your loved one to wake up to the realities of addiction and restore their own behavioral health!
Cease Enabling! Self Preservation for Significant Others:
"I have an appointment with life, and rest assured, I intend to keep it!"
Many intervention participants elect to deliver to their loved-one a clear "statement of self-preservation." As an interventionist, I prefer refrain from suggesting harsh ultimatums and similar cohesive actions. Family members are encouraged to stop enabling and focus on their own self-care. Intervention participants decide to take whatever actions they deem personally appropriate fro themselves. Loved ones regardless of our intended’s decision to accept the care plan (personal recovery or hospital drug treatment options) that we offer.
Such messages may also be stated as personal safeguards or safety precautions. Through your involvement in the intervention process, you may initiate clear actions and state your intentions to remain true to yourself. Intervention helps you protect yourself, your family, or professional group.
Mindrulness Based Relapse Prevention
Family Drug Intervention | Aftercare and Relapse Prevention in Seattle