Intervening with Individuals with Addictions Always Works...100% of the Time

I believe that every intervention with addicted individuals always works, 100% of the time…never fails. I cannot prove this, I just know it.

I learned this in the 1970s when I would call at the Olean (NY) City Jail each morning and interview anyone intoxicated when arrested the night before. The entire interview might last 5-minutes, which was just enough time to introduce myself and convey the message, “You do not have to feel this way anymore…there is something you can do.” I would like to say that most interviewees had a “Paul on the road to Damascus” epiphany and immediately asked for help; that was the rare exception rather than the rule. There was, however, one gentleman who showed up in my office the better part of a year later, with a crumpled up copy of my business card in his hand, asking if I remembered speaking with him in the jail many months before. Of course I did not, but this was one of those occasions when God lets us tell a lie and still leaves open the gate to Heaven…"yes," I respond, “I remember.” He proceeded to share about what those in AA refer to as having become, “sick and tired of being sick and tired”; he went into treatment.

It was at this point that I realized that any and every effort made to proffer assistance works because although it may take 50 crises, interventions, and “trips to the bottom,” there could not be the 50th event that resulted in change had there not been the 25th…the 10th…the first! We never know…and whether we mount intervention #1 and never see the person again or intervention #50 and shepherd the individual to recovery, there could be no "final intervention" if there was no "initial intervention."

A related experience involved a student I saw when working in a university counseling center. I had conducted an assessment, shared my concerns — rather bluntly I might add — and proffered assistance. The student politely declined and left. A number of years went by before this student returned…quite a number of years. He asked to see me and told me that he left my office that day and went back out and “did his thing” until he hit that final brick wall; he turned to AA; he got sober. He then reached in his pocket and took out his 5-year brass medallion celebrating his 5-years of sobriety in AA and gave it to me saying that his process of change started the day we had our last session when I shared that, “what causes a problem is a problem when it causes problems” and he wanted me to have it as his way of saying thank you. You just never know…

By way of closing — and to not extend this post too much — I include two web links to further experiences I have had that serve to ground my belief that interventions always work. I share them as I know you will appreciate them:

• http://bit.ly/Hvq1h
• http://bit.ly/8IpGJ4 - scroll down to “Rain in My Heart” (this is an earlier post recorded on this blog)

Robert