Intervention

I'm reading a book called "Love First: A Family's Guide to Intervention" (Jeff and Debra Jay). It's written by a team of professional interventionists, so they are very keen on this method.  We never used an intervention; the times we offered paid rehabs, Andrew went willingly. 

I know interventions are expensive, and don't always work.  An intervention may get someone into treatment, but that doesn't mean they will stay there.

The book does a credible job of explaining family dynamics. I liked an explanation called soft and hard enabling.


In the beginning, there is love plus denial which equals soft enabling. This is when we acknowledge a  problem, but blame it on bad luck, low self esteem, immaturity, stress, or rebelliousness. We don't call it alcoholism or drug addiction, as that would be admitting the unacceptable. The family begins to help the alcoholic out of scrapes and messes, but still believes the problem will be outgrown/overcome.

Reality plus fear equals desperate enabling. Eventually a crisis brings us face to face with the truth; it is addiction after all. Now the family goes into overdrive to stop the inevitable consequences--financial ruin, incarceration, possible death. As addiction intensifies, we adjust and readjust our bottom line. Our personal "last straw" keeps bending, but not breaking, out of a desperate need to save the addict from himself.

The book suggests asking yourself "am I doing things today that five years ago I said I'd never do" to become aware of how you have adapted to the alcoholic's behavior.