Are you staging an intervention for a loved one? They’re never easy but they necessary for your friend’s health.
No matter how good your intentions, some interventions just go wrong sometimes, just because your loved one gets upset and leaves. The intervention failing doesn’t always mean that you’ve failed to help your friend. If you know what to do when it does fail, then you can still do some good.
Here are a few reasons that interventions fail and what you can do in response to it to ensure that your friend gets the care and attention that they need.
1. Why Interventions Fail
The first step to staging a successful intervention is understanding how they may fail. Two of the most common reasons is that it ends up getting led with emotion, or your loved one gets offended and leaves.
Participants Might Start Leading with Their Emotions
When staging an intervention it’s very important that your speech and body language don’t feel overly judgmental. This could heavily lead to your loved one becoming upset and leaving.
It’s hard to not become overly emotional if you’ve been watching your loved one struggle for a long time but, interventions that become very emotional are almost always doomed to fail.
Your Loved One Could Become Aggressive or Get up and Leave
Often times interventions end with the person getting mad and doing one of two things. The first thing is getting up and leaving. Even though this is unfortunate, it’s better than the alternative which is your loved one becoming aggressive.
If they become aggressive and threaten to hurt the attendants it’s important that you break up the intervention and get everyone out.
2. What to Do If Your Intervention Fails
When your intervention fails, you’ll need to turn the fail into a success. You can do this by simply knowing how to flip the situation on its head.
Do Not Barter or Compromise
Sometimes when your loved one does stay for the entire intervention, they may try to argue with you by telling you they don’t need treatment. Instead of letting it go after this, refuse to compromise.
Let them know that they need to go to rehab no ifs, ands, or buts. If they still won’t listen to you, then you need to state the consequences for that.
Follow Through on Your Promises
You need to come up with a few consequences if your loved one won’t seek help. Most of the time this comes in the form of removing any enablers from their home.
Note that when you do this, your loved one might lash out in anger at you but rest easy knowing that this anger won’t last and they will thank you for it someday.
How to Turn Failed Interventions into Successes
It’s hard to watch someone close to you go through substance abuse. When enough becomes enough it’s time to hold an intervention.
The most important thing about holding a successful one is realizing why they may fail. Use this information to turn failed interventions into successes and get your loved one the help they need.
Are you trying to pick out a rehab center for your loved one? Contact us for more information and to schedule a tour.