In addition to offering intervention support services, at Guardians Intervention our goal to help individuals and their loved ones to gain a better understanding of mental health disorders and substance abuse through our family intervention resources. This means providing numerous educational and informative resources for our patients and their families.

One of the best ways to fight a mental health or substance abuse disorder is through education. Therefore, we want to ensure that you and your loved ones have the best possible understanding of addiction, intervention, and when certain support services are right for your family member.

What is an Intervention?

In short, an intervention is a non-confrontational, non-aggressive strategy of intervening in an individual’s substance abuse problem or mental health disorder. More often than not, an intervention takes place when the family members of an afflicted individual have come to the conclusion that the effects of the disorder are profound and potentially life-threatening, warranting their intervention so as to promote the individual’s health and wellness.

The Intervention Process

When it comes to staging an intervention, it’s important to do the necessary preparation beforehand so as to maximize the efficacy of the intervention. Before organizing and planning an intervention, the first step of the intervention process is education. During this time, the family members take the initiative to learn more about the mental health disorder or substance abuse problem; in particular, they should become knowledgeable about the effects and signs of the disorder, which will afford a level of certainty and protect them from false accusations. Our family intervention resources help you understand the complexity of addiction and the recovery process.

Once the intervention participants are knowledgeable about the afflicted individual’s disorder, the next step is to begin planning and preparing for the intervention. This includes choosing a time and place for the actual confrontation, making plans for how the subject of the intervention will get there and what he or she will be told to ensure attendance, and planning what each participant will say when addressing the subject of the intervention. As well, it’s a good idea to make tentative treatment plans on behalf of the subject of the intervention; if successful, the intervention should be immediately followed by the subject’s departure for treatment. The planning and preparation phases of the intervention process are arguably the most important.

Executing the intervention is also very important. Of course, the subject of the intervention must be present. When an intervention is happening, it often entails each of the participants taking turns in addressing the participant. Make sure that each participant’s address comes from a place of love and support rather than chastising and deriding the subject, which will make it less likely that he or she would accept the offer of help.

What is Addiction?

With years of research and observation, we’ve come to understand addiction as a chronic relapsing brain disease. In effect, an individual develops an addiction after abusing mind-altering chemical substances for an extended period of time. At a certain point, the habitual substance abuse results in lasting changes in the brain, which is when the disease of addiction takes hold. Having developed an addiction, an individual will begin thinking and behaving in ways that are very uncharacteristic and contrary to the individual’s previous thought patterns and behavior. In effect, the individual seems very much different from how he or she used to be.

Signs of Addiction

While there are many signs of addiction, some are dependent and variable according to the substance to which a person is addicted to. For instance, depressant substances will cause different effects than stimulant substances. However, there are numerous other effects of habitual substance abuse that are often shared between different classes of substances.

People who have developed addictions or substance abuse problems tend to behave in ways that are very uncharacteristic and quite different from how they used to be. If they used to be very social, good-natured, and outgoing, they’ll likely become withdrawn, reclusive, and not very participative in social settings. Additionally, addiction often coincides with much less concern for things like personal hygiene and appearance. It’s also quite common for individuals to lose interest in their hobbies and favorite pastimes once they’ve developed a substance abuse problem.

Is Addiction Curable?

Unfortunately, addiction is not currently known to be a curable disease. When a person develops an addiction, he or she has experienced significant changes in the structure and functioning of his or her brain, and these changes cannot be permanently repaired or reversed. However, despite being an incurable disease, addiction can, in fact, be treated. With the appropriate combination of treatments and other complementary recovery resources, an individual can live a healthy, productive life.

Knowing When a Loved One Needs an Intervention

It can be difficult to detect a mental health disorder or substance abuse problem in a loved one. More often than not, individuals who suffer from such disorders will go to great lengths to keep their disorders a secret from their loved ones; however, they’re often unable to hide every sign of their disorders, so it’s important to be knowledgeable of many of the signs of substance abuse, addiction, and mental health disorders. Our intervention resources for families helps you to discover these signs and addiction characteristics. 

Typically, a person suffering from a mental health or substance use disorder will require an intervention when the disorder begins to affect many other aspects of his or her life. For example, a substance abuse problem often causes an individual to damage or destroy important personal relationships, lose career opportunities, and stop caring about fulfilling their professional and/or social responsibilities. Thus, it’s often a sign that an intervention is needed when the individual has begun exhibited deteriorating in multiple aspects of his or her life.

Let Our Family Intervention Resources Help You

It’s important to be knowledgeable about mental health disorders and substance abuse so that you can be an effective support system for your afflicted loved one. If you or your loved one currently suffers from a mental health or substance use disorder, Guardians Intervention can help. Call our family intervention resource specialists today for more information about our intervention support and other recovery services.