Minor Injuries: Seeking Treatment in a Timely Manner

If one of your family members is suffering from an addiction to drugs or alcohol and you are planning to hold a drug intervention, then these tips will help you do so successfully:

Tip: Invite People Who Your Relative Trusts and Knows Supports Them

When you are in the first stages of planning the intervention, it is important that you choose who should and who should not be invited to attend. Since the purpose of the intervention is to convince your relative to seek help for themselves, everyone in the room should be people who they trust and feel comfortable being around. Even close relatives should be excluded from the intervention if they are not supportive or who have the potential to cause unnecessary drama.

Tip: Create a Plan and a Script Before the Intervention Meeting

Once you have determined who will be attending the intervention, then you need to sit down together and create a plan. Start by sitting down and deciding who will be speaking. Once you have your speakers identified, then write down a script of what each will say to your relative. Following a script or an outline of your main points will make speaking a lot easier at the time of the intervention when emotions will be running high.

Tip: Schedule a Comfortable and Private Place for the Intervention Meeting

Your intervention meeting should be held in a private place where your relative will not be embarrassed. For example, this is not a gathering you want to have at a local restaurant. You should hold the intervention meeting in an area that is quiet, comfortable, and private. Some good examples of locations to hold interventions are in a private home's living room and in the conference room at a local hotel. If you choose to have the intervention in someone's home, make sure there isn't anyone else home who isn't involved in the process, and make sure the person who is the subject of the intervention feels comfortable there.

Tip: Have a Backup Plan and Don't Give Up

Finally, since drugs and alcohol have a strong hold on those addicted to them, you should have a backup plan in case your relative gets up and leaves or refuses your offer for help. Will someone follow them out and try to continue the conversation? Will you try again on another day? No matter what your backup plan is, it is vital you have one and that you never give up. Your first intervention may not be a success, but the second one just might be.