Staging interventions help family and friends to overcome feelings of helplessness when facing addiction.  Watching a loved one who is dealing with drug or alcohol addiction without feeling like there is anything that you can do is one of the hardest things that a person can go through.  But in planning an intervention, you are able to take steps that will allow you to help your loved one.

You should remember that not all interventions work.  If you want to reduce the chances that your loved one will storm out of the room, then it is important to know what successful interventions do right.

If you are ready to start planning your intervention, then follow these tips to increase the chance that you will get through to your friend or family member.

Learn about their addiction (or addictions)

When you are looking in from the outside, it might seem obvious that your loved one should get treatment for their problem.  However, life is much more complicated from them that what you may see on the outside.  Addictions are complex, with many people, circumstances and life experiences playing roles.  Mental illness makes the possibility of recovery more difficult.

For people who are living with drug addiction, it can be difficult to see that they have a problem.  The nature of addiction prevents them from identifying their issues.  While you can do your best to help them see the light, know that their head-space probably makes it hard for them to understand, and because they are not able to understand you, it is important that you try your best to understand them.

It is vital that you and everyone else who attends the intervention takes time to understand their addiction.  This includes what their drug of choice is, but also could include the people or circumstances which have contributed to the addiction, and ways that you might have been enabling them.

Online research can go a long way in learning about addiction, and watching movies about drug addiction can even help.  Sympathizing with a fictional character might help you find ways that you can sympathize with your loved one, even if sometimes their behavior makes you angry and frustrated.

Get the right intervention team

It is vital that you take the time to consider which people should be at the intervention.  It might seem obvious that family and close friends should come, but this does not mean that every family member and close friend should come.  People who are likely to incite issues, have a short fuse, or who the person has a strained relationship with might need to stay at home.

Staging interventions is more likely to be successful if you invite a professional to the meeting.  It is easy to feel like those around you are ganging up on you when you are the focus of the intervention.  Having an impartial party there helps keep things calm.

Prepare what you are going to say

Saying how you feel can be difficult.  In the moment, you might stumble with what you are going to say or find yourself becoming frustrated or overwhelmed.

It is important that you prepare exactly what you are going to say ahead of time.  Intervention specialists can help you prepare exactly what you are going to say.  By helping you with practicing your script, they can make sure that you remain neutral and not emotionally charged.

One everyone has prepared exactly what they are going to say, you should encourage them to stick with what they have written.  Your carefully crafted message is more important than what you think about ad-libbing in the moment.  Tensions can run high when you are staging a drug addiction intervention, so stick with the plan is a must.

Setting the stage

What you say at the drug addiction intervention is important, but setting the stage is just as crucial.  When and where you have the meeting can make a massive difference in how comfortable everyone is, as well as how receptive your loved one is to what the people in attendance have to say.

Choose a time to talk when your loved one is less likely to be high, as this is the best chance that you have in reaching them.  If you can, choose a neutral location, such as a therapist’s office.  Not only are they more likely to keep to good behavior, but they are not able to storm off to a private space or bedroom.  This has the result of keeping them grounded in the moment while listening to what people have to say.