What Is an Intervention?

Do you have a loved one who is addicted to drugs, alcohol, gambling, or smoking? An intervention program could help your loved one escape the grips of denial, rationalization, and projection.

There is no guarantee that the intervention process will cause the individual to accept treatment. However, using a professional interventionist will ensure that process is explained properly, approached efficiently and executed strategically. When performing the intervention properly, chances will drastically increase that the individual will immediately commit to going to a treatment center. If they do not immediately go into treatment your interventionist will work with you and the family until they enter a program, the family is released from being in the direct path of the disease and how to stop the enabling process bringing the bottom up to them.

The intervention process consists of four phases:

  1. Assessement
  2. Group Preparation
  3. Intervention
  4. Post-Intervention

Assessment Phase

  • Awareness of the availability for treatment
  • Discussing methods of treatment needed
  • Pre-meeting arrangement and expectations
  • Establishing the date and time of the intervention
  • Gathering information about the addicted individual
  • Establishing the best approach for the individual
  • Developing a powerful and productive intervention team
  • Understanding the risks involved

Group Preparation Phase


  • Alcohol and Substance Abuse: A Deadly DuoAlcohol and substance abuse is a dangerous combination. You need professional help in order to treat both addictions.
  • User, Abuser, and Dependent: What's the Difference?User, abuser, and dependent. You've heard these words before in the context of alcohol addiction, drug addiction, or gambling addiction. What are their differences?
  • Addiction DefinitionAddiction is also classified as a progressive disease. This means that the habit will only intensify as time goes on if nothing or nobody intervenes with the addiction.
  • Intervention FAQsHere are some of the most common questions that families often ask about an intervention, whether for drug, alcohol, or substance addiction.

563 thoughts on “What Is an Intervention?”

  1. I have a brother who is addicted to Fentanyl, meth and possibly coke. He is 30. And had been to rehab and beat a meth addiction years ago. He has lost a life with his kids. they’ve been through trauma. he has had many overdoses and will not call or arrive to family events because of everything. My biggest fear is hearing he is dead because he had Noone to rush him to the hospital to be narcanned. The last overdose he began to size after narcanned by a doctor. I really want him to get the help he needs for his kids and himself.

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  2. Please help me. I lost my dad 8 months ago. I’m on oxygen. I had COVID three times and it did something pretty bad to my heart and lungs. My daughter had got clean and worked hard to stay clean and then the last two years we had seen it difference her and her 7-year-old child which was five at the time when they moved in. she was gone all the time. we did have to go get emergency to custody. she is doing meth fentanyl heroin crack and we have tried everything with losing my dad and then my daughter doing all this. the family has tried and tried to get through to her. she went to rehab last month. lasted four days because it was so close to home. she just signed herself out and left. I don’t want to lose my baby. she’s 30 years old. her son is so messed up from them doing the drugs in front of her and now she’s blaming us for taking her son from her and she’s very upset because we won’t let her see him. she’s had a few men and her life that is really messed with her head. really bad. the one guy forced himself on her and she got worse. after that I beg of you to please please consider helping my daughter. we don’t know what to do anymore. we’ve already cut her off from the family. I love my daughter with everything I have but I just don’t like the person she has became. so please consider helping my daughter. we’re not the kind of people that have money that can send her to a nice rehab and she does have a criminal case coming up because of overdosing and a shell gas station. the drugs was on the driver’s side but she took credit for those when the driver is on probation for drugs. he should have gotten in trouble too but he did not. I beg you please. I pray every night but somebody will help us. I don’t know how much more I can take.

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  3. my 30 year old daughter worked so hard to get clean 7 years ago. I had lived there off and on. she got her son back 6 years ago. I’ve lost my dad in the past few months and her out doing drugs and overdosing. we have temporary custody of her son. she’s already lo st. her oldest son. she used to be a crack addict and the father to my 7-year-old grandson started bringing cocaine home boy. I let his butt up and he said well it’s not crack I said. what do you think crack is made out of but now she’s into fentanyl crack heroin I’m already on oxygen. I’ve got my mom I’m moving in with to take care of Hershey’s and hospital bed. we really need your help. we took her to hours away to rehab and it was too easy for her to up and leave. you know I’ve had 35 surgeries and my life. I didn’t like to take pain pills. I eventually had to and by the time I realized it the doctors had me addicted to pain medications but she dates all these older men that she acts like she didn’t have a dad there. I please beg you to help us. I want my little girl back. my grandson blames himself thinks he did something wrong. he wants his mommy back

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  4. Hi…. ummmm idk if I should even be here but been binge watching intervention for an episode my family can relate too…. so I can show my mom…so she can make sense of where she is on life right now with my sister. She hides it so well we don’t know what she is on….. we think (my dad, her kids dad, and myself) think the main choice is crack but she has always been known to pop pills. Nevertheless my main focus of this is my mother naivety…. this alone is the stepping stone to my sisters advantage but really her ultimate downfall. There is just too much to sit here and write but I need help. My family needs help. She has 4 little boys (only 1 she still somehow holds custody too), she has a mother and a father she is running into the grave, siblings all too scared to confront her because we know she will run, nieces and nephews who can never truly know who she is because she had been here for 20 years atleast. Please help my family intervention!!!

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  5. my son has been on the streets since he was 18 he’s 34 now and on meth he met a girl that is 36 they both need help I’ve taken my son to a rehab and paid over $1000 then he left he had a stroke when he was born so he is paralyzed on his right side I legally adopted him and his sister when they were 2 and 3 I was 21 so as a dad I vowed to protect them the grand parents are enablers his mom has stoling his back pay when he fully got his disability 5 years ago this man is a good man but needs real help I can’t do it all on my own and his girl friend that they had a baby is also an issue so I’d like to see about getting both of the some separate help

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  6. My mom is addicted to alcohol (wine). She is a widow of 7 years this year. She has drank my entire life along with having horrible health conditions due to alcohol. My fiancé and I recently moved in with her until we find a place of our own again. She resents me for everything including my past addiction problems (I’ve been clean for 5 years). She verbally, mentally and emotionally attacks/abuses me and tries to use my fiancé as her drinking buddy. She weighs 70lbs and I believe she has major health problems that she keeps secret. She refuses to go to a doctor. I’ve tried multiple ways to get her to get help and she refuses. She believes she doesn’t have a problem because it is only wine she drinks (she thinks it’s classy and people who drink liquor are the ones that have a problem). I don’t want to lose my last family member or my last parent. I fear that I will wake up in the morning and she just won’t wake up anymore.
    Ballground, GA

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  7. This is very new territory for me so I’m just going to say it… my boyfriend of 7 years is addicted to Fentanyl. Not only that but he drinks two bottles of alcohol a day he does uppers as well and even crush is there a Xanax and actually mixes it with the Fentanyl. He is 27 years old we both are. We share a beautiful two-year-old daughter together and growing up without my father is something that I do not want for mine no one does. He’s had a problem with drugs and alcohol for a long time and he’s pushed away all of his family and friends because of it. Our relationship is extremely difficult because it’s hard feeling like people don’t wanna hang out with me because they know what he does or they are worried about our daughter that I take great care of I just so desperately want her to have her dad. He is such a great father and looking at him you wouldn’t even think that he does drugs. He’s a functioning addict and unfortunately that’s the most scariest thing because not everyone knows unless they know… he owns his own landscaping business that he is allowing to fail which is causing financial problems for me and my daughter. I pay for all of the utilities all the food on the table and I take full-time care of our daughter. I even pay towards the rent. I’m not sure if this will ever reach anyone or if someone has it worse but what I do know is that I’m begging for help and reaching out in hopes that he can have a future… a sober one. He has lost multiple friends to the same drug very close ones and I know that it’s affected him very deeply and I know that if he had the opportunity that he would take it he talks about getting help all the time I just don’t want him to end up 50 years old alone on the side of the road or in a morgue…. For my daughter sake please I beg you. Help us.

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  8. My spouse’s sister has been using for three years. She is 32, tall, weighs less than 100 pounds. A mix of meth and Fetanyl are her choices of drugs. She has not had a job in three years. She has taken a couple jobs but they wouldn’t last because she won’t show up regularly to work. She sleeps for up to sixteen hours on some days during the week. She drains her mother, my mother n law, of her finances. Has bouts where she becomes verbally/physically aggressive. Because of her life choices, she constantly gets attention from my spouses mom by worrying her to pieces while he and his sibling have to witness this. It’s a never ending cycle. She is beautiful and has a lot of potential, but continues to use, even while she has a six year old son. Please help.

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