A&E Intervention TV Series

For those of you who are not familiar with interventions, or the intervention process, there is an excellent series on TV that I highly recommend.

The show is called, appropriately enough, Intervention. It airs on the cable network A&E. Please check your local listings for the date and time that it airs or check out www.aetv.com/intervention.

The show portrays so many valuable aspects regarding the intervention experience, I could go on for pages highlighting critical phases that occur throughout this life-saving process. There is also a huge amount of work that takes place well before the intervention itself. Keep in mind that you are watching TV and there is only so much that can be shown in a small segment of time. In the interest of keeping matters brief, I'd like to focus on just a few key components of what you see during the show, and why they are there.

How the show works

First, you'll notice that in every episode (at least in all the episodes I've seen to date) there is a trained professional interventionist conducting the process.

There is a reason for that. They are well-trained professionals who have years of experience doing what they do. Many of them come with National Intervention Certificates, CADAC, MFT, PhD, and a variety of other certificates and degrees which provide a useful foundation to perform some very difficult work. Some have been intervened themselves and have experienced drug/alcohol treatment firsthand, though these are not prerequisites to be a successful interventionist.

The point is that these are well trained professionals. They need to be. They are in the business of saving lives. This is not to say, however, that it is absolutely necessary to hire a professional interventionist. Some families have successfully performed interventions, but it is by no means an easy task and is filled with potential pitfalls at every corner.

The second thing that is noticeable in the interventions that take place in the show is that the intervention "team members" (typically family and friends) read letters to the addict/alcoholic. These letters are absolutely critical to the success of the intervention. What you don't see in the show is the considerable amount of time, in some cases days, that is spent skillfully preparing and rehearsing the reading of these letters. Oftentimes, the success of an intervention rides on the content and delivery of these letters.

Another component of the show is that in all cases, a treatment facility has been secured and a bed is ready and waiting for the patient. The reason why treatment facilities have to be lined up before the intervention is because assuming a successful intervention, the person needs to be taken to the facility immediately so that his hardened defense system (momentarily weakened by the intervention) doesn't regain strength and cause him to back out of treatment.

They Use the Best

The Intervention show works with some of the best treatment facilities in the nation. It is important to recognize, however, that good treatment facilities do not materialize out of thin air.

Unlike TV, you will need to spend a considerable amount of time investigating treatment centers to determine the right match. There are many factors to consider such as medical insurance coverage, availability of private funds to cover the cost of treatment, does the patient have co-occurring disorders, is there a family component to the program, and a wide variety of other factors to consider. For listings of treatment centers, check out www.calrehabguide.com where you will find not only listings of treatment centers, but articles on addiction, alcoholism and recovery related subjects.

The Intervention show has done an extraordinary job focusing much needed attention to the addiction epidemic in our country. Through their team of professional interventionists they've shown that even the most hopeless and lost causes (and there have been quite a few depicted on the show) are not only worthy of help, but can indeed be helped.