Here's What Documentaries Don't Tell You About Addiction Intervention

Timing is everything when it comes to intervening with an addicted loved one. In this video, I'm going to share with you, exactly when do you say something to your addicted loved one? When do you bring up help? How do you bring up help so you can make decisions strategically and get the results that you want? For those of you who are new here, I'm Amber Hollingsworth from the YouTube channel put the Shovel Down. I've been helping people and families overcome addiction for more than 20 years now. And my YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can be addiction for good and get back to living the life that you want to live. All right, so let's get into when do you want to intervene? Maybe we should start with when you shouldn't intervene, because that's probably more important than when you should. Over the course of addiction, they're going to be a lot of ups and down, natural highs and lows. They're going to be periods of time where the person feels like they've got it more under control and periods of time where they feel like they don't have it under control so much. And in the process, they're going to do a lot of what I call bargaining, which is a lot of trial and error, trying to figure out how to make their addiction more manageable, which usually involves some kind of limits or rules about the addictive behavior, like cutting it back only on weekends only, spending so much money only on holidays only with certain people. All these different ways that we bargain and try to get it under control. Now, if your loved one really is dealing with an addiction, chances are those bargains are just not going to work. But there will be moments where things are better. You don't want to bring up somebody needing to change or get help or go to treatment when. When someone is in one of those moments where things seem to be going better in their mind, if they're being successful or they're drinking or using a lot less, and you bring up getting help, they're going to think that you're crazy, that you're never satisfied, that no matter what you do, you're always being critical of them, which is going to make them dismiss your recommendations and your ideas, because they're going to think you don't even get it. I'm doing a lot better now than I used to be. So you don't want to bring it up in times when things are relatively smooth. Now, I know that's hard because in the back of your mind, you know it's not going to last. You know the. You know what's going to hit the fan and things are going to go bad. You're going to have to wait for a moment that I call a moment of clarity. Now, a lot of times these little moments of clarity, they do happen after something kind of bad has happened, after things have gotten out of control, after someone's done something embarrassing, got a legal charge, you know, something like that. Sometimes it's even just after a hard bender and they wake up feeling terrible and they're making promises to themselves, I hate this. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm sick of this. Maybe I should stop. Maybe I should cut back. That's called Change Talk. And I actually have videos on the YouTube channel that describe for you in detail what Change Talk is, how to spot it, how to get it, how to respond, all that kind of good stuff. But it's when you're hearing this evidence of wanting to change, this change Talk, this is when you want to intervene. And by intervene, I basically mean maybe make a suggestion or open some kind of door towards change. Maybe you want to mention some specific kind of resource like counseling, treatment, support group, recovery coaching, any kind of help you want to wait till you. You have the right moment to bring that up. Change Talk is definitely key. I'm putting a link for you in the description where you can download my quick guide to Change talk. Gives you a lot of examples for what change talk looks like. What are the things that people might say that would indicate that maybe you're having a little moment of clarity? Now, the download is free. Definitely click the link and get that. But be careful. Just because you have one little tiny bit of change talk doesn't mean you should jump on them and say, okay, this is it. You're going to 90 days of treatment. I have this treatment place. You kind of have to match them. It's a little bit like dancing with someone. You have to kind of match where they're at with how you're coming at them, which does involve a little bit of skill and patience. Now to learn more about the types of interventions, I want you to watch this video next. It is my ultimate guide to intervention with someone who has an addiction problem.