Direct and Indirect Intervention

What can you do when a friend or family member suffers from alcoholism? If you plan on talking with them about their addiction, you should anticipate some level of resistance when encouraging someone you care about to seek help. In certain cases an intervention is an appropriate and necessary measure to ensuring the individual receives help. An intervention is an organized attempt by one, or several, family members and friends, to get an individual professional help, and enter a treatment center. An intervention is typically a direct confrontation with the alcohol dependent person. However, this confrontative meeting is sometimes scrutinized as “ambushing” and an indirect intervention approached has at times been used where the whole family is involved taking the emphasis off of the individual with alcoholism. Still many use direct intervention and since developed from Dr. Vernon Johnson in the 1960’s it has successfully saved thousands of lives.