Pubdate: Sun, 23 Oct 2005
Source: Daily Review, The (Hayward, CA)
Copyright: 2005sANG Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.dailyreviewonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1410
Author: Monique Beeler, Staff Writer

FAMILIES TURN TO INTERVENTIONS TO HELP ADDICTS SURVIVE

SOMEWHERE ON the road to adulthood, Derek Cooper got lost - then 
found, then lost again. It would take the intervention of a stranger 
to set him back on track.

Derek's start was promising: Upper middle class home, 
college-educated parents, great schools, plenty of money for extras.

A bright, good-looking kid, he did OK in school and made friends 
easily in his Burlingame neighborhood.

But his mom drank too much. Sometimes his dad overdid it, too.

Along with plenty of love, the

Coopers unintentionally served their young son and his older brother 
a diet of emotional confusion, a model for alcohol abuse and a set of 
genes that experts say predisposed their children to abusing alcohol and drugs.

Later, the Coopers divorced and Derek's brother developed a drinking 
problem, adding further upheaval to the mix.

It was a perfect script for addiction, one that Derek eventually 
would act out line by line. He started by smoking marijuana in middle 
school, graduated to alcohol and ended up in rehab before he left 
high school. A few years later, a relapse would threaten his life.

Fortunately for Derek, his family - who asked that we change their 
names and some details to protect their privacy - found a lifeline in 
professional interventionist Julie Kelly of Julie Kelly and 
Associates in Menlo Park. In 15 years of leading interventions, Kelly 
has memorized the addict's plot line and knows how to direct events 
toward a happier ending.

An interventionist is a professional trained in substance abuse and 
recovery issues who brings together relatives and friends to talk to 
the addict. Methods vary, but the framework is standard: In a loving 
and truthful environment, the group talks about addiction and 
ultimately asks the addict to get treatment.

"My job is to make everyone in the room safe," says Kelly, an 
energetic woman with a bright smile and expressive hands that move as 
she speaks. "I am a nice person, but I can stand my ground."

Kelly acts as a case manager for the family, spending about 25 hours 
total for each intervention. Her services include initial telephone 
consultations with the addict and those in his support circle, a 
two-day intervention workshop and about 13 hours of follow-up getting 
the addict into treatment and helping his family start their own 
recovery process.

Interventions first got the public's attention in the late 1970s when 
Betty Ford, wife of former President Gerald Ford, shared her personal 
story of her addiction to pain pills and alcohol. A family 
intervention initiated by her teenage daughter led Ford to treatment 
and a successful recovery. She later co-founded the Betty Ford 
Center, a world-renown rehabilitation center in Rancho Mirage.

About 24 million people in the United States suffer from drug and 
alcohol problems. Kelly's research puts the figure as high as one in 
eight Americans.

It takes personal resolve, a commitment to learn about addiction and 
a willingness to change deep-seated behaviors for an intervention to 
work in the long run - for the addict and for those who love him.

In about 90 percent of cases, the subject of an intervention agrees 
to go to a rehabilitation program.

Who will it work for?

So, who makes a good candidate for an intervention?

First, you have to understand addiction and who qualifies as an addict.

Lois Mark, a marriage and family therapist with offices in Alameda 
and San Mateo, has been working with addicts and their families for 
nearly 40 years.

"Put in simple terms, I would coin an addiction as an appetite gone 
wild," she says.

"Addiction really is a brain disease," Mark says. "What happens is 
people get hooked chemically."

In other words, genetics - not a character flaw - fuels addiction.

Over time, the chemically-dependent person builds up a tolerance to 
his drug of choice and needs more of it to get the same high he once 
did. As the beerguzzling or binge eating progresses, its signs become 
more apparent - the addict may skip work or class, she becomes 
depressed or he stops socializing.

Those closest to the addict often miss or ignore the cues.

"People come to me and say, She only drinks on weekends' or He only 
(uses drugs) a few times a week,' " Kelly says. "My favorite 
diagnosis is . . . continued use in spite of negative consequences."

Addict the last to know

Mark says the addict rarely recognizes on her own that she needs help.

"More calls come into our department from family and friends than 
from actual patients," says Leslie Place, a case manager for the 
Betty Ford Center. "Anytime somebody is calling about another person 
because they are so concerned (about their substance abuse problem), 
that is a red flag that someone is a candidate for an intervention."

The idea that an addict needs to hit bottom before he'll accept help 
is an often-repeated myth, drug counselors say. Addiction to alcohol, 
drugs or food can lead to the addict's death. Intervening early may 
save a loved one's life.

Too often, though, an interventionist is the last person called.

Friends, family and coworkers typically go through many stages of 
unintentionally supporting an addict's problem behavior before they 
seek an interventionist's help, Kelly says.

They'll hide an alcoholic's bottles to prevent drinking. They'll 
change their own work schedules to try to limit the crack user's 
visits to his dealer. They'll try to make the bulimic happier.

Denial further slows the process, as the Coopers realized only after 
Derek started getting high again following three years of sobriety.

"His behavior had been very erratic," Elena Cooper says about her 
stepson. "He had health issues, nausea, insomnia. He had severe 
stomach pain. It never occurred to us there could be a drug problem."

But the negative consequences of Derek's drug use piled up fast, says 
his father, Kenneth Cooper.

"He got in trouble with the police," Kenneth says. "He submitted a 
false report . . . He had trouble in his relationship with his 
girlfriend, which she ended up leaving."

Derek couldn't hold a job. He sold his sofa, his TV, anything of 
value to pay off his drug dealer. When his health declined, he moved 
in with his dad and stepmother.

"It was only when we began losing money at the house that we began to 
confront him," Kenneth says. "I ended up insisting he take a urine test."

Derek tested positive for heroin; the Coopers were shocked.

They put him in a treatment center not far from home, where Derek 
later attempted suicide.

Finally, a family friend who had once used Kelly's intervention 
services referred the Coopers to her for help. Kelly's whole-family 
approach to healing Derek's addiction surprised Cooper.

"I had the stereotyped (vision) of how interventions go," he says. 
"You get all the family together and force the addict to get help."

Non-confrontational style

Nothing could be further from Kelly's non-confrontational style of 
interventions.

"Everyone has the view of the group gang-up style," Kelly says about 
the surprise style intervention, which she no longer uses. "The 
pitfalls (of the surprise style) are the family doesn't look at their 
own issues and don't get treatment for their own enabling."

Treating an addict without treating his dysfunctional family or 
enabling friends is like setting a broken leg without putting it in a 
cast, Kelly says. It resolves the immediate problem, but it isn't a 
recipe for long-term healing.

Kenneth Cooper had been sober for 15 years but never tackled his 
enabling habits until after his son's intervention. An enabler, 
according to Kelly's definition, is someone who stands between the 
addict and the crisis.

"I had made the mistake of trying to take more responsibility for the 
boys' addictions (than I should)," Kenneth says. "I was saying, It's 
my problem, too. I'm going to fix it.' "

When an intervention subject refuses to go into treatment, 
interventionists advise those who have enabled him to stop doing 
things for the addict she can do for herself.

"If you stop giving them money, if you stop pretending there's 
nothing wrong, if you stop trying to fix them, they'll usually get 
help," Kelly says.

She emphasizes that the recovery work for every intervention 
participant continues long after the intervention itself. In the case 
of the Cooper family, the intervention included Kenneth, Elena, Derek 
and his brother and uncle.

Kelly also has led interventions in which a neighbor, friends and 
coworkers have participated. "People come running when you ask for 
help," she says.

For her 12-hour, two-day family intervention workshops, everyone 
participating agrees to go to three to six Alcoholics Anonymous 
meetings and read 14 chapters in books with titles such as "The 
Family Recovery Guide" before the intervention begins.

Kelly quickly shifts family members' focus away from the person in crisis.

"We stop talking about your mother," she says. "We start talking 
about the disease (of addiction)."

During the first 10 hours of the workshop, Kelly does most of the 
talking, doesn't use anyone's name and discourages dialogue about the 
addict. In fact, she arranges the chairs so that Mom and Dad can't 
easily look at alcoholic Grandpa every time the word addiction comes 
up. The goal is not to shame the addict.

"The challenge is people are angry and frustrated," Kelly says. "This 
is not therapy, this is education. Let me educate you. Let me give 
you the resources for recovery. And let me hold your hand while you (learn)."

A family disease

Near the beginning of the session she emphasizes that addiction is a 
family disease by drawing a wall-size family tree showing all the 
alcoholics in the intervention subject's family.

"It was very interesting to see the family tree evolve," Elena Cooper 
says. "It gives you a much clearer idea of why this has happened, and 
it's not your own personal faults."

At the end of the intervention, each person writes a letter in which 
they list important lessons they've learned during the workshop, 
steps they are willing to take toward their own recovery and what 
they would like to see other family members do.

Examples of what they might ask, include: "George, I'd like us both 
to go to Betty Ford Center and continue reading the assigned books" 
or "Mom, we would like to have you go to Atlanta for the Talbot 
program for 90 days of treatment."

When everyone finishes reading their letters aloud, the room is silent.

"By the time an intervention really comes down, the person is 
probably really sick and tired of being sick and tired on a lot of 
levels," Place, of the Betty Ford Center, says.

Most intervention subjects go into recovery at some point, Kelly says.

Derek was one of them.

He's completed six months at an out-of-state rehabilitation center 
and has agreed to continue for an additional six months in an 
affiliated program.

"He's now been about six months free of his use, and he's got a job 
and another girlfriend and is very energetic and hopeful now," 
Kenneth Cooper says. "I'm hopeful, but I've learned to be always 
alert to the uncertainty of recovery and being in support of it while 
not taking responsibility."

He encourages other families in crisis to consider whether an 
intervention is right for them.

"It's scary to contemplate doing this," Elena Cooper says. "As you're 
going through it, it feels a lot better."

Once someone goes through an intervention and accepts help, there's 
no guarantees that he won't relapse. But the experience can set in 
motion a process that can make it easier to get sober the next time.

"The miracles happen," Kelly says. "I don't think we should ever give 
up. Give them a chance to recover and find out what happens."
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MAP posted-by: Beth