Pubdate: Sun, 23 Oct 2005
Source: Tri-Valley Herald  (Pleasanton, CA)
Copyright: 2005sANG Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/742
Author: Monique Beeler, Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

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: Richard Lake