1. Interventionists measure their success rate by the number of people they get to go into treatment. But that doesn’t mean that your family member (or you) stays in treatment. Even if they leave the day after they arrived, the interventionist counts it as a success.
2. Most interventionists have financial relationships with a few favored treatment programs. Those are the ones they will try to funnel your family member into regardless of whether it is the best match or not. Based on the latest U.S./NESAC research, 98% of the residential and outpatient programs in the U.S. are inappropriate for 85% of the clients they admit.

3. When you call to speak with somebody at a treatment center, you nearly always are talking with the marketing department. They are selling their program and they lie – about everything, except the price.
4. Admission criteria? How much money can you be conned or bullied into spending?
5. The program you pick will have a Program Director and/or Clinical Director with impressive credentials, but they are not the people who will be delivering the treatment or therapy. Treatment is generally delivered by poorly trained Chemical Dependency Counselors with only high school educations, who are nearly always former clients trying to stay sober by working in a treatment facility – or who are simply afraid to leave.
6. 30 days away is nice but it doesn’t “fix” anybody. – With rare exceptions the 30, 60 or 90 days away is just a break. It can put a floor in, if you are spiraling down ever further, but mostly it is just a strange vacation or a luxurious jail, depending on your point of view. The problems leading to substance abuse generally lie in your everyday life and if those are not fixed, nothing else much matters.
7. Most of what clients do while in residence at a rehab center has little to do with rehab and a lot to do with filling time. Let’s face it – people are there 24 hours a day, and there is only so much time anybody can spend eating, sleeping and “in group”. Consequently, rehab facilities have come up with all sorts of creatively labeled time-fillers like equine therapy (playing with horses), canine therapy (playing with dogs), ropes courses (playing with ropes), hikes, massages, and “step-work”, since they are all (98%) 12-step programs.
8. Treatment is mostly delivered in a group setting – not because it works (mostly it doesn’t), but because it’s cheap and doesn’t require expensive staff with real skills.
9. Spouses will be excluded from participation. As the most important person in the substance abusers day-to-day life, how do you think that’s going to work out when they go back home? Don’t be fooled into thinking the optional 2- 3 day “family program” will be something where you are working together. It isn’t. It is all about indoctrinating the family into the 12-step philosophy. And they charge extra for it, too!
10. The hard work really begins when you or your family member goes home from rehab and there is little or no ongoing support – just “don’t drink, go to AA”. Nobody really wants to acknowledge this. Rehab center staffs want you to believe that they can magically cure you while you are staying with them because it helps justify the tens of thousands of dollars they charge and close the sale and because they rarely offer any meaningful follow-up. But the truth of it is that the hard work is just beginning when somebody goes home. Substance abuse problems arose and exist within the context of everyday life and that is where people need good ongoing support. Thirty days (or 60 or 90) away is just a beginning, not the end of treatment.

So, if you’re looking for something better, something that’s individual, private, cost effective, and actually has a good chance of helping, give us a call. We’ll talk to you ourselves and, if we’re not the right program for you, we’ll suggest one of the few places that may be.

“Two things will be believed about any man whatsoever, and one is that he has taken to drink.” -Booth Tarkington

It isn’t unusual for people to seek treatment for their alcohol abuse problems when divorce is looming on the horizon. Indeed, probably two thirds of our clients come to us with crumbling marriages. What is surprising is that at a few of these clients don’t really have an alcohol problem and many of the rest are abusing alcohol, but aren’t alcoholics.

How does that happen?

Simply put, the treatment industry has promoted a Catch-22 model: if you’re accused of being an alcoholic and you agree, then obviously you are. But if you don’t agree then you still are – you’re just in denial. As Mr. Tarkington observed long ago, it’s a label that can be hurled at anyone and it will stick. And divorcing spouses like to use it just for that reason, it will stick and they will be able to leverage it to get what they want or at least make your life miserable for a while longer.

What is the reality? At a recent conference in western Canada, one presenter after another pointed out what a few of us have known for a long time, most people seeking help with their alcohol problems aren’t alcohol dependent “alcoholics” – they’re alcohol abusers who can be cured. But you won’t hear that if you go looking for help, or, God help you, an honest evaluation.

Why not? Because over 95% of all alcohol treatment programs are based on the assumption that you’re a powerless and diseased alcoholic, or you’re an alcoholic who’s in denial. Regardless, the outcome of any evaluation will be to put you in one of those two categories and “treat” you accordingly. It’s not an attractive prospect for anyone who actually cares about their future.

Options? Your choices are few and far between, and you’re probably in a vulnerable state, too. Not the best circumstances for making life altering decisions. But before you allow yourself to be labeled through a process that has only one outcome and one prescription, protect yourself by doing at least a bit of research.

First, simply go to a few AA meetings. You will know almost immediately whether or not this model will work for you. If it does, then simply continue. You don’t need to waste tens of thousands of dollars on 12 Step based treatment that’s already available to you for free right in your own neighborhood.

Second, if you don’t find yourself at home at these meetings, then there’s little point in going to traditional treatment. Paying to go to meetings isn’t going to make them any more effective – just the opposite. Most treatment programs will also leave you with a permanent, and public, label. That’s something that can come back to haunt you in the future whether you decide to run for public office or buy life or health insurance.

Third, consider the options. Read through the web sites of organizations like Moderation Management (moderation.com) and the non-pathologizing Good Therapy site (goodtherapy.org). Both have listings of programs and individuals who do not ascribe to traditional – and ineffectual – treatment.

Finally, resist being labeled, demeaned, and railroaded. Regardless of whether you are being smeared, or are abusing alcohol, or are indeed alcohol dependent, you deserve to be assessed and helped with respect, care, competence, and confidentiality. Do not allow yourself to be diminished and manipulated by others’ agendas.

Remember, there are alternatives, and you aren’t powerless.

It is common for people who have remained sober for a year or two, to begin to wonder why they are continuing to attend various groups and meetings. It’s a good question. While some people may need, or prefer, to continue their participation, others can safely occupy themselves with other activities. The question is, which are you?

The answer is easy, though the change process may not be. Generally, those who can kick the 12 Step Habit are those who have something other than alcohol to build their lives around. As obvious as that may sound to many of you, it isn’t a given.

There are good reasons why 12 Step programs work for a small minority of alcohol abusers. The primary one is that they insist that you maintain your alcohol focused life. This allows you to continue drinking, for example, while pleading that you are “powerless” over your “disease.” That’s probably the primary attraction to these programs – you’re excused from either changing or assuming responsibility for your behavior.

Even if you do stop drinking you do so without upsetting the balance in your life. Roles may shift – bartenders become transformed into sponsors, for example, and drinking buddies into AA pals – but you, and alcohol, remain the focal point of your life and you can continue to escape other problems through your continuing focus on “working your program.”

Family members and employers may no longer complain about your absences and you, along with the rest of us, are safer on the roads and highways, but little else has changed in any meaningful way.

That brings us back to the question of you giving up your 12 Step affiliation. Is it possible? Is it desirable? Is it smart?

You will, of course, have to make that decision for yourself. The risks of giving up your routine are that you will slip back into your old drinking habits. The problem with any change is that we tend to create vacuums when we fail to replace old habits with better ones. Your 12 Step habit is less destructive than your drinking behaviors and the key to ending your 12 Step dependence is to replace it with productive and rewarding activities. If you do that then there is little risk of you relapsing to either drinking or endless recovery.

Successful change is a product of consideration, research, planning, and action. You probably found that moving from a “drinking focused life” to a “talking about drinking focused life” was not as big a change as you expected. But removing the alcohol entirely as your central focus will be a considerably bigger adjustment. This shift will create a major void which you would be well advised to fill gradually as you wean yourself away from the routines which have gotten you through the past months or years. This is not a time for abrupt departures from current habits.

As you begin to move towards other activities you can expect to encounter opposition. Family members who had an investment in your drinking and later in your recovery may resist yet another change – especially one that threatens the status quo that 12 Step “recovery” generally supports. Your meeting buddies will, if they notice at all, feel threatened by a possibility – that you needn’t be recovering forever – they have been comfortable ignoring or rejecting.

You can minimize these reactions by moving gradually.  Instead of going to three meetings a week, try substituting a visit to the gym for one. You’re easing out, not dropping out, and you are substituting one healthy activity for an unhealthy. As you become more comfortable with your new involvements so will those around you. This is real change, not merely the substitution of one alcohol based activity for another.

Real recovery means extinguishing a set of behaviors and developing a more rewarding life. It’s the best insurance you can get against a return to the bad old days. Yes, you will be tempted occasionally, but having a life which has no room for alcohol is the best way to keep it locked out.

The “Bucket of Crabs” is one of our favorite analogies. Pulling crabs out of traps on Kodiak Island, we’d just toss them into a big bucket – no need to put a lid on the bucket.

Why not?

Because as soon as one crab would start to climb out, the other crabs would drag him, or her, right back down into the bottom of the bucket. There’s no escape to life back in the ocean.

And that keeps happening until all of the crabs end up in the steamer.

The point?

Pick your support group with care. Most so-called alcohol support groups are, in fact, merely a bucket of crabs that will keep dragging you back down to their level. Try and escape and you’ll be warned that it’s too dangerous to get a life, or to mingle with “normies,” or grow up. It’s too dangerous to stop building your life around alcohol.

So you stay in the alcohol bucket, drinking or not, or complaining about your spouse, or parents, or children, or……

And what’s the point of all of this?

Obviously the point is to avoid actually making any real change. That’s what groups like AA and Alanon and Alateen do best, they help you maintain the “security of familiar miseries” – as we termed it 25 years ago – instead of fixing your life.

But why would you want to trade the illusory security of the crab bucket for an actual life out in the real world?

Remember, despite all of the con men and hucksters, alcohol abuse is a choice and you are free – not powerless – to make a different choice at any time. If you’re the spouse, parent, or child of an alcohol abuser, you are also free to make choices, including the choice to get a life of your own. Not a life focused around another’s alcohol abuse.

You can always choose to be recovered, not in crippling, life-denying, “recovery.” You can choose to be an ex-drinker just as many of us are ex-smokers. You can also choose to be someone who used to waste you life on a drinker but got a grip, got over him or her, and got a life of your own.

Please, alcohol abuse is a choice, not a disease, and you can escape the AA/Alanon Bucket of Crabs. Don’t let the doomed continue to drag you back to share their misery and their fate.

By Dr. Ed Wilson and Dr. Mary Ellen Barnes

Most Of Us, Understandably, Deny Our Alcohol Problems

People generally avoid looking too closely at their alcohol use. Over the long haul this can lead to problems, both real and mythical, that early and productive awareness might have helped avoid. The problem here is the mythology – not alcohol itself.

Most of us have been mislead into believing that the misuse, or over use, of alcohol is a progressive and irreversible condition – a terminal “disease” for which there is only demeaning and unending recovery, a condition many understandably consider worse than being a drunk. Before consigning yourself to hopelessness, or powerlessness, see where your alcohol use falls.

Healthy Alcohol Consumption

Yes, people who follow the recommendations, on average, live longer than either abstainers or heavy drinkers. The ideal is approximately two drinks of distilled spirits, two bottles of beer, or one half bottle of wine per day for an adult man, and half that for an adult women.

Alcohol Abuse

Abuse is defined as consumption which consistently exceeds the recommended levels and/or is done in isolation rather than socially. At this stage, remediation is common enough to be the norm, with a return to healthy use the usual outcome. Counseling may expedite the process and help with the underlying causes.

Alcohol Dependence

Dependence occurs after long periods of excessive use leading to social, physical, and emotional dependence. Drinking becomes a primary coping mechanism across multiple categories; for example, socially, recreationally, vocationally, and spiritually. Symptoms may include physical withdrawal following cessation, depression, increased isolation, significant weight gain, decreased liver function, and possible legal, financial, and/or employment problems.

While a return to moderate or healthy use is normal, a period of abstinence, possibly one to two years, is recommended. Many people who do this never return to drinking at all, having successfully modified their lives in other and more satisfactory ways.

Alcohol Addiction, or Alcoholism

Alcoholism results when a person’s physical, emotional, and psychological being is permeated by alcohol and its consumption. Distinct withdrawal symptoms – physical (i.e. tremors, seizures) and psychological ones (i.e. blackouts) – are present and alcohol related disintegration in several areas of life (i.e. financial, legal, vocational, marital, recreational, social, medical) is present.

At this stage both medical and counseling help is usually necessary given the physical, social, emotional, and psychological aspects. Recovery prospects are uncertain at best and outcomes vary. As always, motivation and a belief in personal efficacy, as opposed to “powerlessness,” are the primary factors in success.

Need Real Help?

We offer help tailored to you as an individual, and for varying degrees of alcohol involvement, not a “program” inflicted on everyone regardless of their condition. You wouldn’t expect, or accept, a single treatment for every stage and type of a real disease like cancer, don’t be fooled into accepting one for a non-disease like alcohol abuse.

We’re here to discuss the options available to you – confidentially and free of charge. Call and talk to us, Mary Ellen and Ed, at 888-541-6350. We’re real people with real solutions designed specifically for you.

By Dr. Ed Wilson and Dr. Mary Ellen Barnes

Adult Children Who Drag Their Parents Down With Them

Nothing is sadder than the “over-age families” we see. These “children” are in their 30s, 40s, 50’s and sometimes 60s; their parents in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and beyond. “Children” who won’t stop drinking or using, and their parents who can’t stop forking over the money that makes the alcohol and drug possible. Dependent adult children dragging parents down with them.

Of course you can easily to see the problem from the outside. Why would an “adult child” stop drinking when they can squeeze thousands of dollars a month out of old mom and dad and keep right on doing what they’ve done their whole lives? And how can mom and dad say no when their “child” will be homeless, their grandchildren hungry? Besides, it’s a disease, isn’t it? How can they deny their sick child?

You probably already know that that’s how the monthly cycle continues for years and years, and how it’s apt to go on until someone dies or the money runs out. The children will continue to manipulate parents, and parents will continue to feel guilty and wonder what they did to cause their child’s decision to go down the alcoholic/addict road.

Alcohol and drug abuse is a choice, not a disease

Of course you’ve always suspected, correctly, that the child’s choice was the child’s choice and had little or nothing to do with his or her parents. Even when childhood trauma played a role, it doesn’t excuse ongoing childishness. Searching for the current problems’ beginnings, even finding them, does nothing to fix the mess. As you’ve probably noticed, everyone just stays trapped in the swirl of emotions, habit, myth, and despair.

What about an intervention?

But suppose the cycle could be broken? In the past that’s usually meant orchestrating an “intervention” where the family confronts the drunk or addict, sets some limits, and then whisks them off to residential treatment for 30, 60, or 90 days. Assuming the problem is now taken care of, everyone relaxes and life supposedly gets better for everyone.

As you probably know, it hardly ever turns out that way. Confronted drunks frequently become angry drunks; residential treatment fails about 95% of the time; family resolutions collapse; and the abuser returns even more solidly excused than ever by “powerlessness” and “disease” myths. Tensions mount and bank accounts have taken a $30,000 – $200,000 hit.

There is an alternative

A brother and sister, Terry and Jack, came to see us because their younger brother Mike was draining their parents’ life savings to support his habit. There’d been an intervention and “treatment” but the manipulation and abuse continued. “It isn’t going to stop,” Karen said, “until they’re all dead or broke.”

You’ve probably seen this problem before, but this time we had a suggestion. Instead of threats and ultimatums, we recommended a carefully planned disengagement. No threats, no expectation that Mike would change, just a gradual change in the family dynamics that would, over the course of a year, result in Mike being on his own.

How, exactly, does that work?

We’re sure it’s obvious to you that Mike isn’t the only one with a problem here. His relationship with his parents and brother and sister also played a role. As long as that stayed the same, nothing would change. But entrenched relationships don’t usually change without some outside help. The old habits and behaviors are too strongly established.

The difference here is that we interrupted the old patterns by inserting ourselves between Mike and his parents. A meeting was held – Mike attended because that’s where he’d get his next check – and it was explained that no one was going to bother him anymore about his drinking and drugging. However, the amount of his “support” would be reduced by 8% a month over the next year until it is down to $0.

You’ve probably figured out that this plan probably wasn’t going to work by itself. Mike, having heard empty threats for years about being cut off, was confident that his parents would cave in, as they always had before. The difference here was that the money was routed through us, insulating the parents, and they were the ones receiving the counseling and support. Mike was also free to receive help, but it wasn’t required. What he decided to do was up to him – as it should be for any adult.

You Can Only Treat The Willing

The real truth is that people only change when they want to – not when others want them to. Working with the family to change the situation is effective because the family wants to change the situation. Any other strategy is just a waste of time, money, and effort.

You’re wondering, “But what about Mike?”

The usually overlooked part in all of this is the fact that if the family changes its relationship to Mike, Mike will have to change, too. As financial support dwindles, he will have to make some changes.

As you can imagine, Mike was angry about this sudden diversion in the cash flow. In this particular case, his anger actually motivated him to start managing himself and his life again for the first time in a decade.

Yes, there were glitches and lapses and mom did occasionally slip Mike some extra money, but the overall plan came off as intended.

Why did this work?

This “intervention” worked because it focused on the total picture and all of the people and dynamics involved. We did not single out Mike as “the problem” and we didn’t let labels and myths keep him from being held responsible for either fixing his problems or living with the consequences himself. More importantly, we worked with the family members who wanted the situation to change, ignoring Mike, who obviously had a vested interest in things staying the same.

As you can see, it worked because we focused on the people who wanted to change rather than trying to force change onto someone else. Whether dealing with a family, a couple, or anyone else, success always means working with whomever is motivated; skipping labels and self-justifying excuses; focusing on the present and future, not the past; and actively instituting new behaviors.

All of this sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Then why not call today and let us provide real help for your family? 888-541-6350