Troubled Teens Resources

Teen crisis intervention has become a familiar topic to the general public due to the popular A&E show, ‘Intervention’. And for most people, it is a drama that they would prefer to confine to the small screen. For those parents of teenagers caught up in teen drug abuse or alcoholism, the very idea of confronting their always sullen, often hostile teens is more than intimidating.

And it is if you go it alone. That is never advised. In fact, a great deal of counseling, talking, organizing and research goes into laying the groundwork for an intervention. The following example is an excerpt from one family’s intervention for their alcoholic father.

“Anyone who is close to the addicted person…can initiate an intervention. Typically, those involved will meet with a counselor to learn about their loved one’s addiction. Then they discuss how the addict’s behavior has affected them. This discussion helps everyone to focus on the consequences of addiction and not on judging or blaming the addicted person.
[…]
“First of all, we met for months with a social worker, Barry, who specialized in addiction counseling. We learned from him what alcoholism is all about. That’s really important, because it helped us understand what was going on with Dad.

“Then Barry got all of us to talk about how Dad’s alcoholism affected each of us. These stories helped us concentrate on what we wanted Dad to understand about what his alcoholism was doing to us. Barry explained that it was important that the intervention wouldn’t put Dad on the defensive. It wasn’t about calling Dad a bad person, it was just talking about how the alcoholism had affected the family.”
(source)

“…the first two seasons of Intervention, viewers have been introduced to the enormous redneck crackhead who punched out his father; the teen meth addict working as a stripper; the single mom suffering from bulimia; and the young alcoholic father. Multiple or combined addictions are frequent on Intervention. Witness the gay man addicted to both sex and cocaine, or the tightly wound woman whose gambling binges are fuelled by crystal meth…”

Not to trivialize the stories of the families featured on Intervention, but you can’t help but notice that the themes of each of these individual’s real lives sound like the old and familiar scripts written for countless one hour dramas. It makes one pause to wonder what is it about humans that have us incessantly exchanging tales of woe, to seemingly linger over the inescapable fact that being human is often a painful proposition. One could hope that such intense fascination could instead be focused on healthy, thriving human beings. However, I don’t think a reality show that follows the lives of happy and productive families is on the horizon.

The jury is out as to how much good it does any of us to witness the ravages of drug and sundry other addictions in a reality format. The portraits of pain in these interventions are stark but we have seen it all before. In fact, without the grace of Hollywood lighting and makeup, real pain is ugly and clumsy. Unlike actors who facilely deliver polished dialog, real people sputter, spit and grope for words and anger is inarticulate and bruising.

If the series Intervention serves to encourage a broken family to seek help or to dissuade a troubled teenager from taking drugs, it can’t be dismissed. The danger is in trivializing both the concept of interventions and to keep America focused on broken people without enough attention paid to the broken people who do heal and carry on successful lives.

Unlike the series which typically ends with a decision - yay or nay - to therapy, the therapies and rehab programs that interventions set the stage for are merely the first tentative steps on a very hard, often boring, road to productive living. However, no camera will linger on an ex-addict struggling to learn basic life skills, like writing a budget, keeping a clean house or showing up regularly for work.

“But does it work? Intervention has been criticized by some health professionals for sensationalism and its drive-through approach to addiction counselling…And then there’s the woeful absence of follow-up…. There are no statistics provided on how many of the addicts successfully completed their rehabilitation and the program rarely revisits its case studies. All noble intent aside, Intervention lacks closure.”
Source

There has to be more stories that emphasize that not only do humans being become terribly broken, they can be terribly fierce about rebuilding what is broke.

That is what a real intervention is for, a first step in a fierce fight for life.