Joseph Devlin discussed the importance of connections in our lives, drawing from his book "A Step Out of Darkness." In the episode, he emphasized the role of intervention in rebuilding relationships, especially those affected by addiction. Joseph highlighted the need for a professional interventionist to handle frustration and anger, allowing loved ones to approach the conversation from a place of healing and love. He emphasized that an intervention is not an act of turning one's back on a loved one, but rather a demonstration of persistence and love. Joseph underscored the importance of choosing words that land well with the individual being intervened upon, expressing appreciation for their positive attributes as this can be a powerful motivator for the addict to seek treatment.

About our Host:

Joseph B. Devlin, MA, CAADC, is a respected behavioral health expert with more than 20 years of experience in the specialty of Drug and Alcohol Recovery and Treatment. Joseph’s professional experience includes clinical director, interventionist, professor, facility director, addiction counselor, counseling supervisor, case manager, care manager, treatment facilities auditor, steward of county and state funding for treatment facilities, utilization reviewer and family group decision making facilitator. 

As an expert in the field of drug and alcohol addiction, not only has Joseph personally walked the path of sobriety, he has used his journey to freedom and his education to help others. Joseph is a Certified Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor in the State of Pennsylvania, has received a Masters degree in Restorative Practices and Youth Counseling from International Institute for Restorative Practices, as well as a BA in Psychology from University of North Carolina. Since then, he has become a licensed trainer in Restorative Practices. He also has obtained extensive training and experience in trauma-informed care, combined with a vast knowledge in community building with an expertise in substance use disorders, including co-occurring mental health issues.

Author of A Step Out of Darkness, Joseph also speaks to groups, while he coaches individuals and/or families who are interested in the road to recovery. Often the family is left in the dark in the middle of this epidemic. Where does the family member turn to? Joseph offers experience and knowledge to help you navigate through this chaotic struggle you are walking through.

Learn more about Joseph at https://josephbdevlin.com/

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Joseph B. Devlin: Hello and welcome. I am your host, Joseph Devlin. And on today's episode, we're going to read how to Chapter Three of my book a step out of darkness and intervention.

Let's get at it. Death and life are in the power of the top, and those who love it will eat its fruit. Proverbs 1821. And know you're in the middle of a crisis and need to get your loved one into treatment. So I'm going to jump a couple of steps to discuss an intervention. We're going to look at an intervention from the point of view that family members often don't recognize the power of their relationship to influence their addicted loved one. Your suffering loved one is miserable and truly wants to be happy. That wants you to be able to see the impact you can have on this situation. People often ask what is the one common trait happy to share? The answer according to Harvard, Grant and ghlac 75 year longitudinal study is the Aaron quality relationships. It makes sense that people are happy in encouraging relationships, where they have regular contact with and accountability to one another. as social beings, humans want to be in relationships, where they are loved and cherish. Consequently, we have more influence to garner a loved one to enter treatment than perhaps we originally thought. This knowledge provides the foundation of a successful intervention. People avoid holding an intervention because they think it indicates they are turning their backs on their loved ones. As you will see, that is the farthest thing from the truth. You have reached a point where you do not know what to do is nothing has worked. Your loved one will not listen to you. You have faith that your loved one wants a different light, and you're tired of watching them kill themselves. Over and over. They have said to you that this is the time only for you to find them using again. Everyone else has said they're weak. They don't care, you have to give up. Yet you refuse. For your persistence. I offer this plan of action. Find a qualified professional to facilitate an intervention. Among the reasons to employ a trained professional to conduct an intervention include one, the interventionist can take some pressure off you as frustration and anger will now be diverted to the interventionist to the interventionist will help you prepare, what to say and how to avoid pitfalls. Three, the interventionist facilitates the intervention, putting out any fires and making sure the discussion runs in a timely manner. Often well meaning adults envision an intervention is trying to convince loved ones to stop their addictions and start treatment by emphasizing all the negative situations they have caused, or meshed in, although this may feel right, your loved one already knows the damage they have inflicted, and want to stop. But the addiction completely dominates their life. So contrary to what seems, right, an intervention is when you want to tell the addict, all the things that you love about that you rent to veterans will be able to work with you. So you can say what you want to say, using positive language such as I statements. When we are emotionally charged, it is difficult to say what we feel. And we often end up expressing an idea. That is the exact opposite of what we want to communicate.

Okay, I'll stop there. The first thing I want us to think about when we're talking about the intervention here is remember from previous chapters, it says there's no one size fits all method for recovery. So let's keep that in mind. And there's gonna be no one size fits all conversation for an intervention, these interventions can come from first time noticed or concerns of abuse or of an addiction could be the second or third time that you've noticed something, too, like the full blown addiction where we got to take immediate action today in order to save their life. And I want us to come back to that grant and Gluck Harvard longitudinal study was so key about this is that listen to things they shares that are positive relationships. And to me that's so crucial because all human beings are hard wired to connect. You know, I study and I look how I look at different ways to how do we strengthen relationships between individuals, as well as social connections within communities, always looking at that. So each family is going to look different. But think about this when you're bringing to the table of your intervention. The thing of it is you only have a relationship with The individual you already have what I call is that social capital. So those people who are in our family circles, or, as Robert De Niro says, the circle of trust, right, we hold a lot of that social capital, we're willing to listen to one another. Even though we might not act like we listen to each other, we do. And we hold a lot of weight to what people say. And that's why sometimes the words that people say really hurt us, or their actions hurt us, but also the same thing, their actions and their words can really lift us up and encourage us. So when we're approaching the intervention, we want to be approaching from the idea. And from the space of what do we appreciate about our loved ones, because we're concerned about them, and we want them to change, we want them to heal, and we don't want them to die from this addiction, and we don't want them to live a miserable life, when they when we know they can live so much. So much more. We know that there, there's Oh, there is always more for them. And there's more for me and you. And we want to be able to live great lives too. But how can we help encourage them to, to make those choices so that they do live a better life. So not only do we want to choose the words that we're going to want to say, but this is where it professional does really help. And I encourage you to go out and find a professional to help you with this. Because you want to be able to approach this conversation from a place of healing, and not from hurt. And when you do that, if you can start your conversation that you're already healed from it, and you're just, you are wanting the best for that person. It's going to land and be so much more impactful for that individual who's in the addiction. If you're coming from that place of healing, they're going to feel your love.

So the interventionists will also help you right in crafting the language you're going to use. You may be feeling like I am sick and tired of this happening over and over again, you said you weren't going to do this, and it's done over again. And all of that may be true. But when you say to them, Hey, listen, I love you too much, to continue to give you permission to die. And I know that's what you're saying. And that's what you're meaning. But work with somebody to help craft that language that will be received a lot better. So help them say, okay, these, these folks really do care about me. And you know what I'm willing to take that next step, they believe in me so much, I'm willing to take the next step with them, because I know they're alongside this with me, and they're ready to walk it out with me. So in addition of those things that you're saying, You're speaking from this place of love, it does sound counterintuitive, but it's not to lay out all the things that they did wrong, the person in addiction because they already know it, and they're wanting to change, they just don't think that there's another way out. And so yeah, some of those things you will address, but we don't need to list each and every one of them. But we can point out the big ones. But again, not everything has to be outlined because I get very defensive, if somebody starts telling me all the wrong things that I've done in my life, I'd like people to point out, or pepper in there, those things that are good. So you know, I'm going to be able to receive that better. Again, great reason to have a professional in the room. And also, the professional in the room is going to help you be able to do this, I've been involved in multiple interventions, and many of them are a result, like within the first five minutes, meaning the fact that, hey, the person is ready to go to the treatment center, they see everybody in the room, and they're like, some of them are like, Thank you somebody's finally doing something I you know, I didn't have it in me to get to the treatment center myself, I needed the support of others. Let's go. Now, the problem with that, for some of the people who were in the intervention is that they put in prep time, be you know, they thought about what they were going to say, and they even wrote it out. And they didn't have the opportunity to say it. So how did they get the opportunity to speak to that individual and let them know that, hey, you know, here's the ways that they'd been affected and that they're really here to support that individual. So you want them to have a professional and they're ready to be able to do that as well.

I appreciate you being here with me today. And I'm going to challenge you as the find an interventionist on out there and get a list out there and be ready for when the time that it's necessary. And listen, if you know of somebody who's struggling with somebody in addiction? Please forward this episode to them. It may be the very episode that helps them have that breakthrough that they need in order for them to have that difficult conversation with their loved one who's an addiction. So until our next episode, remember, sobriety is a family affair.