AIR's Response to Intervention TV
Based on the popularity of reality TV today
and the number of phone calls our offices have received over
the past year from various program producers, we knew it was
only a matter of time before a reality based TV program about
interventions was put on the air.
Working in the intervention field, we were obviously
concerned about the quality and the impact that a reality
TV show could have on viewers in general, families that are
struggling in particular, and our industry as a whole. I vividly
remember the negative affect the widely watched HBO-TV show
The Soprano’s had on our business several years ago.
During the episode entitled “The Strong, Silent Type,”
a drug intervention is held for the heroin-addicted character
Christopher. The intervention goes badly and ends with the
intervention participants beating each other. Many families
who watched that show believed this was the way a typical
intervention ended. As a result of that, phone calls into
our call centers virtually stopped for weeks.
The new A&E TV reality program titled Intervention
airs nationwide on Sunday evenings at 10:00 p.m.
eastern daylight time. This program portrays addicts of every
type: drug, shopping, gambling, self mutilation. It follows
the addict to show how their problem affect other areas of
their life, contains interviews with families and friends,
and finally shows the addict being confronted at a professionally
run intervention.
I personally have found the mixed emotions
surrounding this show very interesting and revealing. The
show has more the feel of a documentary than a reality TV
program. It has done very well in the ratings and is generating
a great deal of interest. The opening episode of Intervention
drew 1.6 million viewers -- the biggest-ever young audience
for a Sunday night show on the network.
All that being said, many of the mainstream
media critics do not seem to approve:
"It makes prime-time sport of vulnerable, desperate people
and their spiral to the bottom," wrote Matthew Gilbert
of the Boston Globe. Dusty Saunders of the Rocky Mountain
News says the show is "scream-and-shout television at
its worst, a depressing hour trying to pass itself off as
a show offering helpful therapy." Kevin Crust of the
Los Angeles Times calls the show a "vile little exercise
in debasement" and an "emotional snuff film."
As I reviewed some of the show's comments on
the reality TV messaging boards, it was interesting to watch
how those not familiar with addictions and recovery viewed
the show. These fans understood immediately how the addiction
affected the family system and how/where the family enabled
the use. One viewer commented on the show about a compulsive
gambler: “I felt terribly sorry for his parents, who
he thought was obligated to take care of him for his entire
life”. Another wrote: “Shame on his parents for
creating this monster! His parents have enabled him far too
long.”
Many professionals from the addiction field
that I talked to felt that the show was exploitative and crossed
many lines. The show that stirred the most controversy was
the young girl who was “cutting” herself. Counselors
felt that this episode may cause more people to harm themselves.
From my position, as a direct provider of intervention
services, I believe this show was a huge success on many levels.
The most important perhaps being that the show is helping
families by educating them about possibilities they may not
have previously considered. As well, it is galvanizing a fair
portion of them into action--our national call center set
record call volumes following the first two episodes. Millions
of views saw first hand that professional interventions work.
This show does a great job of educating people
about the various guises that the disease of addiction can
wear. It clearly points out that it is a family disease and
that there are negative consequences for the entire family
system. And, sadly, shows to what a large degree the family,
through their own unwitting enmeshment and enabling, contribute
to keeping their loved ones sick.
While Intervention illustrates how terrible addiction
can be it also gives people hope. Through intervention and family action
we are able to motivate behavior that changes lives and help families.
The interventions that take place on the A &
E show are realistic and fairly represent what actually takes
place during a professional intervention. The piece of this
program that differs from tradition intervention work in the
field in that these addicts have already moved beyond the
denial stage as they have already agreed to be on camera and
willingly expose their usage. In many ways it makes the work
of the interventionist that much easier.
I would have preferred it had A&E televised
more about the actual intervention preparation process than
they did. The most important piece of the intervention process,
missing from the show, is the work that is done to prepare
the family team the day preceding the actual intervention.
This preparation work is the key to a successful intervention.
There are two goals when we do interventions:
the first goal is to get the identified individual into treatment
and that happens around 90% of the time. The second goal is
to move the family out of crisis and to help them set healthy
boundaries for themselves and that happens 100% of the time.
I believe that families would have related to this program
at a higher level and gained more benefits had that side of
the intervention been highlighted.
If you watch this program closely you can see
how terribly beaten down everyone is. The families were sick
physically and emotionally and seemed hopeless. If you watch
the addicts/alcoholics closely they were relieved to be offered
help. It makes me wonder with the high success rates of interventions
and the increased recovery rate after treatment, why intervention
isn’t used more often.
There is a lot of education and resources around
addiction and prevention which is great, but information about
intervention is scant. Intervention is affective solution
when prevention wasn’t when you’re already addicted
or live with someone who is. It provides immediate solutions
to the families’ immediate problems. Still few people
know about it.
I think that the show is a success because it
has publicized and validated intervention. Most of the calls
we receive following each episode are from people who didn’t
know that this service existed. Many of them were contacted
by other family members and friends who saw the program and
felt empowered to finally break the conspiracy of silence
and talk about their family problems.
The common message we receive from families
is that they were told all along that they can’t do
anything. That their loved one has to hit bottom and that
treatment doesn’t work if they are not ready. These
are the two biggest myths in our industry that we need to
address and debunk. We need to educate families. That nobody
has to hit bottom. Nobody has to get sicker before they can
get better. Some people may never hit “bottom”
and just struggle and bounce along looking for the bottom
while taking their entire family along for that terrible ride.
All too often we are reminded that bottom for some is six
feet down.
Treatment centers web sites and calls centers can do
more to promote intervention. When a family member calls they often
don’t know enough to ask for an interventionist referral and they
believe the myths they were told that there is nothing they can do to
help. It is our opportunity to educate them and provide solutions and
resources that they didn’t know existed.
Television as an industry has a tremendous opportunity to educate the
masses. I think when done well these programs help by getting these
issues out into the public forum. "With this series there is real
potential for an amazing personal transformation each week," said
A&E documentary programming executive Nancy Dubuc. "If the
intervention doesn't succeed, viewers will still be witness to a portrait
of the unrelenting power of addiction."
Battling the war on drugs globally is a problem that I
couldn’t even imagine trying to solve and I don’t know if
we win this war from the outside in. I do believe, however, that we
can win it from the inside out; one family, one home and one intervention
at a time.
Robert M. Poznanovich
President/CEO
Addiction Intervention Resources, Inc.