Although I was usually successful at getting someone’s agreement, I didn’t fully understand, in the beginning, the complex family dynamics that need to be influenced to increase long term success rates after treatment is finished.   Again, there was little formal training outside of traditional counseling.  However, an intervention is not really a counseling or therapy session.

Many of us were either counselors or people in recovery that did the best we could to come in and help a family that was frustrated and often hopeless after years of trying to have an effect on their loved one.  And interventions became more and more popular.   As interventions have become more of a science, training and models have begun to appear.  Johnson Model interventions were the first, but now there are others.  Family Systems, Systemic, or Invitational model interventions are now more and more popular.  Understand, however, that without an overseeing entity, there was little accountability in the early days, and families often had little recourse if their intervention wasn’t delivered as promised.  In worse cases, an improperly trained interventionist did more damage than good, due to improper training, certifications, or education.

Fortunately, an organization does now exist that seeks to certify, oversee and help regulate what has been for many years a relatively unregulated field.  The Association of  Intervention Specialist Credentialing Board (AISCB) is now the recognized leader in intervention certifications with their Board Registered Interventionist Level I/Level II certifications or BRI-I and BRI-II.

Whereas before, an interventionist had only to claim to be one, now there exists the beginnings of oversight as well as an eventual direction towards licensing of interventionists.  Although being a Board Registered Interventionist doesn’t necessary mean that one is a “good” and skilled interventionist, it does mean that, at the minimum, a Board Registered Interventionist has:

Minimum Requirements for Board Registered Interventionist Level I:

• Hold a current ICRC/NAADAC certification and/or a state recognized certification/license in a counseling related field.
• Have malpractice insurance, a minimum of 1,000,000/3,000,000.
• Successfully complete a minimum of 14 hours of training/education on intervention.
• Have a minimum of two years of work experience conducting interventions.
• Submit three peer evaluations and supervised practical experience.
• Adhere to Board Registered Interventionist Code of Ethics.
• Passing an Oral and/or Written Exam may be required.
• Provide a letter from your licensure or certification board verifying your license and/or certification are current and in good standing.

Minimum Requirements for BRI II:

• Be or meet the requirements to be a BRI I.
• Successfully complete a minimum of 14 hours of training/education specific to addictions other than to alcohol and drugs, i.e., gambling, food, sex, etc.
• Have three additional years of work experience conducting interventions.
• Submit supervised practical experience.
• Passing an Oral and/or Written Exam may be required.

Work Experience

The applicant will have the following work experience conducting interventions.

BRI I: Minimum of two years of supervised work experience, completing a minimum of 5 supervised interventions. Supervisor must be approved by the AISCB.
BRI II: Meet the BRI I work experience requirement, plus an additional three years of supervised work experience conducting interventions and demonstrate experience with addictions other than to alcohol and drugs, i.e., gambling, food, sex, etc. in their practice. Successfully facilitate a minimum of 3 supervised interventions of a nature other than to alcohol and drugs. Supervisor must be approved by the AISCB.

Supervision/Mentoring

Supervised Practical Experience/Mentoring includes activities designed to provide training in specific intervention tasks. All of the hours must be spent being observed (directly or indirectly) in the performance of the intervention task and in receiving individual or group feedback on the performance of the tasks. Individuals considered qualified to provide supervision/mentoring include only those who are pre-approved by the AISCB.

Training/Education

BRI I: Fourteen (14) hours of training/education on intervention to minimally include:
1. History of interventions
2. Suicide and homicide screenings
3. Stages of Change
4. Family Therapy
5. Johnson Intervention Model
6. Systemic Intervention Model
7. ARISE Intervention Model
8. Other types of intervention strategies
9. Ethical consideration of an interventionist
10. How to determine what intervention model to use

BRI II: Meet all training requirements to become a BRI I and provide documentation of a minimum of fourteen (14) hours of training on Intervention techniques for the following:
1. Food Addictions
2. Sex Addiction
3. Gambling Addiction
4. Domestic Violence
5. MISA clients
6. How to work with special populations, i.e., lawyers, pilots etc.
7. Choosing the right intervention approach

Of the 28 clock hours of training/education needed for the BRI II, 14 hours must be based on the Johnson, A.R.I.S.E., Systemic or other models recognized by the AISCB.
Sources of education are college courses, seminars, conferences, in-services, etc. (one college semester hour = 15 clock hours, one college quarter hour = 10 clock hours, one college trimester hour = 12 clock hours).

All requirements must be met and documented before the credential is issued. Upon obtaining registration, the interventionist will display the board registration at his/her primary work site. A Board Registered Interventionist is responsible for renewal of his/her credential.

If you are looking to become a Board Registered Interventionist and feel that you meet the criteria found above, the following websites below can be a great source of information:

http://www.aiscb.org/index.html

http://www.iaodapca.org/

-David S. Lee, CCDC, BRI-I, Board Registered Interventionist

Facebook wasn’t around yet, but the updates would’ve been kind of amusing. “I am having a bad day” or “I just can’t get into the Christmas spirit this year”, etc, etc.

If it wasn’t raining, I would walk down the ice-plant covered hill and head on over to St. Vincent DePaul’s Mission, where if I got there early enough I could sit and hear a sermon about sin and Jesus in exchange for a breakfast. And then I’d have to wait until 1:00pm for my next “sermon sandwich”. Dinner I was on my own.

I guess I didn’t feel much connection to God during those days.

Sometimes I would walk over to the local bank, right after it closed down at 6pm. If I timed it right I could snatch up all the cigarettes that people put out in the sand-filled ashtray just outside the door. Every once in a while someone would leave a complete cigarette, standing straight up in the ashtray. It was almost like a gift from God. That one I wouldn’t stuff into my empty pack. I would hold it gently for fear of breaking it and shuffle away before anyone saw me. Best cigarette I ever had.

Walking back under the bridge was always the hardest. I-5 was the interstate that I used to drive on to get to work. For a period I had the perfect girlfriend, a shiny corvette, and an awesome job. Had. Occasionally I would pause and look up at the cars driving past. It wasn’t that long ago that one of them was me.

“Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.”

You get used to saying goodbye when you are an addict. If you get the interview, you get the job. But it never lasts. Sooner or later you don’t make it to work for a few days. No-call, no-show. “You’re a great employee, but we need someone dependable.”

And then the women. I never dated bad ones. I picked the ones that might keep me from wrecking my life. But they never did. Some tried harder than others. Most stayed much longer than they should have. Poor girls. I usually sold them a future that I couldn’t deliver.

You get used to saying goodbye.

But…

I suppose that the greatest gift that I have been given this Christmas is the gift of my addiction.

For with all the ruin and the terrible stories, I also learned how to appreciate the small things, and how to hang on to the moment, for you don’t know how long this moment will last. I have learned the honor of sharing someone’s life with them, if even for a minute. So many people, so many jobs, so many experiences.

So, on this Christmas, I will be heading over to my cousin’s house and spending it with her family. The kids will probably be too loud and there will probably be some sports event that I am completely uninterested in playing on TV all day.

And although I might not be saying much that whole day, I will be taking it all in. Appreciating the little things, watching the kids play, eavesdropping on every conversation, enjoying the food. I will be hanging on to the moment for you don’t really know how long it will last. And it will be an honor to share a few hours of their lives with them.

And if I become too ungrateful, I can always go back to that bridge. On Christmas morning I could wake up and slide down the ice-plant covered hill. I could head on over to the bank and look in the sand-filled ashtray. And I bet there will be a single unspent cigarette standing straight up…waiting just for me. Another gift from God.

Merry Christmas to everyone, 2011

-David Lee
Founder of Intervention Services

Far too often it is the family that suffers our pain for us.  The late night phone calls, the drunken promises that we break, the unpredictability of it all.  And then there is always the hope that we offer…that we are just about to turn it around.  Some of us do.  Others spend the rest of our lives “turning it around”.

The death of Amy Winehouse has affected many of us in recovery more deeply than some others who have passed before.  Her story is not unique when it comes to the life of a musician, but in some ways it is uniquely familiar to those of us who understand it.  Those of us who understand what it is like to take a flamethrower to our lives and burn it down to the ground, not because we want to, but because…well, just because.

Some will say that the family and friends should have done an intervention.  Others will say that the record company, in their search for profits, ignored all the signs.  Still others will refer to her hit song “Rehab” and call it poetic justice.

I suppose what I shall remember most is not her music, but a small YouTube video of her last concert in Belgrade.  Local media described her performance as a scandal and a disaster, and she was booed off the stage due to her apparently being too drunk to perform. It was reported that she was unable to remember the city she was in, the lyrics of her songs or – when trying to introduce them – the names of the members of her band.

I, for one, know what it is like to try desperately and begrudgingly to work up the courage to rebuild your life after ruining it.  I can still remember, time and again, what it is to gather up the courage to face the world again after the shame and the embarrassment.  I can still sometimes feel what it was like to brush myself off and try again. I understand that she sought out treatment soon after that performance.

In the end, some of us who are also recovering are affected differently with Amy Winehouse’s passing than we were with the others.  I don’t know for certain why this is for other recovering people, but I know why it is for me.  For, watching that performance, as well as all the struggles of her past, I know that we weren’t watching the antics of another rock star’s excess of drugs and alcohol.  Instead what we saw, as it all unfolded, was someone who had discovered the emptiness that exists when drugs and alcohol can no longer fill it.  The quiet, anxious desperation of what it is to be the loneliest one in a crowded room…or on a stage.

It is a terrible place to be.  It is even more terrible to be close to someone when they reach that point and feel helpless to do anything to stop them.  I intimately feel for the struggles of Amy Winehouse, but my heart goes out to her family.

Somewhere a phone rings, innocently enough…