Drug & Alcohol Intervention Help - We Get Them In to Treatment : NYC Intervention Specialists

photo: simone martin

Here I am, at 43 years old. Wow. When my dad was 43 it seemed so old to my young eyes. “Gosh, but you’re old…” I can hear myself telling my pop.

So here I stand. Recovered and learning and helping and growing in life. What a blessed life it is. Hooked no more.

Since that day my friends said STOP – YOU NEED HELP, so much has changed. I’ve gained, and lost. I’ve struggled and triumphed. I’ve quit smoking. I’ve learned to eat right. I got my teeth fixed. I went back to school. Learned how to be an honest man; how to quit lying. Changed alot.

I became a Board-Registered Interventionist and built a vibrant private practice unlike any other in the world. I have helped folks get better and heal in my private and public life.

I got married! I have a blended family – with three pooches and lots of barking depending on the moment. I have worked with thousands of people, including some for The Dr. Oz Show and The Oprah Winfrey Show. My work has helped to begin a shift to the very paradigm of change, and how it happens.

Fine, fine, fine.

I have a book that comes out in a couple months now as a lead title from St. Martin’s Press. Amazing, all of it. Because, back during that summer of 2002 I had given up and given in to the fact that my addictions would kill me. I had tried to stop, but always restarted the things that were killing me day by day. Didn’t know when, but I knew I would not survive much longer on that path. The alcohol, meth, xanax and cigarettes. The rage and pain and blame and shame. Carrying it all around like a sack of dead chickens.

But then change began and life got better. In centimeters at times, progress was made. By yards at still other times, life got better and from the ashes of a broken, defeated, addicted life came wholeness and good.

So be encouraged. To moms, and dads and sisters and wives: Change begins. People recover. And you can help them get there.

Throw out the old lies about hitting bottom, toss away the myths that your loved one has to want to change. When you’re addicted, sometimes all you know is that you want the drug. There is strength in numbers as we step in to interrupt the behavior, the addiction, the chaos and offer a loving change plan.

This is my 2009 count down. It’s been a banner one. Really good. Great even. I’m not the lucky one – you are too. As you step out in faith to create change in your defeat and hopelessness, we’ll do this together.

Onward,
Brad

I started smoking when I was fifteen years old. Couldn’t inhale regular without hacking, so tried clove cigarettes. Bing bing bing!

There’s a reason they’re flavored. The clove helps suppress the gag reflex. The taste helps attract young new smokers.

No more.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act was introduced in the US Congress and signed into law by President Obama, giving the FDA significantly more regulatory power over tobacco; one of the provisions in the law includes a ban on the use of flavors in tobacco, other than menthol. As of today, flavored cigarettes are outlawed in the US.

A good step, but I believe we can all bring up the topic of health costs to our friends who still smoke. There’s no upside. Smoking kills. Shaves life off the body.

Change begins. – Brad

|diˈnīəl| (noun) The action of declaring something to be untrue : she shook her head in denial.
• the refusal of something requested or desired : the denial of insurance to people with certain medical conditions.
• Psychology failure to acknowledge an unacceptable truth or emotion or to admit it into consciousness, used as a defense mechanism : you’re living in denial.
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Friends,

If there is someone in your life who struggles with prescription meds dependency – reach out and share your story, or give me a ring to chat. The Oprah Winfrey Show is seeking to share the story of a family on their path to change and recovery:

https://www.oprah.com/plugform.jsp?plugId=2286029&referer=http://www.oprah.com/pluglist.jsp?teamTypeName=TOWS

What in the world can you do when faced with the addiction, the dependency of someone you love?

The news is this – the woman driving the wrong way on the highway, who crashed and killed eight including herself – was drunk and high. A broken Absolut bottle in the car, along with the autopsy report tells the tale of a woman gravely impaired. Behind the wheel, on the road, driving a time bomb.

A relative reports he knew something was wrong, but…

Fear gets in the way.

“She won’t talk with me again!”

“She’ll be mad at me.”

“She’ll leave!”

These are some of the excuses I hear folks using when deciding they’ll stand by rather than act to help change someone they love get better. Their loved on is stuck in the vice-grip of impaired behavior and fear stops family and friends in their tracks.

Stand by and pray? Hope against a history that tells you things don’t change, unless you change them?

Prayer without action is worth little in getting someone you love to breakthrough a drug or alcohol dependency to accept help.

Be brave. Step in. Speak up.

Give voice to fear you feel and turn it into the hope of action.