Either as the person with the problem, or as one of the concerned loved ones. I almost experienced one tonight (the guest of honor no-showed) and was amused at how sitcom-y the whole situation felt. Anyone else have experience?
A bunch of us tried to get a friend to see a doctor about a severe medical problem. He refused. He’s still sick, and getting worse, and will likely die, and refuses to care. (Lots of things combined, but the worst is complications from diabetes.)
Another time, a bunch of friends got together and tried to tell me I was making an ass of myself by drinking too much. It was my turn to be too stupid to listen to them, although, a couple years later, I got half an ounce of sense in my skull and stopped drinking. Not a drop for nine years now.
I think interventions are a damn good idea…and that they don’t work. What they do, however, is remind the subject that his or her friends really do care. The affair may not help…but it’s still worth trying.
Yes, the alcoholic wife of my ex boss. I wasn’t at the actual intervention but was one of the people she called while trying to make her mind up during the intervention. Pretty sad and sit commey - she was worried that her kids wouldn’t be ok whereas they would be much safer without her around.
She did go, but checked out after a few days. Now she’s been hospitalised a few times for chest infections, she weighs almost nothing and all but one of her friends have given up. It’s incredibly sad to see her small kids having to cope with it.
A friend of mine was dating a creepy stalker guy and while we didn’t lure her into a room and lay out our concerns we did plan behind her back to make sure that we were all giving the same message “This is not love, this is obsession and it will escalate and it will not be good” It took until the first escalation but the groundwork helped her to realize that we would be there for her and helped her get out.