Now in it’s 10th season, A&E’s reality show Intervention is extremely popular and influential on our culture’s beliefs and perceptions about addiction. At the beginning of every show, these words are superimposed over rapid-fire dramatic clips of someone abusing drugs or alcohol:
Millions of Americans struggle with addiction.
Most need help to stop.
I have many meaningful criticisms of both interventions in general and this show, but after 6 years of relentlessly showing this message, I think the most important thing I can say is that this one message is simply false. Yes it is true that millions of Americans experience addiction, but whether or not they need help to stop (especially the kind of help that Intervention is promoting) is another matter altogether.
Most Stop Without Help
The kind of help that Intervention refers to in their statement is addiction treatment – the kind provided by interventionists, substance abuse counselors, and inpatient and outpatient treatment programs. Contrary to their claim that “most need help to stop”, the fact is that most people stop their addictions without any such professional help. In fact, when we consider not only formal treatment, but also include seeking help from 12-step group involvement, clergymen, or talks with primary care doctors – the number of people who stop their addictions without help is still much higher than those who do get help. On average, according to wide-scale studies, 75% of people who stop their addictions do so without help. Here is the proof:
A 1992 study by the NIAAA, which was demographically representative of the US population, showed that 3/4 of people who ever had substance dependence (addiction), never sought help for it. Of the 3/4 who didn’t seek help, only 25.8% were still drinking abusively or dependently. Of the remaining 1/4 who did seek help/treatment, 33.2% were still drinking abusively or dependently. So, to look at it another way, 74.2% of those who didn’t get help, still managed to stop their addiction, while those in the much smaller group who “got help” fared worse, only 66.8% of them stopped their addiction.
In this particular study, out of a total of 3279 people who stopped their addictions, 824 of them got help, and 2455 of them didn’t get help – 75% stopped their addictions without help. A far greater number and a higher percentage of people stop their addictions on their own without treatment or help, than the number of people who stop their addictions with treatment or help, therefore the statement that “Most need help to stop” is patently false. Furthermore, in light of the 7.4 point gap between success of the untreated vs treated groups, it stands to reason that most people would be better off if they didn’t get treatment! Also, we should not overlook the fact that there is no evidence that the 25% of people who stopped while getting help actually needed that help or that they wouldn’t have stopped their addiction without help.
Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8800398
Beyond this study, there is a nearly identical follow up study that was conducted in 2002 which shows similar results, there are 2 similar studies done in Canada which show that 75-77.5% stop without help, and there was a famous study of Vietnam veterans which showed that 90% stopped their heroin addictions without help. The only valid studies for determining whether “help” or treatment is needed would be those that compare treated and untreated groups, and unfortunately such studies are rare, most only examine treated persons without a control group. The studies I listed above all have untreated control groups. Most reliable studies only focus on alcohol users rather than drug users, but the problems of both alcohol and drug addiction, and their solutions, are fundamentally the same. So again, A&E’s Intervention is lying when they say that “most need help to stop”, quite the contrary, most stop on their own, without help. By spreading the lie that “most need help to stop” they’re doing a disservice to society, they are spreading misinformation, they are convincing people that they can’t stop on their own when the fact is that they can stop on their own. This is dangerously irresponsible. Shame on Intervention.
What’s The Point?
Some readers may wonder why I bother to make this point, and where this leads. I assure you I’m not looking down on anyone who wants help, has gotten help, or thinks they need help to stop an addiction. Nor am I saying that we shouldn’t attempt to help anyone. Mainly, I think it’s dangerous to spread the message that people need help to quit, when this isn’t true. I’m opposed to teaching people to be helpless. I think we can help people to help themselves, I know there are much better ways to help than what is currently offered. I know that people can and do change on their own, and I think we rob them of the chance to do that when highly influential media outlets and authority figures say that people can’t stop without help.
Hi, I’m sorry but you don’t know what you are talking about. I’m 13 years old and I have grown up with 2 recovering drug addicts. I dont know you, but i have no respect for you. All your points of view are completely incorrect. You’re right, Starting to do drugs is a choice, but once you are addicted, you NEED those drugs. It isnt a choice anymore. It takes over your body, its a disease. I think you should go learn a little more before you go around flaunting this opinion. It offends me, and im suree many other people. Intervention is a great show that lets people realize their addiction, realize what is going to happen to them, and offer help because do you know how hard it is to stop yourself? Anyone who you know have stopped drug use themself have amazing willpower. It’s possible, but so hard. And its almost guranteed that whoever stop their addiction themselves will relapse, and possibly die. Then again, you could always go to treatment and get help beating the disease, which sounds a lot nicer to me. Its always nice to have people who really do care helping you do something very hard. So next time you have such a negative opinion, please keep it to yourself becaue as I said before, it really does offend me. Thanks.
Angel, I am extremely sorry to hear you are growing up with two “recovering” addicts. It is undeniable that parental addiction is definitely a family struggle. With that said, I URGE you to break the cycle. Don’t drug, don’t drink. But, at the same time, I think it’s important to know the TRUTH about addiction. I understand why you believe the “disease theory”. I understand why you WANT to believe that your parents are powerless over their addiction. I almost wish I could tell you it was the truth.
I am a “recovered” intravenous heroin addict. I was using opioids for several years. I’ve experienced the 12 step philosophy, and I’ve experienced it’s counter points. I’m not an ignorant person; I have a double BSc in Computer Science and physics, and a masters degree in Applied Mathematics. Addiction can happen to anyone.
Firstly, I agree with your notion that it is “nice to have people who really do care helping you”. Without the help of my family I could possible still be addicted. This is one point where me and the author of this article disagree. However, addiction is NOT a disease. Granted, people with pre existing mental disorders are more prone to addiction. And, there are aspects of addiction that closely resembled obsessive compulsive behavior. Addiction is a complex entity whose exact mechanism is unknown. To be honest, regardless of how you define disease, the bigger issue is the incompetency of most rehabs and 12 step programs. You don’t need to change your life to stop using drugs. You just need to stop using drugs. It’s much harder than it sounds, but it can be done without turning into a brainless AA zombie (or finding god, or “working the steps”, any of that nonsense). The entire industry has been monopolized by AA. Doctors, pseudo scientists, therapists all subscribe to the twelve step ideology. However, this does NOT mean it is right. When the 12 step program was invented we were still putting leeches on people to help cure them of the common cold. The 12 step program is not divine, or special, or even right. If has an extremely low success rate. Addiction is BIG MONEY. Really big money.
I urge you to research the topic.
I didn’t even read your full reply because once I got to where you said that you’re recovered is where I stopped reading because you were never fully recovered. All it takes is one quick fall and wrong choice and you’ll be right back to where you were. I can’t stand people especially that guy on that commercial from Palm Springs that says I once was an addict but now I’m not. No such thing Kama once an addict always an addict
I have a 31 year old daughter who is also a herion addict. She has been thru the 12 step programs and also believes once an addict always an addict. I my don’t believe that! People are being told that they are sick because they choose to stick a needle in their body to get high. That is a choise not an illness. She has lost everything, icluding her children! Has spent time in prison and yet still by choise continues this distructive behavior. All these so called rehab facilities who’s first question to a heart broken mother is What kind of Insurance does your daughter have? None!! She is a self proclaimed herion addict! It’s a joke if they really want to help people do it for FREE!
It wasn’t until the 1960’s that Insurance started to cover rehab and that’s where your 12 step program came from. I don’t know about others but my daughter can’t stop using without help, and I think from a mother’s point of view that is very weak minded to think most people could.
Hi Pamela,
If you agree with me that heroin use is freely chosen – then how do you conceive of “help” for people who use heroin problematically?
-Steven Slate
If you really think that Intervention is in existence to help people, you should learn about the world more. At 13, it’s very easy to soak up all the CRAP they shove down your throat. In fact, most of modern television is in place to make MONEY off of YOU and the PEOPLE on the shows being exploited.
Nothing is free in this world, little girl, and I hope you learn that some day soon. You can be offended all you want, but it won’t change the fact that other people have opinions too.
Some people are able to see through all the BS in this world. I’ll give you a hint, it isn’t the people in charge of treatments, pharmaceuticals, or helping recovering addicts. They want their money, and that’s it. Sure, you’ll have a few staff members that go above and beyond to truly help people, but these kinds of clinics and hospitals exist because addiction, disease, and medical patients can be exploited for money.
Maybe the eye opener you need would be to research cancer. We have a lot of potential cures, yet we don’t research them. That’s strange, aren’t they always raising money “for the cure”? Seem suspicious? It should! Our country would rather invest in better “treatments” than to ever invest in permanent cures. Why? Because you can make more money on treatments. They would rather you pay for treatments and die, than to be cured and continue to occupy a number on the ever growing population list.
More people in this world need to wake up to everything that has been happening over the past few decades. Banks, Corporations, and even our own Government are playing chess with us. We’re the crop, and they’re the farmers. It’s not too late for you to keep an open mind, but some older people have had it shoved so far down their throat for so long, that they can’t see what’s really happening here.
You’re still young and the last hope for change. Don’t let the entertainment industry distract you, and don’t let the news mold your brain. Always remember that it’s perfectly legal to LIE on television and that’s the main problem. They tell you what they want you to hear, not what’s really happening.
People need care from their own families to really change, not some people with a freaking camera forcing people to do what they want for more ratings. Stop watching these idiotic shows, and focus on learning. Knowledge is power, and I hope no one ever takes that away from us.
Yeah, those surveys are inaccurate at best. Most people who still are addicted, will claim that they have stopped and don’t use anymore. Nearly every addict i know will say that they “quit” on their own. I’m a recovering heroin addict, and i have grown up around addicts of all kind, and i can assure you, that once you become physically dependent on a substance, it is nearly impossible to stop on your own. Some have succeeded, but the majority fail, time and time again. But who would honestly say, “Yeah, I’m still a junky… I never could quit using drugs, and i still use them today.” If you know any addicts, then that is completely ass backwards from what they tell EVERYBODY.
The show is hard to watch….i hate junkies and i hate how they are carefully babied and enabled by people with no balls……
The show NEEDS to be more confrontational in nature….I just watched an episode about some selfish **** mother of 2 kids, whos addicted to perkazets (forgot her name)….
She took advantage of everyone in her family and when carefully confronted she was SMILING and taunting them…..if it were me i would ***** *** **** *** **** *** *** on the street…..
Stop being so nice to these losers…
“Losers.” Educate yourself man, I am sure you have done at least ONE shady thing in your life. Drug addicts aren’t losers, they are lost souls who need help. Now, if you are a person who doesn’t care whether someone lives or dies, that is on you. My spiritual principles tell me to care and spread the message of hope. OPEN YOUR MIND!
It’s painfully obvious that Angel is 13 because he/she still honestly believes that there is such a thing as the right NOT to be offended. Admitting that it takes willpower to quit…is admitting it isn’t a disease. I can’t *will* myself NOT to have smallpox. It isn’t just hard to do, it’s impossible because…it’s actually a disease. Yes, addiction alters your brain and those brain changes do a number on your reasoning faculties, which makes it way harder to say no or to stop your pattern of behavior than it is to just continue it…but it’s still possible. It’s super hard for me to get up and go to the gym because I’m used to sitting on the couch and losing time on this computer. But sitting on the couch and vegging out online isn’t a disease just because it’s become such a strong habit that it’s hard for me to do something else. If I valued feeling physically fit more, I might have the drive to change the situation.
Im sorry but everyonr other than the 13 year old u people are stupid. This is a wonderful.show. Especially for a younger audience of today that is being feed its ok to drink, get high and sex everyone just for money thru songs. Regardless of a&e is banking off the sow isn’t the point. (thats why its a TV show, duh) The shows the affects of drug addiction, the hurt and pain behind most users as to why they.started using and the pain , hurt an anguish the family and friends go thru seeing them go thru this. This is one show that is actually a real reality compared.to other reality shows. And after watching the show and knowning the background and cause of addiction why would anyone call them losers and approach them harder. An intervention is doing just that. In a more productive way vs fuck u come back when your sober. How can anyone believe a family or a real friend can just cast their love one aside during a time like that in that addicts life. Everything doesn’t have to be a hard ass approach. Especially with an addict who are already hard.and evidently hate themselves doing drugs. I like this show. This blog is another example of someone wanting to feel better good about themselves for doing bogus research.
Most people who become addicted to drugs or alcohol die of complications from that abuse. Of course, they usually do stop, briefly before they die, when their bodies and their care finally make further abuse impossible. The data on this is all over the place, but you prefer to discount it. No ‘addict’ stops abusing drugs or alcohol until they feel they have too much to lose, but unfortunately that does not mean that all stop even after a hard ass approach, otherwise jail and isolation would be a sure cure.
Critics of substance abuse treatment need to spend more time in 12-step meetings listening to the stories of those in recovery, and about how they lost much of what they cared about before accepting help. Even if you can stop on your own, the odds are high you will transition to being a ‘dry-drunk’. Put simply, you will be safer behind the wheel of a car, but you still will be making people around you miserable. Sometimes these types just take to the web to spread their pain rather than deal with it. With help you can not only increase the chance that you will not relapse over and over again, but you will start to live a sober lifestyle.
I attend 12-step meetings regularly. I’m lucky in many ways, not least of all because I am what sometimes is called a ‘high bottom drunk.’ My ‘intervention’ came when a PhD in psychology told me that my son who I brought in for treatment was becoming depressed because I was an ass hole. She used nicer words, of course. She asked what exactly I was doing with all of my time that I could not find an hour once or twice a week to go to an AA or similar meeting. Sometimes I joke that I would have held out longer if I knew a TV show might come along and send me off to Malibu for 90 days of treatment. But, by then my wife would have left and my son probably would be in danger of repeating my bad habits.
Yes, I had issues that required attention. But there was no chance I could address those issues until I shut off the chemical interference.
12-step meetings full of people who used to be like Chris and Steve. But those at the meetings not only got help, but they keep getting it to this day by showing up at meetings. By shutting up and listening for a few months I not only learned what I could be, I learned how I would likely die.
No, everything does not need to be a hard-ass approach. But if love doesn’t work after a while, it’s time to use a hard ass approach or confess you are just enabling the addict.
Go ahead and criticize, tell all the lies you want about interventions etc. I will not be back to look at them. I hope to see you soon at a meeting. You will be very welcome.
“Most people who become addicted to drugs or alcohol die of complications from that abuse.”
Really? You might want to take a look at this before you keep spreading your folklore: http://www.thecleanslate.org/new-alcoholism-study-treatment-doesnt-lower-mortality-rates/
“The data on this is all over the place, but you prefer to discount it.”
Also, even the NIAAA admits that your tragic view of the fate of “alcoholics” is untrue at this point: http://www.spectrum.niaaa.nih.gov/features/alcoholism.aspx
And don’t think for a minute that I haven’t spent plenty of time attending 12-step meetings. I’ve also spent time with hundreds of people who were hurt by the 12-step movement. It’s amazing how people come to this site to make ignorant comments and assume I know nothing about addiction, and that I have no experience with the 12-steps. Why do you think I do this? For shits and giggles? Seriously – I’m amazed at the people who think they need to tell me to talk to a “real addict” or go see what an AA meeting is like. Does it ever cross any one of you ignorant commenters’ minds that maybe I’ve been through it all?
As a physician, I see the fallout of the “treatment” industry every day…something these, petulant children know NOTHING about. Anyone who honestly thinks “it works if you work it” should spend a day in my ED pumping Narcan into the guy with the 20 year NA keychain, or hang a banana bag for the drunk with multiple AA chips in his pocket.
As for the “disease claim” that the 13 year old child made…yes, the AMA says addiction is a disease, but NOT for the reasons she thinks. The real reason addiction was classified as a disease was so that physicians can get paid for cleaning up the mess that Steppism leaves behind. It’s all about money. Behind closed doors, hardly ANY of us really think that addiction is a disease. Most of us see it as a behavior disorder.
But what do I know? I’m just a doctor, and not a mouthy teenager who thinks her opinion is the only valid one on the face of the planet.
First and foremost, I do not like the show. I do not think it is right to exploit someone’s faults, such as the disease of addiction. Yes, using drug is a choice but once your brain is altered it will never go back. As human beings our brains are hard-wired for four things: food, water, sex, and social relationships. When you start using drugs your brain changes it’s wiring and adds a fifth instinct: to get high. That instinct will soon take over all other instincts and become the addict’s number one goal. This is why it is virtually IMPOSSIBLE for a REAL addict to stop on their own. The only way of life a drug addict (and yes, that includes alcoholics-alcohol is a drug) knows is getting high, finding money to get high, and getting high again. They lose thought of everything that “normal” society deems important. They need help. Rehab, addiction therapy, new coping skills, they basically have to learn how to live without drugs and alcohol. Show me a real, true drug addict who has done that without ANY help at all, and I will call him/her a liar.
As for joe saying those people are “losers:” you are a loser for saying that. People are human, they make mistakes and doing drugs is a mistake. We can’t hold people at fault once they no longer can control it. True, addiction is an AQUIRED disease from using drugs that can be ARRESTED with proper help so no, it does not compare to cancer but it WILL KILL YOU. Diabetes is a disease people AQUIRE but I don’t see anyone bashing diabetics. EDUCATE.