By Meredith Gardner
meredith.gardner@theindependent.com

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Independent/Barrett Stinson Jeff VanVonderen, an interventionist featured on the A&E television show ³Intervention,² speaks during the Central Nebraska Council on Alcoholism and Addictionıs annual two-day workshop Friday at the Evangelical Free Church in Grand Island. Independent/Barrett Stinson Melody Helton of Hastings and Trudy Elsberry of Page (right) listen to a question being asked of speaker Jeff VanVonderen Friday. Independent/Barrett Stinson Itıs a full house in the new chapel area of the Evangelical Free Church in Grand Island as Jeff VanVonderen speaks Friday. Click Thumbnails to View

That's where effective interventions come in.

Jeff VanVonderen, a board-registered interventionist featured on the A&E television show "Intervention," was in Grand Island for the Central Nebraska Council on Alcoholism and Addiction's annual two-day workshop this week.

On Thursday he taught hundreds of counselors, nurses, social workers, chemical dependency workers, recovering addicts and the like in presentations titled "Addiction, Codependency and the Family" and "Overcoming Shame in Recovery." But on Friday, VanVonderen shed light on what he's best known for: intervention strategies.

"In my view, my intervention is really on the family system," he said. "My main goal is to make an impact on the family."

A formal intervention is a means to bring a positive solution to a crisis situation. During a typical intervention, the family and friends of a person participating in self-destructive behavior often an addiction meet and ask the person to get professional help for their problem.

To motivate the self-destructive individual to go into the recovery process, friends and family offer their love and support, describe ways their relationships have changed because of the destructive behavior and identify consequences for not going into recovery.

For example, parents doing an intervention with an alcoholic child may threaten to stop providing housing or money if the child doesn't go into a formal addiction recovery program. At that point, the addict is forced to confront their problem, VanVonderen said.

But if the person agrees to go into a recovery program, family members and friends shouldn't just sit back and breathe a sigh of relief, VanVonderen said.

Families must also readjust and get "unstuck" from the roles they took on while dealing with the destructive behavior. Otherwise, the addicted person may fall back into old ways after returning from a recovery program.

"If the system around them becomes healthy, then it's harder for them to keep doing what they're doing," VanVonderen said.

Formal interventions are important, VanVonderen said, because they can help stop more serious consequences jail time, hospitalization or even death from happening in the future.

"Don't waste the crisis," he said. "Shine a light on the crisis, because crisis equals opportunity."

Mike Timmerman, a member of the Central Nebraska Council on Alcoholism and Addictions board of directors, said VanVonderen's instruction was engaging and well-received.

"I think it gave me a good sense of the importance of confronting people," as uncomfortable as that can be, Timmerman said. "A more tragic end is coming anyway."

While those who attended Friday's conference shouldn't try a professional intervention on their own, they can use what they learned to help entire families through the recovery process, VanVonderen said.

"Well families are really the best intervention on an addict," VanVonderen said.