If you have a parent that has been diagnosed with dementia this can be hard on the entire family, especially the spouse and children of the parent. If you have a sibling that has become depressed and has turned to drugs to help them feel better, it is important that you help them now before things become much worse. One way you can do this is by having a family intervention. Below is some more information about this so you can get started helping your sibling.

What a Family Intervention is

With a family intervention, you ask all family members that are close to your sibling, such as you, your spouse, other siblings, your other parent, etc. The parent that has dementia should not participate in the intervention unless they are still at the point where they can understand what is going on.

Have the intervention in your home or another family member's home. If you do not want to do this, you can rent a place to hold the intervention.  Ask everyone to arrive early and you or another family member bring your sibling to the intervention. If you think they will not want to participate, do not tell them what you are doing until you walk in the door.

How the Intervention Works

Contact a counseling center in your area that handles addiction. They can help you set up the family intervention and have one of the addiction specialists come to your home to do the intervention for you. This is important, as if you do not know how to do this on your own things could get worse instead of better.

If you have family members that have not been around your sibling, such as if they live out of town, talk with them before the intervention and tell them what is going on with your sibling. It is important that they understand the extent of your sibling's addiction problem.  This way your family members can do some research on their own about the type of addiction they have before the intervention to help them better understand it.

Make some notes beforehand of what you want to say and ask your other family members to do the same. Once the intervention starts you may forget everything you planned to say due to the stress of the situation.

Once the intervention starts each family member will speak to your sibling in turn. Once this is finished, show them a treatment plan. If they refuse to go tell them consequences, such as they will have to move out or you will not give them money.

If the intervention does not work your sibling will need see a drug counselor for treatment, such as at Eastside Center for Family. They could go a few times a week and talk to them. How often this is depends on how bad their addiction is.