I had the pleasure and privilege to be interviewed for the 50th edition of the online magazine Recovery Today. In the interview, I was asked about my work as an interventionist, my recovery and my journey from homelessness to a life of recovery.
Click the link below to read my full interview.
https://siteassets.pagecloud.com/recoverytoday/downloads/Recovery-Today-Magazine-Issue-50-January-2019-ID-dc16afa2-53b6-43ca-cb54-b269acfb6037.pdf
I have spent the last 23 years practicing intervention all over the world.
I have met the most extra ordinary families.
Families that are brave with the courage of a lion’s heart.
Intervention is a spiritual battle ground and I go to war with the family disease.
After years, and sometimes decades of active addiction, families crumble under the weight of shame and secrets, breaking apart siblings, marriages, friends and loved ones.
Addiction happens to family systems not individuals.
The disease possesses its prisoners.
Suffocating, slowly, the life out of families.
Families become strangers to each other, retreating to the far corners of house and home.
Thoughts become scrambled and recruited to unintentionally protect the very disease that is eroding the family. Loved ones become senseless, trying to save their children, spouses, parents and dear friends. Fighting in the dark, swinging at ghosts, families spend many lost and unhappy years trying desperately to control and contain the disease.
At the heart of the matter, intervention helps families do a turnabout face and walk into that which they are most afraid: surrendering the fight and letting go. Intervention is bringing families together, guiding the most difficult of conversations, and inspiring each person to change, heal and expand, breaking the chains of shame and addiction. I do not determine the success of an intervention, on the choice of the ‘addicted’, but the health of the whole family. There is a path out for everyone who is effected by the disease. The painful truth is, that sometimes, families and addicts do not travel the road of health and healing together. Often, one very brave person needs to lead the way and stay the course, no matter who follows. Letting go of the people we love most is a deeply counter intuitive choice for anyone who loves an addict. It is the bravest of action, to release the grip and allow the addict to descend into the depths. Addicts do not learn from education but from hard earned experience. The act of letting go, is offering the gift of consequence.
The very reality that families are most afraid of is the very reality addicts need most, which is the opportunity to run into themselves. It is only when there is no one left to blame, nowhere left to go, that denial is pierced just long enough, for the addict to reach outside themselves for help. It is the birth place of self-esteem and in that very Devine moment, I am there, standing strong with a compassionate loving hand. My job, as an interventionist, is to illuminate the way out and inspire the journey toward a life of recovery. The path toward healing can feel, at times, unbearable and terrifying, but just on the other side of the storm, there is a calm new life, free of the madness addiction always brings. No matter how dark the days or how lost a family can feel, there is always hope.
Intervention is leading a freedom fight and a radical act of love.
Sober and shameless, Kw