Willow Grove Recovery recently welcomed interventionist Rich Johnston to the team. Rich Johnston once ran an intervention at a man’s own birthday party. He talks about how it actually works, what families get wrong, and why he thinks treatment has a cool factor problem.
Willow Grove: You’ve just joined us at Willow Grove. For anyone who doesn’t know the word, what does an interventionist do?
Rich: Interventions look like a lot of different things, and I’ve explained it plenty of ways over the years, but ultimately I do family-style interventions. It’s close to what most people picture when they hear the word. It’s just far less dramatic than the version they put on TV. Think of Intervention, the old A&E reality show where cameras follow a family confronting a loved one, then dial all that drama way down.
The situation is usually this. You have someone using drugs, who we call the IP, the identified patient. The family has recognized there’s a real problem, and so far the person has been unwilling to go to treatment. I come in and use a wide range of tactics and techniques to help that person make the right decision, which is to get into the treatment that fits them.
Willow Grove: My understanding is that the person often doesn’t even know an intervention is about to happen. Walk us through how it works.
Rich: Traditionally, yes. That’s a Johnson model intervention, a surprise model. Johnson without the T, by the way. That’s Vernon Johnson, long before my time.
There’s more than one approach, though. Patricia Pike at Can-Am Interventions pioneered a case-management approach that they call an invitational model, where the person knows and is invited into the process. There are a few other invitational styles out there that I’ll leave alone. I practice mostly surprise models.
Sitting through a surprise intervention can be uncomfortable for a family, mostly because people have a natural aversion to confrontation.
Willow Grove: Do you have a story that captures what that’s like?
Rich: I did a surprise intervention on a guy at his own birthday party once. The whole family was in town, and it was the only window we had to reach him. So we let him have his party. The family did their best to moderate his drinking through the festivities, and as things wound down, I came and sat with him and introduced myself.
I keep the introduction simple. I’ll say something like, my name’s Rich, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know your family, and you don’t need me to tell you these are great people who really care about you. They just have a few things they’d like to say to you, starting with dad, starting with mom, starting with whoever it is.
Willow Grove: And by that point the family is ready.
Rich: Completely. We’ve already spent 8 to 12 hours in pre-intervention without the IP in the room. By the time we sit down, we’re a fine-tuned machine. There’s a real flow to it, almost choreographed. So when I call it a surprise, it’s kind of a surprise. A lot of people can read the room and know exactly what time it is. I’ve walked into interventions where the person took one look and said, alright, I’ll go.
More often it’s the family’s faces that give it away. Everybody’s sitting in a circle, mom has usually already started to cry, and honestly, some folks have been quietly waiting for that push.
Willow Grove: When you meet resistance, what’s the first thing you say? Do you have an opening line?
Rich: I tell my families all the time that the best interventions are the ones where I say almost nothing. I don’t have magic words that convince someone to go to treatment. What I have is a process. I didn’t invent it, I’ve studied it thoroughly, and I’ve got a lot of experience running it. That process helps people arrive at the right decision on their own.
For the resistant cases, that’s exactly why we spend those 8 to 12 hours in pre-intervention. We map out every barrier we expect to hit. Who’s going to watch the dog? What about my job? What about rent? We handle all of it in advance, so it can’t become a reason to say no.
Willow Grove: So you’re setting the person up to say yes by clearing away every logistical excuse.
Rich: That’s exactly right.
Willow Grove: People probably also say some version of “I’m fine, it’s not that bad.” How do you handle that?
Rich: In pre-intervention we write two letters. One they call the love letter. I’m lukewarm on the name, but that’s what it’s called. The other is the “or else” letter. Think of it as the easy way and the hard way. If we get through the easy-way letter and I’ve still got someone who’s resistant, I have the family talk it through among themselves, and I facilitate.
The main risk at that point is the intervention getting derailed. A big part of active addiction is finding ways to obfuscate and triangulate, to pull the focus somewhere else. By the time a family calls me, they already know what they want to say and they know treatment is the goal. My job is to keep the conversation locked on that, and away from, well, Melinda takes Xanax with me sometimes, or Aunt Marcy got drunk and hit a dog when I was seven. People love to drop a bombshell right in the middle of an intervention.
Willow Grove: Is it ever about ego rather than logistics?
Rich: Sometimes. Most of the work, 99% of it, is family work. But I can think of a case where a dad was the main force behind the intervention and his daughter was in desperate need of treatment. What I watched was an ego battle. The real barrier was that she didn’t want to give her dad the satisfaction of following his orders.
So I called an audible. I asked if I could take her outside and talk one on one. I just leveled with her. I told her, look, I’m getting the sense you don’t want to give your dad the satisfaction here. Sometimes you have to get the real barrier out into the open before anyone can move forward.
Willow Grove: What are you most excited to bring to Willow Grove?
Rich: I’ll say it straight. The cool factor is what got me. Recovery has an image problem. As a field, it reads as very wholesome, very Mr. Rogers in the cardigan sweater. That approach is never going to reach the next generation of addicts who are out there suffering.
What drew me to Willow Grove is that I know a lot of the people involved, they’re genuine, and the place has real appeal for people who aren’t the straight-laced, white-collar type. Those folks are part of the population too, and they’re welcome. But there’s something inherently rebellious about getting into drugs and that lifestyle, and people in it need something they can relate to. Behind that, of course, there has to be genuine depth and weight. You’ll never get someone through the front door if everyone’s in polos and khakis reciting the same canned line.
I’ve spent close to a decade in this field, and I do things my own way. So when I started talking with Willow Grove, the value I knew I could add was being exactly who I am, and helping take that image problem head-on.
Willow Grove: Rich, thank you. We’re glad to have you on the team.
Rich: Absolutely. Let’s get to work.
About Willow Grove Recovery
Willow Grove Recovery is a residential treatment center in Palmyra, Tennessee, about an hour from Nashville. Our rural campus pairs clinical care with real days outdoors: gardening, caring for the chickens and goats, walking the land. Experiential therapy, cold plunge, and a team of therapists who genuinely know what they’re doing.
If you’re worried about someone you love, you don’t have to figure out the next step alone. Contact our admissions team and we’ll walk you through it, or call us at 931-410-6400.
