# What are some tips about writing an intervention for fiction? Drug Addict



## colorfulpoet (Oct 4, 2014)

I'm in the middle of a novel I'm writing. I got a really good start to it already. I'm just at a part in the novel where I need some advice. A brief description of the novel is: there is these two young adult heroin addicts (girlfriend 20, boyfriend, 22). The novel is in the first person (the girlfriend). They both currently live in the boyfriend's paren't basement. The main character (the girl) is dealing with some emotional and psychological issues and using drugs as a way to cope. The boyfriend has a horrible relationship with dad, and as a teenager went down the path of drugs. He is the more "functional" of the two in the relationship. Anyway I'm at he point where I want the boyfriend and girlfriend's parents to gather around to try and set up an intervention. What are some tips/advice of how I can make this transition realistic? 

Girlfriend and her father hasn't spoke in almost six months, and her mother and her have an enabling type relationship.

Boyfriend doesn't have contact with his father except for a brief exchange which becomes violent. His mother is sick of the two leaching off her and wants them out of her basement and she is the one that initiates the idea for an intervention.


----------



## egpenny (Oct 4, 2014)

With the parents you describe, I can't imagine a positive outcome.  Do they have friends or people who care about them? The mother just wants them OUT, right?
I don't know too much about interventions, but I think the people running  it have to care about the welfare of those being intervened (?)
The scene could be a terrific fiasco, if the mother is running it you don't have to know anything about intervention because she won't.
Sorry, I'm no help at all.


----------



## colorfulpoet (Oct 5, 2014)

The girlfriends father feels like he failed as a father and it is his pride that is keeping him from contacting his daughter. Her mother wants to try and make her daughter as comfortable as possible.

As for the boyfriend's mother; she just wants something to change and doesn't want one of them to overdose in her basement.


----------



## Ethan (Oct 5, 2014)

Mother calls in help from a reformed addict who has a 'Help group' in the local town. Turns out, he's the one that got the girl hooked in the first place? It's just how complicated do you you want this to get?


----------



## Hailey_Murray (Oct 20, 2014)

Based on your setup, this is going to be a failed intervention - if the girlfriend's mother just wants her to be more 'comfortable,' she's not in the right headspace to intervene and have it work.

Usually, during an intervention a "solution" is offered (going to rehab, breaking off this disastrous relationship, etc.) and then there are some "hard lines" if they don't follow through - I won't speak to you anymore, no more financial help, you need to move out of the basement, etc. Unless everyone really is firm with those hard lines, the intervention won't work. 

I think you need to decide if you want the intervention to work or not. If the people doing the intervening are dysfunctional or "enabling" the two addicts in any way, it won't work... so what does that mean for the rest of your story?


----------



## Morkonan (Oct 20, 2014)

colorfulpoet said:


> ... What are some tips/advice of how I can make this transition realistic? ...



Well, there's a reality program in the US called "Intervention", I think. You could watch some of those episodes to get some real-life tips.

Also, do not be afraid to contact outreach and assistance programs in your area. Arrange an interview with one of their workers and mine their head for their experiences.  Let them know you're a writer and that you're trying to get a handle on describing the experience realistically, not looking for any specific story. (Confidentiality is important in these circles and, in some cases, mandated by law.)

Considering the parents are the ones who would seek to intervention for the couple, I don't see how it's going to be particularly useful. Unless they have had some sort of revelation that helps to change their parenting style or values, they are likely going to be more accusatory and confronting, I would think, than helpful and conciliatory. They might seek to use the intervention as an opportunity to voice their own feelings and emphasize their own problems with the couple, rather than communicating their desire that the couple get help.

Unless you build up some good positive traits in the character's of the parents and other family, I don't see an intervention, undertaken by them, as being a particularly positive experience. Either build up their characters with some positive points or "hire" an outside agency to come in and fix the problem. (ie: Other family members, friends, local law enforcement, religious institutions, rehab programs, whatever.)


----------



## tabasco5 (Oct 22, 2014)

Morkonan said:


> Well, there's a reality program in the US called "Intervention", I think. You could watch some of those episodes to get some real-life tips.



I was going to say that Intervention is available on both Netflix and Youtube.  I have seen two episodes and both feature enabling parents.


----------

