What is the most effective way to intervene in behavioral addiction?
There are many ways to effectively intervene. Please don't believe that you're powerless in the face of your loved one's addiction. But my recommendation is a much more soft approach, a much more subtle approach, where maybe you sit down on a Sunday afternoon and have sort of a heart-to-heart discussion. You sort of say, "Maybe the two of us should go and talk with a professional." Don't make them feel guilty. Don't make them feel diseased or they're mentally ill. But rather help them see the cost benefit analysis. Help them see that it's not a crisis yet but it's a building up to a point. Some other organizations, like Al-Anon, there's tough love approaches where the individual is sort of like disengaged from if they don't involve. Now, that's a strategy for intervention that I'm not particularly supportive of. Can you imagine your child having an internet addiction and saying the tough love method, which means putting them out on the street. I have met very few parents that are willing to, you know, put the child out, put the husband out of the house. But that is the tough love approach. That is, again, another way to intervene. For some adult males, it does seem to motivate them and help them see that their behavior has gone beyond what the spouse is willing to tolerate. You shouldn't, on the other hand, endorse or make light of how you really feel about the addiction. So there's many ways of intervening.
