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Bill Maher, Interventionist

Specializing in Gentle, Respectful Intervention of Alcoholism and Other Addictions
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Parents— Don’t Try This at Home

September 25, 2018 by admin

teenage alcoholismIt’s mind-boggling to me that families often try to treat the medical disease of addiction at home. If your teenager broke his arm, would you set the bone at the kitchen table? If he had an asthma attack, would you lecture him about getting his act together?

Of course not.

Still, families grapple with addiction at home for two reasons: First, addiction can look an awful lot like bad behavior, especially at the outset.  And second, parents feel embarrassed that addiction has found it’s way into their family, so they try solving the problem behind closed doors. There is a lot of shame related to this disease— parents feel as if they have failed.

In my 30 years as an interventionist, I’ve come to understand that addiction is one of the most complicated medical diseases to date. Few addicts recover on their own. And when they do, the hidden components of the disease have often gone untreated. An incomplete treatment leaves the entire family vulnerable to relapse. It can fracture families, which is counterproductive to your loved one finding and remaining in recovery.

Addiction treatment is never as straightforward as, say, cutting out a tumor or setting a broken bone. This disease is confusing and crazy-making. In the beginning, addiction looks a lot like a behavior problem. The manipulative behavior and the stealing feels like such a personal assault when in fact, it’s part of the disease process and there is an appropriate way to react to these behaviors that is not what you’d think.

We pull out our parenting tools and crack down with strict limits and consequences. Our intentions are good but, as the disease progresses, families don’t have the tools to deal with it on their own.

That’s why it’s important to seek help from a qualified addiction counselor, preferably one with experience in intervention, so that you make educated decisions and utilize your funds in the best way possible. Sure, I’m biased since that’s what I do.

But consider this. While a specialist costs money, just like a doctor costs money, they can direct your loved one to the best treatment for that individual and also save you money in the end– money that may have been wasted on the wrong treatment option for your child.

At the very least, find support for yourself.

Filed Under: Alcoholism, Family Intervention, Featured Post, parenting, Substance abuse, substance abuse treatment Tagged With: teenage addiction

Finding Help for Addiction

August 27, 2018 by admin

Someone you love is showing signs of addiction. You’ve devoured books with titles like “Walking on Eggshells”. You’ve nudged, you’ve argued, and you’ve threatened. You’ve seen counselors and sought the advice of trusted friends. Still, the crazy-making behavior is accelerating like a runaway train and, by now, you’re feeling desperate.
Where do you turn?

Your next step is to seek the guidance of a certified addiction professional, ideally someone with experience in substance abuse intervention. But how do you find a reputable one? Who can you trust? As an addiction interventionist for 30 years, here’s my best advice:

Step One: Call a respected treatment center and ask them to refer you to an independent addiction professional in your area. Ask who they’d recommend for interventions. Who are their best referring case managers, addiction specialists, or interventionists in your city? Three programs I’d suggest calling include Milestones at Onsite in Tennessee, Cirque Lodge in Utah, or Saint Christopher’s in Louisiana. Jot down the names they offer, then call a second treatment center and ask the same questions. After a few phone calls, you’ll start hearing the same names. (In the Richmond, Virginia area, in addition to my intervention services, I recommend Gail Santarelli, LPC at Richmond IOP or Maryann Cox, LCSW. In Charlottesville, VA. I’d suggest Dr. Kevin Doyle).

Step Two: Now, start calling your list of recommended professionals and pay attention to their initial response. My approach is to ask family members to take some time before hiring me to watch my video talks about addiction and alcoholism, and read the client testimonials and client stories on my website. I also ask them to call two of my client references. My former clients will often say something like, “When Bill told us to do this, we thought he was crazy. But in the end, he was right.” This background research helps new clients establish trust in me before we begin the arduous process of intervention, recovery treatment, and aftercare. The road to recovery from drug addiction and/or alcoholism is often bumpy. When I work with families, there are often rough patches, such as when parents balk when I tell them to stop paying an adult child’s rent or confiscate a teenager’s cell phone. But they’ll remember my former clients’ words: “We thought he was crazy but his advice worked”.

Trust is everything in this process, and trust in who you are working with for the intervention is essential. In the end, you know your loved one better than I do. But I know the disease of addication better than you do. Together, we’ll work as a team to help your loved one get onto the road to recovery.

Bill Maher, Interventionist, is a Board Registered Interventionist II and Member of the National Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors and member of The Association of Intervention Specialists.

Filed Under: Family Intervention, Featured Post, Substance abuse Tagged With: Cirque Lodge, Hiring an Interventist

Can we talk about alcoholism and Anthony Bourdain?

July 9, 2018 by admin

Anthony Bourdain and AlcoholismI didn’t know Anthony Bourdain, but felt like I did in one small important way. In him, I saw a drinking alcoholic with a front-stage vigorous attempt to do it successfully. His was a fantastic life-embracing show, with drinking taking a prominent role in the joie de vivre, and sometimes that made it hard for me to watch.

When he threw back shots, indeed got wasted, I saw a fellow alcoholic living dangerously whereas most viewers, I imagine, saw “a man who knew how to drink, knew how to live.” His state of mind will be called depression, and who can argue with that in the wake of his suicide. But can we please, people, start connecting the dots to alcoholism (also a disease of the mind), at least when it is screamingly evident?
Perhaps I should not presume to think I know, but I can at least invite the conversation where it is uncomfortably and amazingly absent. Did alcoholism (which brings depression or ineffectively “treats” depression) ultimately take down Bourdain?

Alcohol is a drug. “Drugs” and “alcohol” remain separate in conversations about addiction, like a “bad sister” doing outrageous unthinkable things while the “good sister” quietly nurses a prom hangover and shame from a blackout.

Can Bourdain’s death please generate a conversation about alcoholism and not just befuddlement about his fantastic life that countless people wish they had? Because you don’t want his life. The travel, the breadth of his experiences, sure, maybe. But this man on the move had to stop sometimes. No cameras, no action. Just himself. I didn’t know him, but I do know addiction and it can be a fiercely critical companion that may take a back seat but lies in wait. It can tear us down and sometimes just won’t shut up — goading shame, provoking self-loathing and inviting emotional isolation.

When you’re an addict, as he proclaimed he was, it’s highly risky to keep one drug on board. He had respect and fear of the “hard drugs.” He reportedly was grateful and humble for having escaped death by addiction decades ago.

We’ll be talking about depression and suicide for days now, with Kate Spade’s and Bourdain’s suicides, until another famous person with a seemingly magnificent life shocks us. Bourdain was a famous, beloved “bad boy” as one friend described him. He demonstrated a generosity of self. He cared deeply, it would seem, about injustice, and about the opiate-addicted with whom he empathized. I’ve found, working with the addicted, both those using and those in recovery, that addicts/alcoholics are generally extremely sensitive souls.

Alcohol “works” for the alcoholic until it doesn’t. It promises and delivers what we seek from it for years, until it stops working. Yet still we want to drink like everybody else. Drinking is fun, right? It goes with culinary delights, correct? It enhances life, isn’t that so? Well, yes, and no. Certainly ultimately “no” if you have the malady, which quietly marches on and in time takes our joy, even our will to live and carry on and pretend we’re OK. We’re not OK. We are just good actors. Bourdain perhaps was one of the best. With alcoholism, we make rules as we go along, to prove we have control. We also break those rules. We take life by the tail, but, dare I say, some weary of the show and let go.

This is a progressive, chronic, fatal disease with predictable stages. The brain science is in, and has been for years, yet it is ignored or given short shrift because drinking is such a huge part of our cultural fabric. We don’t stop and think about it until we’re forced to; until it’s obvious, undeniable, that someone we care about is suffering.

Alcoholics minimize, deny, believe their drinking is under control, and refuse to connect the dots — that drinking for escape, relief or to solve problems is creating more problems, and is taking a toll on self-worth and perhaps cognition. The substance they are drinking for “a lift” is a depressant. The guilt, shame, powerlessness and depression can take them down.

Blessedly it can also wake us up to the true nature of our disease. We stop separating “drugs” from “alcohol.” We find freedom from the tyranny that is addiction, that is alcoholism. Can we at least talk about it?

Written by Jo Ann Towle (reprinted with permision). Jo Ann Towle, is a certified intervention professional who helps people find treatment for addiction.

Filed Under: Alcoholism, Featured Post Tagged With: alcoholism and depression, Anthony Bourdain

COBE Town Hall Video

June 24, 2018 by admin

How addiction forms by looking at social media, fast food and other facets of daily life. A video of a talk by Judson Brewer MD, PhD given at the “From Research to Recovery Town Hall” at COBE (College Behavioral and Emotional Health Institute at
Virginia Commonwealth University). COBE collaborated with Field Studio Films to capture all of the talks on video to use as a community resource for education and dissemination of the important conversations between researchers, professionals and members of the community. We thought this talk from Dr. Judson Brewer, MD, Ph.D. was really important, and wanted to share it.

Dr. Judson Brewer, MD, Ph.D. — “The Craving Mind”

Dr. Brewer is the Director of Research at the Center for Mindfulness and associate professor in medicine and psychiatry at UMass Medical School. He also is adjunct faculty at Yale University, and a research affiliate at MIT.

You can see more of the videos from the COBE Town Hall here: http://cobe.vcu.edu/cobe-town-hall-2017/

Filed Under: Alcoholism, Substance abuse, Video

Bill’s TED Talk

June 1, 2018 by admin

Watch Bill Maher’s Ted Talk given at the TEDXRVA in Richmond, Virginia.
The talk is titled: Saving Lives Through Connection

Filed Under: Events, Recovery, Substance abuse Tagged With: opiate addiction, TED Talks

TEDX RVA Open Mic Presentation

May 9, 2018 by admin

Bill Maher gave this presentation during open mic night at the TEDxRVA in February of 2016. It won the competition out of 25 presentations to be invited back to talk during the TEDxRVA event in April, 2016. Watch Bill’s talk about the problem of Opiate addiction in our country.

Filed Under: Events, Substance abuse Tagged With: addiction, opiate addiction, TED Talks

Personalized Intervention Training

September 11, 2017 by admin

Oct 18-20, 2017.  Master Class for Interventionists.
Uplevel your intervention skills and increase your success rate.

In this training you’ll learn to:
• Disarm the disease and positively engage clients.
• Empower clients to shift from conflict with loved one to constructive dialogues.
• Place a motivated loved one into treatment.

DIP Board approved; worth 18 CEUs

Download the flyer for more information:
PersonalizedInterventionTraining2017

Filed Under: Events Tagged With: intervention training

UNT Recovery Conference

August 20, 2016 by admin

Sept. 21, 2016. Bill will be a keynote speaker on the topic: “Recovery Skills for Families: Tools for Managing the Stress of Addiction” at the University of Northern Texas Recovery Conference being held in Denton, TX. The Recovery Conference is a national 2-day event that brings together behavioral health professionals, educators, researchers, students and industry leaders. For more information go to: https://recoveryresearch.unt.edu/content/recovery-conference

UNT Recovery Conference

Filed Under: Events Tagged With: family alcoholism

Upcoming Events in April 2016

March 4, 2016 by admin

Bill Maher, Interventionist will be speaking at the following events coming up this spring:

April 8th – TEDxRVA, Carpenter Center (for more information or to buy tickets to this event go to TEDxRVA.com)

April 13th – Parents coffee at Sabot @ Stony Point – talking on warning signs of use and addiction

April 15th – Conference in Fredericksburg, Va

April 28th – 30th Action Intervention Training @ ONSITE, Cumberland Furnace, Tenn. See details.

May 12th – Community get together with treatment resources for professionals and family members – at Northstar Community, 563 Southlake Blvd, Richmond, Virginia

Filed Under: Events Tagged With: Action Intervention Training, community education, Richmond, Sabot School, TED Talks

Intervention Training April 2016

February 15, 2016 by admin

Action Intervention Training

Using Action to Effect Change

April 28—30, 2016 at Onsite Workshops, Cumberland Furnace, TN

ADVANCED INTERVENTION
Addicted family systems are locked into unhealthy roles and behaviors. When conducting an intervention, it is crucial to utilize sociometry to lower anxiety, and warm up the family to change. In this didactic and experiential “learning lab” workshop, we will demonstrate the benefits of treating the entire family system, and how sociometry and psychodrama can motivate the family towards recovery.

Bill Maher, Interventionist will be a presenter at Action Intervention Training—Using Action to Effect Change. Advanced strategies, tools and techniques utilizing a combination of intervention modalities, sociometry and psychodrama techniques that can be applied to formal interventions as well as any facet of addiction/mental health services for clients and families.


Download the flyer for this training (pdf).
CEU Hours Available

Filed Under: Events

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Need Help Now?
Call: (804) 677-7728

William J. Maher

CIP, CADC, ACI, BRI II
Board Registered Interventionist II

Member of the National Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors (NAADAC)
 and

The Association of Intervention Specialists (AIS)
More about Bill Maher, Interventionist...

“With a very high rate of success, Bill Maher is able to move the family along a path of healing, as well as foster a desire for recovery in the addicted individual.”

—Dr. David Smith, Haight Ashbury Free Clinic; Former President and Chair Physician of The Well Being Committee for the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM)

Betty Ford Center Preferred Interventionist

“Maher's business is saving people from their addictions—one hairy family crisis at a time.”

—Style Weekly, Richmond, Virginia

Featured Blog Post…

teenage alcoholism

Parents— Don’t Try This at Home

It’s mind-boggling to me that families often try to treat the medical disease of addiction at home. If your teenager broke his arm, would you set the bone at the kitchen table? If … [Read More...]

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