Intervention: A Radical act of Love

I receive many calls and emails from families and concerned loved ones asking how to choose an interventionist. There are many who call themselves certified interventionists and damage is being caused to families by individuals who practice outside their experience and training. Although many are well meaning, damage is done, and it can take years to heal the splinters caused by a poorly executed intervention process.

 Do not mistake a ‘certified’ interventionist as a qualified interventionist.

Do not be afraid to ask about their training and length of practice. As you would with any health care professional, ask for references. Explore their experience and history in the field.

You are entrusting your family member to a professional, in hopes they provide the most effective care. Do not succumb to the pressure of needing to take immediate action out of fear your loved one will suffer terrible consequence. Families struggle greatly from the effects of the disease, in most cases for years, therefore, it behooves you to take a little time, weather it is a few days or weeks, to research and feel comfortable with who you decide to trust with your family. Intervention can change the course of your life so take your time. Slow down. Approach intervention by educating yourself and trust your intuition during the initial conversation. If you feel pressured or bullied, excuse yourself from the conversation, hang up and move on.

 Intervention is not a science, rather an art.

Every family has its own heartbeat and the skill of a great interventionist is to be able to feel the unique rhythm in the family. Families do not fit within the structure of a training manual, but rather, bleed outside the lines of a text book, with fear, anger, shame and secrets. A family’s trust should never be used as a weapon to force change through shame, but a gift used to inspire health and healing.

 I was 23 years old years when I began my career, long before there were ‘trainings’, certifications and professional territories. I started by working in a residential treatment facility. I wanted to learn every aspect of treatment, from intake to after care planning, and the complete therapeutic process. I learned to work with addicts who were suffering in detox and follow them through their intensive therapeutic challenges. I learned how to run process groups and family programs. I learned how to be a part of a clinical team, working side by side with some of the most respected addiction therapists in the country. I learned all medical, psychologically and spiritually accepts of residential care. I attended and completed the Drug and Alcohol Studies program at UCB Extension, which took two years and hundreds of hours of practical training. The years dedicated to my work as a counselor and student cemented a firm foundation upon which, I launched into my intervention career.

 However, my true training was the 5 years I followed my mentor around the country. I learned, not in a classroom, but in family rooms, sitting next to a pioneer in the intervention field. Jo Ann Towle, who helped define the profession and forge the way for all professionals to come, was my instructor. I listened and watched everything she did and said. I traveled with her to places near and far. We went on great adventures across the country and I absorbed every ounce of her experience. I sat in her office and listened to her talk to families, walking them through their paralyzing fear, creating the safety that is necessary for healing to begin. My experiential training came from facilitating countless of interventions with her. I sat at her side and watched her skillfully intervene on the disease that was affecting the whole family system. She never bullied or shamed a family or an addict, rather she inspired, encouraged and educated families, illuminating the path to health and healing. Her ability to deliver hard truths, with a sensitivity that allowed it to be received, is a skill I have since practiced for 25 years.

 What trainings don’t teach you is the art of connection.

The skill of turning and shifting as the disease penetrates the room.

Training do not teach you how to sit with a family as they visit the grave site of the child they lost to an overdose or how to pick up a mother, who has collapsed on the floor of her kitchen with grief, after her addicted child disappears, into the darkest of nights. And they do not teach how to wipe the tears of a spouse, when their partner chooses alcohol, over a 35-year marriage.

I have laughed with families and I have cried.

I have stood by a father while he, walked into San Quentin for his first visit with his son who was convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter. I have walked the street with prostitutes, who were too ashamed to face their families, creating a connection of shameless support and encouragement, which in turns, motivates even the most hopeless of addicts, to take the risk to accept help. I have sat in board rooms of multi-billion-dollar companies, staring into the eyes of executives, who are equally lost and broken, as the prostitutes, I met with only days prior.

 The success of intervention, if defined by the addict admitting into treatment, is directly connected to the family’s ability to let go. The work of a skilled interventionist is not only ‘getting someone to admit to treatment’ but shifting the direction of the whole family system. No matter the model of intervention that is practiced, working with the family is the truest definition of intervention. Intervention is a radical act of family love and loyalty and I consider it a Devine privilege to be a part of the change that will affect generations to follow.

 I approach intervention in a highly professional manner, respecting every family member.

The truth is, addicts will not remember much of what is said during the intervention, but they will never forget how the intervention made them feel. My hope is to create a feeling of love and support, not shame. Intervention can become very unpredictable and I have seen many wild, unexpected and even aggressive responses to intervention. However, even when the addicted person refuses treatment, I maintain respect for the process and every person in the room, even in the face of terrible resistance and sometimes even fear. By providing respectful intervention, I know that, when the end comes, and the pain of addiction proves to be too heavy to bare, a well facilitated intervention will keep the doors of treatment and help wide open.

 Intervention touches and changes lives and will dictate the immediate future of the ones you love most, so breathe. Slow down. And proceed with caution and curiosity. There are many dedicated and skilled professionals in the world of intervention and treatment. Chances are high, if you take a little time, you will land in the perfect hands for your family.

 On a personal note, I believe my purpose as a woman in long term recovery, is to leave a seed of hope planted deep within every addict and family, I meet in my office. Whether they seek treatment or not, I want to be the whisper of change that stays with them long after our work is done.

Sober and Shameless.

Kw

Begin, Again

They shattered.

Into a million little pieces.

Bleeding out across the floor, and pooling around my worn out running shoes. The blood of their father, the weight of his name, the memories of their childhood, his smile, his large hand wrapped around theirs, were soaking the floor.

Stretching out for them, they crumpled like binder paper. As if, I was reaching for a ghost, as hard as I tried, I could not keep them from fading out of sight. In a second of time, my children, evaporated, right in front of my eyes.

I have never seen those children again.

My family died the day John shot himself.

I had to find a way to rebirth my son and daughter.

With no map or human understanding of what had happened, I had to put them back together. My children had become a shattered puzzle, blown apart with the pull of a trigger. I desperately shuffled through the pile, and piece by piece, began to rebuild.  

I took great care in their reassembly.

I did not want my children to fall into the belief that they need to be defined by their loss, or have his death be their legacy. I wanted them to love themselves, to honor their father and to keep the very best of him alive. I was not going to allow my children to fall victim to the trauma or use it as an excuse not to live their best lives. I would not allow his loss to rob them of the ability to achieve their goals, to experience the beautiful feelings of success and the disappointment of failure or to dream big and grand, and, one day, to fall madly and deeply in love. I would not allow to shrink.

 We live in a culture that pathologies and diagnoses much of the human experience.

The way we grieved did not follow the outline of a clinical study or the chapters of self help books. I wanted them to heal, in their own time and on their own terms.We each did the best we could to recover from the loss of John. I made mistakes. Some big mistakes but what I did perfectly right, was love my children. My world became very dark and I did my best to fumble through the lightless road in front of me. My son did not speak his fathers name for years, and my daughter threw herself into weekly therapy and writing. We three, chose our own paths to ease the ache we felt. Our journeys were different but the destination was the same, arriving at the start, where the world was new and the horizon, expansive for exploration to become new people and rebuild the foundation of self and family.

Since Johns death, I have raised my children with the belief that they do not need to attach to the label of trauma survivor, rather, they can heal. They can move forward. They can thrive. I wanted to protect them from the pressure of being sentence to a life where they are defined by their fathers suicide, having their successes and failures, tainted by the choices of the generation before them.

With the love of family and friends, the strength of their dad, and a faith in God, they are strong confident people, with the uninvited wisdom, that terrible things can happen, we can feel unspeakable pain and in an instant, whole lives can shatter. They also know, that we can begin our lives again, from the rumble of a life blown to pieces, we can rebuild, we can rise, and beautiful joyous days will come again.

None of us are the same people we were, the years before September 5, 2011.

At the age of 40, 11 and 9

We were reborn.

And we Began, Again….

Sober and Shameless, Kw

The Gunshot

I was at a neighborhood BBQ with our children. While the hamburgers were grilling, John was loading the gun. As my son opened his soda, John was laying himself on the bed. As my daughter ate her ice cream, John texted’ I love you’ to each of us. And as the band began to play, he put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Like an earthquake, powerful enough to roll concrete, the gunshot echoed through the hot sticky air, and fell onto us, deep within, where the heart beats, and breaks, and aches, changing our lives, forever.

Through the exit wound of his beautiful head, splattered not only a 6’4 man with electric blue eyes and a smile that would light up a room, but the annihilation of my life and the lives of our two children obliterated in a split second. The coroner said John felt no pain. The pain he did not feel, was sprayed all over me and our children. Everything I knew about myself and my life, my children and family, my marriage, the future, the past, were vaporized instantly. With the pull of a trigger, my world was blackened never again to be the same.

John was liquid in my hands. I tried to hold onto him but he slipped through my fingers. I tried to pull him back from the blackness that was taking over his life. Right in front of my eyes, his light dimmed until finally he looked dark and hallow. At times, I could have sworn I could see straight through him.

The children slept in my room on my floor for months after Johns death. I would listen to them breathe in and out and wonder how I would I ever make sense of this. Once they were asleep I would sneak out of the room and would sit straight up on the couch in silence staring at the family photos that hung on the wall. Each picture documenting a picture-perfect time in our family’s life and they were mounted perfectly in frames, like a fucking pottery barn catalog. I would rock back and forth begging for daylight. The nights were a thousand hours long. The silence of the house was screaming at me and I could not escape the looping memories of John that raced across my mind. Like a movie stuck on play… over and over again.

In the light of day, I could not escape the truth of my life. I would be standing in line for a bagel and a kind friend, or colleague or another school family would offer their condolences and I would fell as if I was drowning, standing still, in the middle of the shop. My feet going numb as the blood began to run cold, creeping up my body, freezing my torso, squeezing the air from my lungs, and finally immersing my whole body in grief. Breathless, fighting for air, no one able to help me as I drown in plain sight.

I picked up Johns ashes from the morgue. He was in a cardboard box placed in a large paper bag, that was very heavy. And, as if I was leaving Safeway with groceries, I walked down the steps of the funeral home, with the father of my children in a shopping bag. In that card board box not only held the body and bones of a 6 foot 4 man, but the ashes of 12 years of marriage, two children, two dogs, years of laughter, love, struggles and a short lifetime of together. It was stunning how a whole life could fit in a small box in a large shopping bag.

The road from despair and anger to healing, at times, felt impossible and unbearable. In the beginning, I wanted to die and I burned with anger that I had to live a life I never asked for. I stood on the barren landscape of my life, and as far as my eyes could see there was no hope or light on the horizon. With my two children at my side, looking to me for direction and reassurance, I felt incompetent to guide and heal them. It was like they were burning alive, engulfed in the raging fire sparked by the back fire of his hand gun and I could nothing but watch in horror.

My choice became clear. I had to exist of expand. I chose expansion. With John’s blood dripping from my hands, I had to figure out a way to collect my children in my shaking arms and move forward. Inch by inch.

I was thrown into the journey of grief, even though I did not choose to embark on this path. I have come to learn that grief is not a feeling but a state of being, ever changing. It is a new universe in which I find myself living. The journey has been encased in despair and the darkest sadness, I have ever known. The kind that buckles me at the knees and paralyzes my body, helplessly lying motionless on the floor. I have learned how to get up, for the children, even though everything ounce of me wanted to disappear. I have felt a helplessness that has left me breathless; sitting by my sweet children hearing their agony, as they nearly spilt in two, with a pain no child should ever feel. I have learned that the grief journey also includes a joy and sweetness to life that is only offered to those who have faced the wrath of tragedy and healed.

We have figured out how to be three instead of four. I have learned to accept Johns death even though I don’t agree with it. I have found my husband dead, the most beautiful parts of him, his humor, kindness, loyalty and his dedication to his family and the complete and perfect love for his children, splattered against a wall. Digging desperately through the ashes of his suicide I have come to discover a wisdom blessed upon us, that allows us to be more sensitive, insightful and better armed to face the world and all of its bittersweet wonders.

As for me, I remember him and smile. Sometimes I still long to hear his voice. I long to sit with him and simply talk about the children. I have never known a pain so big and vast it actually steals my breath making it hard to stand. Only held up by the love of family and friends, have I emerged through the dark, still standing. I have come to accept and love this life and his choice to go home, far sooner than I ever imagined.

I realize that John never belonged to me, or even our children. He was always in the care of something far greater than us. His journey, although brief, was meaningful and his impact on the world, timeless, as our children are a living testament to his life’s purpose. I know he is still with us; watching, loving and guiding. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when the house is still, If I close my eyes and listen hard, I can hear his voice, bringing tears to my eyes and a tender smile across my lips.

Exposing and Embracing Addiction: How to Overcome Secrecy and Shame and Live with Freedom and Self-Love

I have had the privilege of being interviewed for an online speaker’s series with 20 other respected leaders in the addiction field on the subject of shame and addiction. It is no cost to anyone who would like to join and listen to the interviews.

Learn how to heal shame, when you join me and 20 experts in the field of addiction and recovery beginning February 26, 2018, for “Exposing and Embracing Addiction” a complimentary interview series hosted by my friend Beth Osmer—recovering addict and alcoholic, hypnotherapist, and Shamanic practitioner.

Shame is the universal haunting of the addicted mind. Beginning with a core belief that we are deeply flawed and imperfect.  Shame is the most unbearable of all human emotions and I have watched people drink themselves to death in a desperate attempt to escape the suffering of shame. Finding the feeling nearly impossible to bear, it propels addicts and alcoholics to drink and use in order medicate the burning self-hatred deep within. The drinking and using will create consequences, which only proves our deepest fear, that we are unworthy, and in turn creates more shame. It is a regenerating cycle and will lead to a very dark and hopeless state of being. The shame spiral can be a lifelong and progressive cycle.

I believe that alcoholics and addicts die of shame and secrets and healing the shame is the most effective treatment and medicine for the disease of addiction.

We are not born with shame. It is accumulated through a life time. The process of healing and recovery is not a journey toward something or somewhere but a return back to the beginning where we are shameless and free. Once we heal those deep wounds, life becomes a playground, where the possibilities are endless. We can love, laugh, play, fail and face life, head up and chest forward, without defining ourselves by the sand castles we build. In a shameless life, there are no successes or failures, only experiences, where we learn, grow and change.

If you no longer had to define yourself by the shame that haunts you, how would you author the rest of your life? Who would you be? What would you do? And how would you live this one life we have been granted?

Please join me and reserve your spot at no cost: https://goo.gl/TcsCSW

When you go to the link above and join us for this powerful series of conversations with addiction experts, you’ll get practical advice, tools, and strategies to stop healing shame.
Specifically, you'll learn:

• How to have compassion for yourself.
• How a person may unintentionally perpetuate the “Secrecy and Shame Spiral”.
• How addiction and self-love are intimately connected, and strategies for working on.
• How you feel about yourself.
• How to find the courage to reach out for help.
• A variety of specific strategies and tools for recovery, ranging from the Law of Attraction to the 12-Step Process to mindfulness practices, hypnotherapy, etc., so you can utilize the ones that most resonate with you.

Join me for “Exposing and Embracing,” starting February 26, 2018. https://goo.gl/TcsCSW

Sober and Shameless,
Kristina Wandzilak

"Intervention" A Misunderstood Process

I have spent the last 22 years practicing intervention all over the world and have met some of the most extra-ordinary families. The love and acceptance, I am greeted with on the door steps of strangers, continues to humble me, decades later. Connected by addiction and the fierce fight for the ones they most, we partner together and go to war against the disease. I have witnessed the greatest acts of blind faith by the families who have trusted me enough to open their homes and lives. Holding their breath, standing on the edge of their greatest fears, they offer their loved ones into my care. Even after all these years, it is a reasonability I accept with the greatest sense of humility. Having worked with hundreds of families and thousands of addicts, when asked about their most painful consequence of addiction, the most common answer is the effect on their family. The deepest regrets and shame of addiction can be traced directly back to the loss of family and the distant memories of laughter, home and love. Addiction is a disease propelled by shame and secrets, and is a breeding ground for the most unbearable feelings. As families gather, sitting around dining tables, bittersweet feelings and brutal realities and the truth of family addiction becomes undeniable.

Intervention is a misunderstood process. The word will often conjure up frightening feelings, resulting in families postponing the call for help. Trying desperately to control and contain the disease, families suffer from many lost and unhappy years. Crippled with feelings of helplessness, despair, self-doubt, fear and misguided loyalty, families will delay asking for help. Sometimes, waiting too long. Addiction is a fatal disease and it takes countless of lives every day. Some of the brightest and most sensitive people, I have ever known, are extinguished from the planet, far too soon.

Intervention is a highly respectful, honest, and often the greatest gift of love, a family can offer. I know this, that deep inside, hidden in the soft under belly of addicts, there is a primal desire to survive and live. The act of intervention is accessing the piece, of the person, that wants help: the part that remembers the authentic self and where the flame of hope flickers. I know that addicts do want recovery, but are lost in the darkness of the disease and need the way out to be illuminated. Desperate for guidance and connection, the addicted will follow when lead by a caring, knowledgeable, safe professional.

Recovery begins when the path to safety is shining brightly and the doors of safe refuge are held wide open. Full Circle Intervention will guide your family home.

Sober and shameless, Kw

Good Morning America

My mom and I have been invited to New York by Good Morning America to do a live-in studio interview this Thursday February 8.

We will be interviewed about our experience as an addicted family, family recovery and our
book The Lost Years: Surviving a mother and daughter’s worst nightmare. It continues to
humble me that our book and story has touched so many lives. 25 years ago, my mom, after trying everything to save me, finally made the decision to let me go. I’ll never forget the day, I showed up at her door, after once again, disappearing through the window in my bedroom, not to be heard from for weeks, saying “you are no longer allowed in my home or life until you are living a life of recovery and if I never see you alive again, I want you to know how much I love you” And she closed the door.

I wish I could say I got sober that day but it wasn’t until 3 long years later, beaten, hungry and cold, laying on the floor of a homeless shelter, that I became motivated to change. Our healing took years and writing our book was a cathartic experience and healed deep wounds in both of us. I have had the great privilege of traveling the country with my mom sharing our story to countless of families who are inspired by her strength and recovery. I stand next to her on stages, large and small, and bare-witness to the power of her words as they fall upon the beautiful nameless faces that have come to hear her speak.

I believe, it is not the adversities that come our way that define us, but what we choose to do
with that adversity. Although, I cannot say I am happy that addiction infected my family, I can
say, I am very proud of what we have chosen to do with it and how we use our experience to
benefit others.

Thursday morning, in front of 8 million viewers, we will share our experience, healing and hope. One of the greatest gifts of my recovery is being next to my mom as she talks about her recovery and inspires countless of families, to love enough, to let go. My mom is the hero of my story and I am very proud to be her daughter

Sober and shameless, Kw
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