Using Your Words: A Letter From Daughter to Father During an Intervention
by Michael Walsh
Wow! is all I can say about this mature (under 20) young lady who read the letter she wrote to her dad during a recent intervention (family meeting). [updated March 2023]
Dad accepted the help of treatment and is doing very well!
Interventions and families are powerful motivators. As an Interventionist — witnessing the family courageously sharing their truth with their loved-one is a beautiful experience. Don't get me wrong — it's not all rainbows and unicorns — until they say yes! The event is highly emotional and requires a calm and measured Interventionist to facilitate.
Recently a small family came together with the hopes of the father/husband saying yes to treatment. There was skepticism from the family their loved one would say yes, but my colleague and I both were both convinced he would say yes.
Part of the intervention process is family members speaking their truth on how their love one's behaviours has affected them. The words below is what the daughter said to her father. This was, in part, the catalyst for the father to say yes — without a doubt.
With permission — we show this letter with the hopes of helping someone. It is below in italics.
I hope you know that we all love you and want what's best for you. You won’t lose your family but we can’t go back to the way before, we can only move forward. But I’m scared what's going to happen to you if you can’t see that. We all feel this way. All I’ve ever known is who you are as a drug addict and I just want to get to know who you really are. When I talk to you about going to treatment you talk as though you know it won’t help — but it will. You just need to be open to getting better and accepting help. You wouldn’t tell a person with cancer not to get treatment just because they don’t understand the treatment or because the treatment will be painful and challenging. It’s going to be a fight but it could mean your life.
I feel as though I’ve never gotten to know you. We have never seemed to be able to connect the way I’d like us to. There was always something between us and now I finally know what it is. As I’ve gotten older we’ve drifted even further and further apart and that will only continue if you don’t get help. Now that I know the truth, I’ve said that my conditions of us having a relationship are for me to see you make an effort to get better. I need to see you get treatment. Even though the situations are nowhere near the same, I have struggled with mental and physical health issues and I had to make an effort to get better. I couldn’t just avoid the things that made me feel bad — I had to do more. So I asked for help, I went to therapy, I went on medication and I really worked so that I could feel happy and love myself. With mental health like this you can’t just take a pill and think everything will go away. You have to heal yourself and work on getting better. Just like if you had a broken leg you would make sure to rest your leg so you could get better and you wouldn’t just jump back up like it was fine and say that you could handle it yourself, you would get professional help. This is like physical therapy for your mind.
I want you to get better so we can have a better relationship. I want to see you get better and build a life for yourself. I want to spend christmas with you every year for many more years. I want to be proud of you and to be comfortable with you. But that won’t happen if you don't take action. You have to take action for your actions. You’re not the same 20 year old who went to rehab all those years ago. You’re a parent, you have kids now who depend on you and who need to see you as someone who they can trust and be cared by. You’ve made your choices and now you have to take action for your mistakes.
I love you and I’m asking you to do this for your family, for me and for yourself.
Getting started with a Sober Coach and Interventionist
I’m a Certified and Credentialed Addiction Recovery Coach & Interventist with extensive knowledge in the field of substance use disorders. I’ve been trained by some of the best in the field and continue to remain active in various recovery communities both in Canada, and internationally.
If you’re looking for help to stop drinking, help to moderate drinking, or support in dealing with a substance use concern of any kind, please feel free to reach out to me. I offer one-on-one recovery coaching, family support, and drug and alcohol intervention services.
I offer a no-charge consult call to anyone who has questions about their own substance use, or the substance use of a family member. These calls are completely confidential with no pressure to make a decision before you feel entirely ready.
And if you’re still wondering, “do I have a drinking problem?”, please check out this blog post, where you’ll find helpful steps for evaluating the role that alcohol plays in your life. If you want to know more about how to help someone with a substance use concern please read my article about deploying the CRAFT Model of Addiction.
I’d also like to invite you to read more about my personal story here.
If you’re ready to explore the potential of working together, I’d love to chat. Michael is based in Victoria British Columbia Canada. The other Recovery Coaches on the team are based in Nanaimo, Vancouver British Columbia Calgary, Edmonton Alberta, Toronto Ontario, Montreal Quebec, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Because we all work virtually — we can work with anyone no matter what city, province or country around the world. We have clients all across Canada and the USA, Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, New York City, Denver, Nashville, Berlin, Tel Aviv, London, Singapore and Australia.
Michael Walsh
Phone or Text: 250.896.8494
Email: Coach@MichaelWalsh.com
Chat: Start a WhatsApp chat
