The following testimonials were given by individuals and families who used the ARISE method to get a loved one started in treatment.

Testimonial from parents related to an adult son

Our son Mike , is an alcoholic. After twelve years of heavy drinking, his life recently began to spiral out of control and his health began to fail as his addiction grew worse. Despite our best efforts, he was unwilling or unable to admit that he had lost all control of his drinking. We had begun to despair for our son's health when we were referred to Jim Garrett and the ARISE program. With his guidance in an ARISE intervention, our family and friends were able to convince Mike to enter treatment. He has not had a drink for 12 months and has expressed a real commitment to remain sober. We had done a one-time confrontational intervention some 6 years ago and it resulted in nothing by damaged family relationships and our son leaving a residential treatment program after only a few days. Our experience is a testament that the ARISE program works.

-Peter and Siobhan

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Testimonial from wife related to her husband

My husband had a serious drug problem that he kept secret from me for years. At first I didn't know what was wrong, but over time I began to get more and more suspicious of a drug problem. Every time I tried to confront him we go into terrible screaming matches and he would accuse me of being a nag and out to undermine him. I began to doubt myself and develop stress related medical problems. My family doctor referred me to Mr. Garrett because he had listened to me suspect a substance abuse problem with my husband. From the first contact I was encouraged to stop dealing one-on-one with my husband and to stop the screaming matches. I was also guided in pulling together an intervention network or family and close friends. Once we had this group together, I invited my husband to a group meeting. He refused to come to the first one, but came to the second one when one of his friends extended the invitation. More support and love was expressed at that session than my husband could believe. His family and friends were able to talk with him about the changes they had witnessed over the past year. They were able to pinpoint the drug use in ways that I could not. My husband was not happy with these meetings, but under duress he did agree to start a treatment program. There have been a couple of relapses in the past 10 months, but they have had an interesting effect on my husband. The relapses have convinced him he is an addict. If we had not continued to meet as a group over this period of time, I believe things would have slid back to where they were before treatment started. The ARISE method was respectful of my husband and it surprised me to see how an open invitation could work, once I made up my mind to change.

-Connie

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Testimonial from adult children concerned about a parent who relapsed

We did not know what to do when our 68 year old father relapsed after five years of sobriety. He originally started in AA and did some individual therapy when he first stopped drinking. He would go to 2 or 3 AA meetings per week in the beginning. Eventually he became confident that he did not need to go to AA as frequently and he cut his AA meetings back a little at a time, until he would only go once every other month or so. This seemed to work for him because he stayed sober almost two years with this reduced pattern of AA attendance. We continued to see very positive changes in him and were so relieved by his efforts. We believe his relapse statred soon after his mother died. He had difficulty at her funeral and soon after we noticed some of the old behaviors returning. He was more isolated, more depressed, more moody and avoidant of family. He stopped excercising and going for his long walks. After some three or four months we began to notice a deterioration in his coordination and over-all strength. He denied that he was drinking blaming his physical deterioration on his difficulty sleeping. Eventually we caught him secretly drinking at a family reunion. He again was full of excuses and reasons why we should not worry. He told us that he was only drinking a little and that he had read some article that proved alcoholics could go back to drinking as long as they didn't over do it. He was convincing. The problem got worse and eventually we contacted the Recovery Resource Center and were guided in how to set up the initial meeting, who to invite and how best to invite our father. We were skeptical about whether or not he would come, but Mr. Garrett told us to make a commitment to come regardless of whether he came. We followed the instructions and to our surprise our father agreed to come to the meeting. The meeting was professionally lead and gave each of us an opportunity to tell our father about our concerns and reqauest that he get back into recovery. While he refused to go into an inpatient rehab, he did agree to stop drinking, get medical help and start back into AA. We had follow-up meetings with him twice a month for six months. These follow-up meetings made him accountable for the changes he agreed to make. Our Dad just celebrated a year in recovery. We cannot say enough good things about the ARISE process. We believe our Dad would be dead now if he had continued to drink.

-John A.'s four adult children--Andrew, Amy, Tawnda and Paul

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