1) My opinion is that intervention is sometimes a good idea for several reasons. But, I also believe that telling people how to run their lives is a bad idea.

I'll address the second one first, that is, why telling people how to run their lives is a bad idea, because the answer to that one is short and simple:

It's not going to work.

There is not much hope of helping someone who will not admit there is a problem to change his behavior and therefore also his life simply by telling him to do so.

And, there is also no hope of helping someone to change his life simply by telling him to do so if he does not want to do so.

So any effort in either of those situations is wasted.

2) And to address the first part of my statement, I believe that there are very often good reasons for intervention.

I'll start by telling a brief story. I've been told a quite a few times about something that happened when I was very young. It simply dumbfounded my mother when it occurred. That is the time she was baking something and told me to not touch the oven because it was hot. I immediately walked up to it and put hand on it.

While I don't recall the incident, I am sure I know why I did it. I did it because I did not know what "hot" meant, and I was presented with a very quick and easy way to find out. Unfortunately, it was also a very painful way to learn the concept of "hot". Now I know what it means, and it's not necessary to tell me to not touch a hot object, just let me know that it is so, and I will know enough to not touch it.

So, a good reason to intervene is that a person might not be aware of the consequences of his actions, in the same way that I was not aware of the future result of my choice of how to discover what "hot" meant.

You could present other options that are better choices. A person might not be aware that better choices exist. Do you want to get stinking drunk tonight? What if someone pointed out to you that a movie you had been talking about seeing for months was finally showing in the theater tonight, and then suggest that you make a few phone calls to your friends and see who is up to going to see it and then have snacks somewhere afterward. Maybe you didn't realize that movie was already showing in town, and that suggestion alone would be all it would take for you to make a different decision as to what to do tonight.

Another is to point out the consequences of what you are planning to do. Like, my mother should have told me that I was going to be hurt by touching the oven instead of simply telling me not to do it because it was hot. That didn't work because I didn't know what "hot" meant.

Just the simple statement that you are never going to lose weight if you keep on getting drunk every night will at least make you stop and think for a second, if you've been complaining for a long time about how your diet never seems to help and you are really bothered that it appears as though you're never going to fit into your nice clothes again. And plus, everyone has been talking about your gut, and you're damn tired of that.

Here's another situation where it might be a good reason to intervene, and that is to prevent someone from having problems with the law. It might be a good idea to point out to a friend who is stinking drunk and walking out the bar to get in his car to drive west to go home that you just happened to have driven by that way and you know there is a DUI checkpoint he is going to be driving through if he persists in the plan he just announced.

I'll agree wholeheartedly about people below the age of consent. They don't know how to act and need help learning and they need to be protected. That's pretty much a given.

I still have trouble with telling adults how to live their lives, whether it be touching stoves (or getting branded), getting drunk or shooting up. An adult person needs develop from the inside, not out of fear from scary stories.

3) But the very best reason of all to intervene is to prevent injuries to others. And here's a good example. Tell someone this:

"If you get my kids involved in what you are doing, I'm not going to kill you. But after you've found out what your new friend Bruno likes to do in the new home you will be sharing with him for a quite a while, you're going to wish I had."

Then who are you serving? The addict or the "not vacuum" around them? Is it right to try forcing a person to be something different to suit the "not vacuum"?

We shouldn't only be afforded freedom from the tyranny of those that would harm us, but also from the tyranny of those with our best interest at heart.

Here's something for edmclinn to think about. I had a little brother until January 4, 2000.

The evening before January 4, 2000, he got drunk, and summoned up the courage to swallow over 200 of his pills, which he knew was a lethal dose. I knew that a whole bottle of his pills was lethal because of the simple fact that he had told me so. Today, I feel really stupid because when he told me that, it went right over my head. There was another comment he made also, and that one went right over my head at the time also.

Maybe if he had been on anti-depression medications he would have been better able to deal with his life situation, and the event of January 4, 2000 would not have occurred.

I do miss my little brother, and often I think of things I want to tell him. Only a second later, I realize that it's too late now.

And sometimes, I have dreams about him from happier times, when we were just little boys playing together with our toys.

And edmclinn thinks that clinicians are self serving morons that over analyze people. I wish an over analyzing clinician had recognized what was probably going to happen could have there to over analyze my little brother. If that had been the case, maybe things would have been been different.

I think it's quite obvious that edmclinn has never lost a close relative or friend the way I lost my little brother, and a few other friends besides, or he would not be trying to give clinicians something to think about when he obviously knows nothing about the subject himself.

But actually, he is giving them something to think about. What he is giving them to think about is how uncaring people can be, and how absolutely insane some of their claims are.

Or maybe, they are thinking about how easy it is to be very cruel towards others while hiding behind the cloak of anonymity.

"They have law enforcement tap you home, car, work"?

"They follow you everywhere"??

Out of curiosity, just who is this mysterious "they" that you're talking about? It certainly isn't clinicians.

They use the little chip they have implanted in the back of everyone's neck.

Didn't you see that movie?

They took mine out after I realized what was going on. I only figured it out because it malfunctioned and sounded like a swarm of cicadas in my head as I drifted off to sleep.

Come to think of it, they might have just fixed it and put it back.

Oh, come on, now. What a copout.

If "they" admitted their actions to the public, then we wouldn't need "you" to tell us who "they" are, now would we???

And...if you actually know who "they" are, then telling us who "they" are would bring their behavior out into the open where it could be dealt with.

So why keep it secret?

And, if you think police/sheriff were listening to what you said in your car (and it's not simply because you have paranoid delusions) then you must have a reason why you think they would bother listening to you.

After all, we have something like 1 officer per every 500 residents, which doesn't allow for a whole lot of time being spent eavesdropping on each one of us individually.

Now, if you were talking to someone else in your car and arranging, say, a drug deal and that is why your conversation was being monitored, I don't expect you'll admit to it :-)

At the same time, if that's what you were doing, then you actually brought this "listening" on all by yourself, and can't very well get mad at law enforcement for doing their job. You don't like it? Stop breaking the law.

(As an aside, if the Pool Room not only videotapes but records audio on their security tapes, then that's on the Pool Room, NOT on law enforcement. You need to place responsibility where it belongs, not on who you're mad at.)

It is unfortunate that I have absolutely no way to argue with you.

Because the statistics back up your statements.

Well...that statistic refers to people SENTENCED to a 12 step program. Not quite the same thing as comparing the success rate of someone willingly attending a 12-step program and the success rate of someone not using a 12-step program.

Ain't statistics grand :-)

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." - Mark Twain

Next time, credit your source!