How did the idea of intervention develop?
Family intervention, where family and friends band together and encourage a drinker to accept help for his drinking, has been used successfully for over thirty years, ever since Vernon Johnson first began experimenting with the technique in the early 1960’s. This intervention technique was and continues to be the standard against which all further developments are compared and measured. And rightfully so. Johnson’s classic volume I’ll Quit Tomorrow, published in 1973, includes the basic rationale and approach to interventions still used today. This approach was published later as a separate book, Intervention, in 1986. Both books remain excellent primers on the subject for the professional and layperson alike. However, there have been many developments over the last few decades. And even though these developments are but variations on Johnson’s basic themes, some of them are significant. First of all, people recognized that the intervention technique was applicable to a broader range o
