The ARISE Intervention by Judith Landau – My review

Judith Landau

The ARISE method misrepresents itself. It IS about coercion. It is an extended Johnson intervention that ‘gradually escalates’ with ‘serious consequences’ for not entering 12-step treatment. The contracts in the book Invitational Intervention involve immediate inpatient rehab if any drug is used, mandatory drug tests, and ‘natural consequences’ (which are not actually natural consequences, because it is not natural to face consequences for not wanting intensive 12-step facilitation.

Here are articles I’ve written on my experience of the ARISE intervention, which involved using my family and trusted therapists to continually re-leverage me into meetings and treatment that I was already very familiar with and had rejected.

Here is something interesting: AA and rehab often say that you have to WANT it for it to work. The ARISE method is, like EAPs, PHPs and Drug Courts, coercive. If you read the book, you will find that they are lying when they say it is not coercive, because the method actually says that self-referrals don’t work — that coercion is part of the process. Also, their success rates (the 83% quoted) involve measuring success at getting people INTO treatment, a fact that is easily lost on people who assume the treatment will actually be helpful. Also note that they will try to bring your whole family into the 12-step cult and treatment because it’s a so-called ‘family disease’.
Summary: false advertisement, easily verified bait-and-switch. It is more a system for addiction specialists to make money off of rehab referrals.

http://notpowerless.com/?s=arise