Rethinking Intervention II

If a young person you care about becomes involved in a behavior that will ultimately lead to destruction, it would be wise to conduct an intervention. You have the very important opportunity to intercede for the adolescents in your sphere of influence, just as Odysseus stepped into the lives of his crew. What is an intervention? When a person is addicted to their lotus of choice, the other people in her life—siblings, parents, and friends—may be experiencing a wide range of feelings, including anger, guilt, betrayal, fear, or frustration. Maybe things have been tried in the past and have failed. The situation can be chaotic. The goal of an intervention is to focus the siblings, friends, and family into a cohesive group that can introduce change into the destructive cycle of dependence. Most of us can remember when something said or done by someone who was important to us changed our way of thinking and perhaps saved us from a ruinous situation.

The group must have a leader—an Odysseus, so to speak. The leader must make sure that the group has been familiarized with the dysfunction at hand. If the problem is an addiction, treatment options should be investigated. The intervention group should meet prior to the actual intervention for purposes of preparation. What is going to be said to the individual? Who should be involved? Treatment should be arranged ahead of time.

When the time comes for the actual intervention, the leader’s job is to establish a sense of order in the process. Each person in the group gets an opportunity to speak to the person involved and let her know how much she means and how much she is loved. The individual needs to know that her behavior affects everyone in the room and that the problem is no longer hidden. Since treatment has already been arranged, there is no room for debate. Keep the tone loving and full of respect, but be resolute. The person may break down and cry. Perhaps she will become angry. Whatever the reaction, be firm. For the individual and for the group, the problem must be resolved and not allowed to continue.

Interventions of this kind may vary and don’t necessarily hold to a strict set of rules. Sometimes a simple intervention is best, maybe addressing a situation that hasn’t been previously acknowledged or asking a person to stop a behavior that is doing them harm or draining their life energy away. A simple intervention in an addiction to busyness can include requiring a student who is overextended to reduce the number of activities in which they are involved. For a teen that is lost in a fog of video games, television, or the Internet, it may mean taking away the game system, disconnecting the Internet, or removing the television from the bedroom. Regardless of the situation, it is highly recommended that you seek out the advice of a counselor or intervention professional for your particular situation.

Rethinking Intervention

How did Odysseus save his crew from the intoxicating effects of the lotus fruit? What were his options? Did he try to reason with them? Maybe if he had tried to discuss their perilous situation, they would have listened to reason and returned to their ships on their own. What if he attempted to console them? Possibly if he had had pity on his crew and empathized with their situation, they would have been overcome by his understanding and compassion and given up the addictive high of the lotus. Perhaps he might have chosen to feel sorry for them and for the pain that they had endured from their years of battle at Troy and their hazardous journey at sea. The fog of Morpheus could be viewed as merciful, numbing painful memories of the past. If Odysseus had decided to travel any of these roads, he would have ended up enabling the sailors in their own act of self-destruction and ruining any hope he had of ever seeing Ithaca again.

The heroic Odysseus chose a much more intimidating path, a way that would place him in a position of appearing to be the very evil from which he was trying to rescue his men. One by one, the good king dragged his sailors back to the ship against their will. The ship represents a way to freedom, the very thing for which the men were longing. The crew, dizzy from the effects of the lotus, spat and fought against the very person that was carrying them to freedom.

When someone is using a crutch—whether video games, busyness, the Internet, television, chemicals, or anything else—to anesthetize the wounds of their heart, they will resist (sometimes violently) any attempts at distancing them from their particular lotus fruit. Once the lotus fruit is removed, they will find the particular pain they were anesthetizing will usually rise to the surface. But this allows both adult and adolescent to better comprehend the source of the wound and to explore the possibility of healing. If you are a teacher, counselor, or youth worker, you should attempt to work hand in hand with the parents of the adolescent who is self-medicating, whether literally or figuratively. If you are a parent, you will need the support of other adults in your child’s life.

Rethinking Pain-Killers

Man is an animal which, alone among the animals, refuses to be satisfied by the fulfillment of animal desires. Alexander Graham Bell

Bacchus hath drowned more men than Neptune. Thomas Fuller

Dwell not upon thy weariness, thy strength shall be according to the
measure of thy desire. Arab proverb

Like Odysseus and his men, adolescents are suffering from painful experiences and memories that seem to cause an unrelenting soul-ache. Do they use this pain to drive them on to real answers and true healing? Sadly, no. Most young people (and adults, as well) attempt to numb the pain they are experiencing. We will next examine how Odysseus’s soldiers endeavored to anesthetize themselves against the suffering they had experienced.

The Lotus-Eaters

Odysseus and his men sailed across the seas in a vain attempt to reach the only home they had ever known. Cursed by the god Poseidon and weary from war and adventure, a fierce storm blew their ship to an island off the coast of Africa. This island had the reputation of being the “land where Morpheus plays.” Morpheus was the Greek god of dreams, the son of Hypnos, the god of sleep, and the nephew of Hades, the god of death and the underworld.

Upon setting foot ashore this strange country, Odysseus and his men crawled upon the sandy beach and fell into a deep sleep. When they awoke, they met a group of people known as the Lotophagi, or “lotus-eaters.” The Lotophagi lived in a drug-induced haze that was the result of eating the narcotic lotus fruit. The inhabitants of this land had little care for the worries and concerns of mortal men and were apathetic toward life. The islanders brought armfuls of the lotus fruit for the crew of Odysseus’s ship. Hungry and hurting from their terrible experiences in war and at sea, the sailors followed the example of the islanders and ate the narcotic fruit.

According to Bernard Evslin’s version of Homer’s Odyssey entitled The Adventures of Ulysses (1969), Morpheus examined the minds of the Greeks as they slept and found anguished memories of warfare and greed. The dream god soothed their sleep with visions of their wives and families and home. As they awoke, they longed to return to the tranquility of their dreams, so they again partook of the lotus fruit and fell into a deeper sleep still.

Sensing that the gods had destined Odysseus for other ends, Morpheus declined to fill the hero’s sleep with intoxicating visions, instead allowing him to dream as he might. Unlike his men, the Greek king experienced frightful nightmares and relived painful memories in a restless and fitful sleep. Rising, he realized that his men had eaten of the lotus fruit and had fallen into a drowsy bliss. Eager to assuage his agony, Odysseus gathered a handful of the enticing fruit and breathed in the inebriating aroma. He knew at once that if he too ate the sweet fruit, his crew would be doomed to spend their days in lethargy and illusion, rather than finally reaching home and family. In an incredible act of the will, Odysseus arose and dragged his entranced men one by one, kicking and screaming, back to the ship and back to reality to continue on their long voyage back to Ithaca.

Rethinking the Choice

What would a knight be without a dragon to fight? He would merely be a “dude” dressed in a metal suit with nowhere to go! Frodo would have remained simply a hobbit living in the Shire if he had not been confronted with the formidable task of destroying the Dark Lord’s Ring. Alice would have been nothing more than a nice little girl if she hadn’t plunged down the rabbit hole. How can you know for sure that you have what it takes unless you are tested? Once we begin looking at things in this way, we start seeing our lives through the light of myth. The great journey of our life almost always begins with a test and a choice. Neo was offered a choice between the red pill and the blue pill. We too are offered the choice to journey forth or to stay safely within the confines of our four walls.