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    Intervention before Thanksgiving prevents holiday addiction crisis licensed therapist Florida

    By David Gulden, LMHC, LMFT
    A New Hope Recovery Services | Winter Park, Florida

    Thanksgiving is three weeks away, and you’re already dreading it. You’re considering intervention before Thanksgiving, but a voice in your head says: “Let’s just get through the holidays first. We’ll deal with this after Thanksgiving.”

    You know how this story goes. You know your loved one will show up drunk or high—or not show up at all. You’ll spend the day managing other family members’ questions, deflecting concerns, making excuses. Or worse, you’ll spend it managing a crisis at the dinner table while everyone pretends everything is fine.

    If you’re having this internal debate right now, you’re not alone. But here’s what families facing this decision need to know: Waiting until after the holidays isn’t the compassionate choice—it’s the riskier one.

    The “Holiday Hope” Fantasy

    I understand why families delay intervention before Thanksgiving. Part of you wants to take action NOW—get your loved one help before they ruin another family holiday. But another part thinks: “Maybe we should just survive Thanksgiving first. An intervention will cause drama. If we wait, maybe the holidays will go smoothly. Maybe seeing the family will motivate them to want help.”

    This is wishful thinking driven by exhaustion and denial, but it’s deeply understandable.

    You’re caught in what I call “holiday hope”—the fantasy that family togetherness will somehow inspire your loved one to change. That maybe, just maybe, this Thanksgiving will be different. That the magic of the holidays will break through their addiction.

    The truth is, holidays don’t heal addiction. They trigger it.

    What Research Shows About Holidays and Addiction

    Here’s what families often don’t realize: research from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) indicates significant increases in substance use and relapse during the holiday season.

    Why? Holidays create the perfect storm of addiction triggers: family stress activates old patterns and unresolved conflicts, emotional triggers surface, substance availability increases (alcohol at family dinners, prescription medications in medicine cabinets), isolation intensifies for those struggling, and coping capacity overwhelms from the pressure to appear “normal.”

    From a family systems perspective, holiday gatherings don’t create new dynamics—they amplify existing ones. If your loved one is struggling with active addiction right now, Thanksgiving isn’t going to inspire sobriety. It’s going to provide more opportunities for use, more stress to manage, and more family trauma to navigate.

    As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Licensed Mental Health Counselor, I’ve worked with families for over a decade in the recovery process, and I can tell you: every day of delay is a day of risk.

    The Real Cost of Waiting “Until After the Holidays”

    When families tell me they want to wait until after Thanksgiving to intervene, I ask them to consider what that delay might cost:

    The Holiday DUI: Your loved one drives to or from Thanksgiving dinner impaired and gets arrested—or worse, causes an accident.

    The Overdose: The stress and substance availability of the holidays create the conditions for medical crisis.

    The Family Blowup: Active addiction at the dinner table leads to violent outburst, family estrangement, or traumatic scene witnessed by children.

    The Broken Promises: Your loved one promises to “do better after the holidays” but January brings the same crisis—now with added consequences from holiday destruction.

    The Wasted Opportunity: Every week you wait is a week your loved one’s brain remains altered by chemicals, making intervention harder and consequences more severe.

    Let me be clear: I’m not trying to create panic or guilt. I’m trying to help you understand that the intervention you’re avoiding “to keep peace” often becomes even harder after holiday trauma.

    The November Intervention Advantage

    Here’s what I tell families who call A New Hope Recovery Services in November: You have a three-week window to change your Thanksgiving completely.

    If you intervene in early November, here’s the timeline that becomes possible:

    • Week 1: Family consultation and preparation
    • Week 2: Intervention day
    • Week 3 (Thanksgiving): Your loved one is safely in treatment during the holiday

    Think about what this means: Instead of your loved one drunk or high at the Thanksgiving table, they’re in a safe, structured treatment environment beginning the recovery process. Instead of you managing crisis and making excuses, you’re experiencing the first Thanksgiving in years where you’re not in survival mode.

    Even if your loved one doesn’t immediately accept treatment during the intervention, the family system has set boundaries and stopped enabling patterns BEFORE the holiday stress hits. That’s still a fundamentally different Thanksgiving than you’ve had in years.

    Why Families Delay Intervention Before Thanksgiving (And Why Those Reasons Don’t Hold Up)

    Let me address the most common reasons families give me for wanting to wait:

    “We don’t want to ruin the holidays with an intervention.”

    My response: Your loved one’s active addiction has already ruined the holidays. Professional intervention gives you a chance to have a different Thanksgiving this year—either with your loved one safely in treatment, or with your family system healing regardless of their choice.

    “Maybe the holidays will motivate them to change.”

    As someone with dual licensure in mental health counseling and marriage and family therapy, I can tell you: the neuroscience doesn’t support this. When someone’s brain is altered by addiction, family gatherings don’t inspire change—they activate stress responses that increase craving and use.

    “I don’t have time to organize an intervention before Thanksgiving.”

    With A New Hope Recovery Services’ 48-hour nationwide mobilization, you don’t need months. A family calling TODAY (early November) can complete the intervention process and have their loved one in treatment BEFORE Thanksgiving. We handle the logistics, the treatment center coordination, the family preparation—all within your timeframe.

    What Happens If You Wait

    In my years as a clinical director in treatment centers and now as a certified interventionist, I’ve seen what happens when families wait until “after the holidays.” Let me tell you: January is crisis month in the treatment field.

    What I see every year: post-holiday overdoses from the stress and use that accumulated during Thanksgiving and Christmas, holiday DUIs and arrests that families hoped to avoid by “keeping the peace,” family estrangement after Thanksgiving or Christmas blowups destroyed relationships, broken promises where the person swore they’d get help “after the holidays” but now has new excuses, and exhausted families who held on through one more holiday and now feel completely depleted.

    The families who come to me in January often say the same thing: “I wish we had done this before the holidays.”

    Thanksgiving as a Gift: The Outcome You Don’t Expect

    Here’s what families who intervene in November often tell me by Thanksgiving:

    “This is the first Thanksgiving in ten years I’m not terrified.”

    “I can actually be present with my family instead of managing crisis.”

    “My loved one called from treatment on Thanksgiving and thanked us.”

    “Even though they didn’t go to treatment right away, I’m not enabling anymore and I can breathe.”

    Professional intervention before Thanksgiving reframes the holiday completely. Instead of dreading it, you’re entering it from a place of action and hope. You’ve done something instead of waiting passively for disaster.

    At the end of the day, that’s what intervention is—a loving and life-saving act. You’re not “ruining the holidays.” You’re giving your loved one (and yourself) the gift of opportunity for change.

    How the Intervention Process Works in November

    If you’re reading this and thinking, “Okay, but how would this actually work?” here’s what the process looks like when we mobilize quickly:

    Initial Consultation (24-48 hours): You call A New Hope Recovery Services at (407) 501-8490 or toll-free at (888) 508-HOPE. We conduct a confidential family assessment, explain the intervention process, and determine if your situation warrants immediate action.

    Family Preparation (1 week): I work with your intervention team (the people who would sit in the front row at your loved one’s funeral—that’s how we identify who should be in the room). We educate about the intervention approach, prepare your statements, coordinate logistics, and build in mutual support for the family system.

    Intervention Day (Coordinated timing): Using the Johnson Model—a structured, compassionate approach—we facilitate the intervention with your family system. This isn’t the confrontation you see on reality TV. It’s a therapeutic process where the family presents the gift of treatment with love and clear boundaries.

    Treatment Placement (Immediate): I match your loved one to appropriate treatment based on clinical assessment—not predetermined facilities or kickback arrangements. I maintain independence from treatment centers, which means my recommendations are based solely on what’s clinically right for your family member.

    Family Support Through Holidays (Ongoing): I provide family therapy and case management services throughout treatment and beyond. As a licensed therapist (not just a certified interventionist), I can offer clinical support to the family system as your loved one progresses through treatment.

    Because I’m based in Winter Park, Florida (just outside Orlando), I primarily serve Florida families, but I travel nationwide within 48 hours for crisis situations. Virtual consultations are always available regardless of location.

    The Clinical Reality: Why Timing Matters

    Let me explain the neuroscience behind why November intervention timing matters so much.

    When someone has a severe substance use disorder, their brain’s reward circuitry has been rewired. The midbrain—the part responsible for survival drives like eating and reproduction—now prioritizes the substance above everything else. This isn’t a moral failing. It’s a medical reality.

    Holiday stress activates the body’s stress response systems. When stress hormones flood the system, they increase craving and decrease executive functioning—the part of the brain responsible for impulse control and decision-making.

    Translation: Holidays make active addiction worse, not better.

    By intervening in November, you’re preventing this cycle. You’re giving your loved one the opportunity to enter treatment BEFORE the holiday stress triggers hit. You’re allowing their brain to begin healing in a safe, structured environment during the highest-risk time of year.

    As a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist—dual licensure that’s rare in the intervention field—I bring clinical assessment capability that goes beyond intervention facilitation. I can evaluate co-occurring disorders (anxiety, depression, trauma), assess overdose and suicide risk, and match your loved one to treatment that addresses their complete clinical picture.

    This clinical depth matters because intervention isn’t just about getting someone to treatment. It’s about getting them to the RIGHT treatment at the RIGHT time for the RIGHT reasons.

    What If Your Loved One Refuses Treatment?

    I want to be completely transparent about outcomes because that’s what ethical intervention requires.

    Professional intervention creates opportunity for change. It doesn’t guarantee that your loved one will accept treatment on intervention day. Some individuals need time to process. Some need to experience the consequences of the boundaries the family has set. Some accept help immediately.

    What I can tell you with certainty: Intervention creates family system change regardless of the individual’s immediate choice.

    When the family stops enabling, sets healthy boundaries, and begins their own recovery work, the entire system shifts. Your loved one may not go to treatment that day, but they’re now facing a different family dynamic—one where active addiction is no longer being accommodated.

    Many families find that even when someone doesn’t accept treatment initially, the boundaries set during intervention ultimately create the conditions for them to ask for help weeks or months later.

    And critically: the family begins healing immediately. You’re no longer waiting passively. You’re taking action for yourself and your family system, which is profoundly empowering after years of feeling helpless.

    How to Get Help with Intervention Before Thanksgiving

    If your loved one is in immediate danger:

    • Call 911 for medical emergency, overdose, or immediate physical danger
    • Call 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) for mental health crisis
    • Call SAMHSA at 1-800-662-4357 for 24/7 substance use crisis support

    If you’re considering intervention before Thanksgiving:

    Don’t wait for “rock bottom.” Rock bottom is often death, jail, or permanent family estrangement. You don’t have to wait for disaster to take action.

    This Thanksgiving Can Be Different

    Three weeks from now, you’ll be at the Thanksgiving table. The question is: what story will you be living?

    Will it be the same story you’ve lived for years—managing crisis, making excuses, dreading every moment while your loved one is drunk or high or absent?

    Or will it be a different story—one where you took action, where your loved one is safely in treatment, where you’re experiencing the first peaceful holiday in years?

    Professional intervention isn’t about creating family drama. It’s about changing the narrative from passive suffering to active love.

    You can’t control whether your loved one accepts help. But you CAN control whether you take action for yourself and your family. You CAN decide that this Thanksgiving will mark the moment when everything changed.

    The window is open right now. In three weeks, Thanksgiving will be here. The choice you make in the next few days will determine which Thanksgiving you experience.

    Take Action Today

    Don’t let another holiday pass with your loved one still suffering.

    Call A New Hope Recovery Services TODAY:

    Our 48-hour mobilization means your loved one can be safely in treatment before Thanksgiving—giving your family the gift of hope this holiday season.

    You don’t have to wait. You don’t have to survive one more painful holiday. Professional intervention is a loving and life-saving act, and November is the time to take it.

    This Thanksgiving can be different. But only if you act now.

    About David Gulden, LMHC, LMFT

    David Gulden is a licensed therapist and certified interventionist with A New Hope Recovery Services in Winter Park, Florida. With over a decade dedicated to the recovery process, David brings dual clinical licensure and family systems expertise to professional intervention services. He specializes in helping families navigate the crisis of addiction with compassion, clinical skill, and realistic hope.

    A New Hope Recovery Services
    Winter Park, Florida
    Phone: (407) 501-8490
    Toll-Free: (888) 508-HOPE
    Website: anewhoperecovery.com