Videos
Each video below addresses the most common questions I hear. View the ones that will help you and read the information available on the site.
It's Time to Get Well!
Dr. Ellis’ personal struggle with alcoholism enables him to understand better what your loved one is going through. His experience with recovery drives his passion to help your loved one get well.
What Is an Interventionist?
Dr. Ellis discusses the work of an interventionist and describes the goal of an intervention: to help your loved one recover and to help you out of the chaos and anguish.
What is an Intervention?
Dr. Ellis discusses the chief question you must answer in considering an intervention and describes some of the most common mistakes families make in confronting addiction.
How Do We Tell the Difference Between Heavy Drinking and Addiction?
Dr. Ellis discusses how addiction excels at keeping people around it off balance and in doubt. He then describes 4 common signs of addiction that should help you decide if you need to take action.
Is Addiction a Disease?
Dr. Ellis discusses how understanding alcoholism as a disease defuses shame, blame, and guilt, and how the family can begin to view the loved one not as a bad person who needs to be shunned or censured, but as a sick person who needs to be treated.
Can a Faithful Person Become Addicted?
Dr. Ellis discusses the fact that very religious people of deep and genuine faith get sick, have accidents, die, and become addicted to drugs and alcohol. Faith is no insurance policy against the hard troubles of life. So we must never let a misplaced disappointment in God or our own faith be a barrier to seeking the help that God provides.
Are YOU Ready to Get Off the Addiction Elevator?
Addiction brings the entire family down, so the focus of an intervention is not solely the addict. The family needs to heal, and each member of the family can make the decision to no longer be tormented by the disease.
What’s Keeping You from Taking Action?
Dr. Ellis introduces the idea of paralyzing myths that keep us from confronting an addiction.
Don’t Let Them Hit Rock Bottom!
Dr. Ellis discusses the danger of waiting for an addict to “want to go to treatment.” A Hazelden Betty Ford Addiction Center interview of recovering addicts and alcoholics asked them “what set you on the road to recovery?” 77% said a friend or family member cared enough to intervene. A caring intervention harnesses the incredible and divine power of love to help the addict become willing to get well.
Ready for a New Life?
Dr. Ellis explains the meaning of the word Chrysalis and how it represents the beginning of an entirely new life. Within a week or maybe two of treatment you begin to see the light return to the addict’s eyes. Their new life begins with caring, loving, well-planned intervention.
What Can Happen When You Decide to Take Action?
Dr. Ellis describes a typical story of an intervention from the first call through treatment. An intervention is a spiritual negotiation where we confront the palpable presence of addiction with the incredible power of love and reason. In the room of an intervention you can feel a dark presence, but you can also feel the presence of God.
Need a Speaker to Help People Understand Addiction?
A part of Dr. Ellis’ work involves speaking at churches and civic organizations about addiction and recovery. He brings hope to individuals and families by pulling back the curtain of shame and silence surrounding addiction, and creating understanding and compassion that lead to action.