Older Adult Addiction Intervention: What Seasoned Practitioners Get Wrong About Late-Life Substance Use

Matt Brown • 2026-06-30

An older adult addiction intervention is not a standard intervention with a few accommodations bolted on. It is a different clinical encounter that asks the interventionist to rethink assessment, communication pace, family roles, and treatment matching from the ground up. Substance use among adults over 60 is one of the fastest-growing and most under-recognized areas in our field, and the families who call us are often years behind the problem because everyone — including their physicians — attributed the warning signs to aging.