Shame, Identity, and the Addicted Person: What Every Interventionist Needs to Understand

Matt Brown • 2026-06-06

Shame is not a side effect of addiction. For most people caught in active substance use, shame is the engine underneath — the force that keeps them using even when they desperately want to stop. As a professional interventionist, you are walking into one of the most shame-saturated environments that exists in human experience: a family confronting someone they love at the bottom of their worst behavior.