About the NII

The vision to begin this group was the desire of a small group of independent interventionists (Scott Alberti, Trudy Annand, Suzanne Brent, Mary Condon, Kathy Jo Dennison, Jim Emmert, Jim Garrett, Heather Hayes, Vaughn Howland, Julie Kelly, Bill Maher, Francesca McCarter, Pat Moomey, JoAnn Towle, and Bette Ann Weinstein), who wanted professional support, a mutual exchange of information, educational opportunities, and fellowship in their work. The efforts behind the scenes to launch this vision were guided by the wisdom of Vaughn Howland,
    
The preliminary work took place from September 15, 2007, to October 7, 2007, when Vaughn and Pat Moomey developed basic policies and procedures to enroll interventionists into the Network of Independent Interventionists. From October 7 to November 7, 2007, the preliminary committees were established. The basic policies and procedures became a work-in-progress for the group. Bette Ann Weinstein worked with others to develop some Ethical Guidelines. From this time until February 2008 the committees began their work and Vaughn continued to enroll people in NII. By February NII had 43 participants.    
    
The first face-to-face gathering of Network participants was held in the home of Bette Ann Weinstein and Jim Emmert in Deerfield Beach, FL. Those attending were Scott Alberti, Suzanne Brent, Gordon Bohl, Mary Condon, Burr Cook, Jim Emmert, Jim Garrett, Renee Gerger, Heather Hayes, Jeff Holbrook, Vaughn Howland, Gabe Kajeckas, Judith Landau, Bill Maher, Pat Moomey, Jim Shelton, Ken Sieczkowski, Letarae Stivers, Joyce Sundin, Dona-Marie Swaim, JoAnn Towle, and Bette Ann Weinstein.
    
The group arrived Thursday evening, February 21, 2008, and Vaughn described his vision of NII, which was to be a network of independent interventionists connected through an e-mail listserve and functioning as a support group modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous. Instead of a Board of Directors, the group will have a Group Conscience Committee (GCC.) Members are designated as Participants and the Membership Committee as the Participation Committee.
    
On Friday, February 22, 2008, the group spent the morning working on the Participation Committee with Chair, Pat Moomey; the Ethics Committee with Chair, Bette Ann Weinstein; and the Site Committee with Chair, Jeff Holbrook. The group had lunch at The Cove with a presentation by LifeSkills of Boca Raton. In the afternoon they visited Transitions in North Miami and had dinner with Transitions.
    
The business meeting continued on Saturday with Jim Emmert acting as the leader. The group decided to suspend enrolling participants until it became better organized.
   
The second meeting of The Network was held in Boulder, CO August 21- 24, 2008. Those in attendance at that meeting were Suzanne Brent, Mary Condon, Burr Cook, Jim Emmert, Heather Hayes, Vaughn Howland, Judith Landau, Francesca McCarter, Pat Moomey, and Bette Ann Weinstein. The group agreed to become an organization rather than a support group. Heather Hayes accepted the position as the first NII president. The Network decided to charge each member $100 per year to offset expenses.
    
A structure was delineated for the group and the functions of the members and more committees were established. A list of projects was drafted and all members will volunteer on at least one of the research/study projects. The Network had 39 paid members and decided to begin enrolling new people again.    

The third meeting was held April 15th-18th, 2009 in Novato, California. Those in attendance were Trudy Annand, Suzanne Brent, Rosemary Clough, Mary Condon, Burr Cook, Barbara Coughlin, James Dunn, Andy Erkin, Larry Fritzlan, Vaughn Howland, Julie Kelly, Judith Landau, Pat Moomey, Barbara Nelson, George Patterson, Karen Rainer, Avis Rumney, Alice Tanner, Jo Ann Towle, Joyce Sundin, and Bette Ann Weinstein. Pat Moomey conducted the meeting as president; Heather Hayes was recovering from surgery and unable to attend. Judith Landau resigned from the Board in order to become By-Laws Chairman. The group worked on the “Projects”, lead by the chairman, Burr Cook. It was decided that Judith Landau would poll the NII members in order to determine the terms of Officers of the Board.

The fourth meeting of The NII was held October 15th-19th, 2009 in Nashville, Tennessee. There are now 42 paid members of the Network of Independent Interventionists. It was decided by group consensus that new members will be required to have experience with intervention work in order to qualify for membership in the group, but that the group was willing to mentor people with less experience. The group continued on “Projects” and “By-Laws” and it was determined that Karen Rainer would begin preliminary work on creating an NII presence on the World Wide Web.

The fifth meeting of The NII was held in Austin, Texas in April 2010. Fifteen members attended the meeting. Mark Schottinger of Burning Tree Ranch entertained members with a barbeque dinner at Burning Tree prepared by the patients and then took the members on a music tour of Austin. Dr. William Loving conducted a CEU Workshop on presenting the disease of addiction to families and Dr. Bette Anne Weinstein facilitated an interactive Ethics Workshop.

The sixth meeting was held in Atlanta, Georgia October 21-24, 2010 with fifteen members present. In continuing to “keep the ball in the air” Julie Kelly agreed to take on Site Chair. New member, David Kee, commented on the “genuine intimacy and professionalism” in his attendance at this his first NII meeting. Tours of Willingway, Wellstar, and New Visions were held on Tuesday. Dr. Bob Margolis and Dr. Susan Blank presented CEU Workshops at Foundations. “Southern Hospitality” was extended to all present.

The seventh meeting was in Las Vegas, Nevada on April 29, 2011. Eighteen members were in attendance. A group will begin working on plans for optimizing the NII website. New members stated they were attracted to NII by the mutual benefit of networking, improving the individual quality of their work, visiting different treatment centers, learning about and discussing different treatment models. Others stated that they appreciated the quality and ethical standards of NII and the mutual benefit of accountability and level of credibility. The comment was made that this was the first meeting of NII that the group had been able to work as a group without having to define processes and procedures.

The eighth meeting was held in Boston, MA on October 22, 2011, with fifteen members in attendance. McLean Hospital hosted a full day on their campus with six CEU Workshop presentations that were both enlightening and helpful. The group discussed case histories, new drugs on the street, and the latest tests being used for alcohol. There was a lively discussion of the strategies of different interventions. Some members explored the historic countryside of Concord and Lexington.