Where Money Meets Addiction Featured in Financial Advisor
Marc Kantor, an interventionist with South Florida Intervention in Boca Raton, works with families, especially high-net-worth families, with members addicted to drugs or alcohol, or with process addictions to things like shopping, gambling, sex or food. “They use me to come into the family system. And the goal is to nicely ask … We’re all there with love to ask the individual to accept treatment.” He spends a lot of time working up to the treatment, getting to know the addict, getting to know the family and siblings, best friends, therapists and employers. “I help them go from chaos to organization and to the appropriate level of care treatment.” His clients might be everyday professionals or the children of billionaires.
Part of his job is to help families set boundaries and not further enable the family member’s disease with money. “Parents sometimes think that if my kid or spouse has all the trappings of a good life, then I’m being a good parent.” Often the treatment requires pulling the addicted family members out of their immediate environment and relocating them, perhaps to a detox center across the country, he says. “Wealth gives people access. It gives them privilege. It’s certainly a lot easier to be ‘doctor shopping’ or buying drugs or evading consequences when your family has money.”
