Origins of Intercept
“In 2003 what is now known as “Intercept International” was formed. I attended a “For Men Only” (FMO) group at Summit View Church in Vancouver, WA. We met in a house and we had between 10 and 25 guys show up. After approximately a year there was a change in leadership and due to a relapse we had nobody leading the group. I was approached by my pastor and he asked if I would fill in and keep the group going. I really didn’t know much about leadership but I knew I needed a group to be part of and this one was the obvious choice.
A few months went by and now that I was “leading” I began to think about how the group could be better. Oddly enough it needed structure but I was the king of non-structure. I began to learn that structure was my friend. This is where Intercept really began to come to life. We decided to change the name from FMO to Intercept. The thought was to move from a defensive posture to one that runs towards what you want like a football player intercepting a pass and scoring a touchdown!
In 2014, after reading a book on recovery, I realized everything needed to be changed about the core foundation of our methods. If we were to summarize the 1.0 method it would be “Trauma Discovery-Dependent Recovery,” meaning that in order for someone to stop acting out they needed to discover and heal all of their deepest childhood traumas. We had men who were searching for the last trauma that must be still hidden cause after all they were still slipping or struggling and even acting out over and over again.
There is value to learning why we medicate our pain but it is definitely not required to stop making destructive decisions! The reality is that we are responsible for 100% of the actions we take, and the only way to stop is to end your behavior with a Big Decision. I’m absolutely certain about this. So we created Intercept 2.0.