The voicemail ended with a mother’s heart-wrenching plea, “I want to save my son.”

That is often how it starts for Selepri Amachree. He gets heart-breaking calls weekly from family members or friends who don’t know where to turn for help as they watch someone slide deeper into addiction. They call Amachree because they have heard success stories from the Xtreme Intervention Project. Xtreme Intervention Project is Amachree’s faith-based program to help people with addiction. It is a program he has developed himself that has grown through word-of-mouth. The curriculum developed by Amachree is based on the relationships he builds with the individuals he helps. He said he doesn’t use a “cookie-cutter” approach.

After he is contacted by someone seeking help (usually for a family member or friend), he meets with those seeking help and determines if he can help and what the best approach would be. Amachree looks for sponsors to cover the costs of the intervention. That could include travel expenses and costs of enrollment in a treatment program. The next step is to meet with the student. Sometimes those encounters can be dramatic. The person may not know who Amachree is or why he is making contact. Building a relationship is important, Amachree said there is an emotional investment. He can often rely on his own experiences to help build connections. Amachree was an addict for a decade and was incarcerated. That can help him bridge credibility gaps.

Amachree went through the Teen Challenge program and then graduated from the Teen Challenge Leadership Institute and the David Wilkerson Training Center. He earned training and certifications in counseling through those programs as well as the University of Phoenix. He eventually became the administrative director of the Youth Challenge Center in Newport News, Virginia. He said God has guided him to his current place in life.

One woman asked him to help her son and Amachree was moved by her story. It became the first person he helped and led to the career he has now which focuses on helping people on a one-to-one basis with the curriculum he developed. He said Xtreme Intervention students get to know him, get to know themselves, get to know their problem and get to know the solution.

He typically gets the person enrolled in a treatment program away from the place they developed an addiction, because Amachree said the person’s addictive behavior is often closely associated with a location. After 10 years of running Xtreme Intervention, Amachree has a wide network. He has worked with police agencies and courts, treatment programs, counselors, attorneys, churches and families throughout the United States. He has references from a wide variety of people both in and out of Wisconsin. Because his program is relationship based, he has stayed in touch with some of his students and many also work as counselors or volunteers in treatment programs. Amachree urges people to “reach out for help.” He said people with addiction and their families can’t overcome the problems on their own. “The closer you are to the individual, the harder it’s going to be,” he said. He said people shouldn’t take addictive behavior personally and should talk about what is possible instead of what is wrong.

Profiles

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D. Schreck, PhD, MS, LCAC, NCAC-II

Executive Director