I must admit, I enjoy this show, in a trainwreck sort of way. A&E was showing a marathon on New Year’s Eve (Eve?) and there were several episodes I hadn’t seen before.
I was surprised to see that not everyone accepts help, and that there are some stories that do not end well. I think the saddest one was the teenaged boy hooked on meth (?) and when they did the intervention, he was incredibly hostile to everyone, including his grandfather who was in a wheelchair. Finally the facilitator put a stop to the intervention, saying he was not going to allow the boy to be so hateful to his family when they were reading their gut-wrenching pleas for him to get help.
It was nice to see a follow-up on Laney. She was an incredibly wealthy alcoholic who was able to hire a limo to drive her from Kansas to Florida for counseling. She had overdosed on pills on film, and while in the hospital, claimed her mother had tried to poison her. She lasted at the facility for two days, then took the limo back to Kansas. The follow-up said she did eventually make it through rehab, and had been sober for several months at that point.
One problem I haven’t seen them tackle is hoarding. We’ve had several threads on that topic lately, and I think that would be an interesting story to explore.
Who pays for the in-patient counseling? Do the families pony up the money, or does the show pick up the cost in exchange for filming the participants?
I am almost 100% positive that the show picks up the tab for the intervention-ee’s rehab. I remember seeing the episode with the kid who worked at his fathers pizza shop, that when his first round of treatment failed, his father begged the show to send him to another rehab clinic.
I also remember an episode about a young man addicted to gambling. He started out very promising apparently, graduating college with a degree in biochemistry at a fairly young age (19?) and even teaching some college courses.
He left rehab after two weeks, and when the facilitator asked him to go back, he had a whole laundry list of why it wasn’t convenient for him to go back right then. The facilitator said something I’ll never forget.
Don’t turn obstacles into excuses.
IIRC, the guy had a contract to create a new mouthwash, for which he would get paid rather handsomely…once he was done. During a voice over of him talking about how important the job was, they showed a shot of the chemicals all laid out, while he was playing on his keyboard.
His parents were paying for the rent on his apartment and giving him an allowance. One thing I learned is that if the family is not willing to follow through on their ultimatums, the addict will never get better.
I recall some of the families telling the addicts how they were willing to sacrifice college tuition money, mortgage the house, etc. to get them help, but I’m not sure if that means they actually had to in the end. I’m fairly certain A&E picks up a hefty portion, if not the entire, bill for rehab.
I really am a fan of the show. It’s fascinating. It’s really interesting how it both humanizes addicts – showing them as real people, some from perfect families, others with pasts full of abuse – and serves as the beast anti-drug/booze message I’ve ever come across. The physical toll of addiction, the pain it causes friends and family… It should be mandatory viewing in high schools.
Does it make me a bad person because I root against the people getting better? Half the people are so entertaining in their absurdity that its a shame when they quit. Does anyone remember Sylvia the alcoholic who downed nippers of vodka all day? She was the perfect example of that. The other half of the people are such horrible human beings that the world would be a better place if they just died.
That said, Jeff the interventionist is the man. He could convince a starving man to give up a piece of prime rib.
I’m a huge fan of the show- it really deglamourizes being high or drunk and shows the destruction that is wreaked on the lives of everyone involved. I have way too much empathy for the sadness of it all to be entertained, though, and I don’t think very many of them are truly bad people. The vast majority, it seems to me, are normal, intelligent people who got caught up in something and lost control.
They do give a strong impression that the show is picking up the tab for the rehab.
I watched this a couple times. I found it interesting but, knowing the number of people who aren’t going to make it out, too sad to watch. I had a pretty good idea of who was going right back out when I was watching the show.
I do think, however, that airing this show is a good thing.
I’ve never heard of this show, but I am guessing that they are actually filming these “interventions”?
I guess the “intervention” would be traumatic enough, but are there actually film crews there, or just hidden cameras? I can’t imagine actual film crews there, but even with hidden cameras they’d need the intervention victim to sign a release, right? This sounds like a very morbid show hehe
But if they signed a release thinking it was a documentary, the “intervention” would mean nothing to them. I mean they’d be “I am a drug addict and sign this release to film me”, and then they walk into aunt Madison’s house for the intervention? none of this makes sense to me.
OK intervention addicts, explain how this show goes down
Usually the intervention takes place in neutral territory like a hotel room. The addict thinks that they are going for the final interview for the documentary. A lot of times the addict sees the whole family there and tries to leave, knowing they’ve been set up. The addict then gets talked into “just hearing the family out.” Sometimes they turn down the rehab, but usually they go for it.
Basically they allow camera crews to follow them around for a few days (or a week or so, who knows) while they live their lives and talk about what it’s like having an addiction. They are under the impression they are being filmed for a documentary about addiction.
Toward the end of the show, they have the addict meet up with one of his family members, at which point they walk into a room filled with pretty much every person they care about, some of which maybe they haven’t seen for years, and are told by a facilitator that they have organized an intervention.
At this point the people they care about usually read them a letter or something about their feelings and any boundaries they may want to set (i.e. you can’t live here unless you get help, etc.) It is usually pretty overwhelming for the addict at first and their initial reaction is generally anger, but eventually most of them see the intervention for what it is–an act of love. The addict than has the choice of packing immediately and going straight to a rehab center.
I like the show as well and try to catch it as often as I can. Sometimes I want to reach thru the screen and smack the crap out of the addicts for being so dense. I’m glad to see so many success stories but it would be interesting to see more failures. Not everyone decides to get help and it would be worthwhile for people to see that.
I’ve been into this show from the first time I sat down to it. That ep had a former “ER” actress addicted to shopping (she had some depression and IIRC eating issues too) and a gambling addict who was one of the more loathsome individuals ever to stride the planet. I tend to like the alcoholics the least and the more exotic the addiction the better.
If it does then I’m right there in the handbasket to Hell with you. It’s not that I actively root against the addicts getting help, it’s that the show is so much more entertaining when they don’t.
They’ve also had that I’ve seen gambling, shopping and sex addiction, although the sex addiction has always been coupled with a drug addiction.
There were a couple that I didn’t like watching. One show’s subject was an anorexic twenty-something who had been raped and went off the deep end. That made me incredibly sad. I forget what the other was, but it was along the same vein.
On the other hand, I must admit that I get a kick out of the trainwrecks people get themselves in. The stupid people who are addicted to heroin, gambling, alcoholism, etc., are truly entertaining. If it’s something we’ve been warned about several hundred times in our lives, yet we keep doing it – THEN go on a show to be antention whores, that’s gold, Jerry!
It’s worth noting that the addicts sometimes cuss the camera people out. There was even one episode where a crystal meth user thought they were from the CIA. I also recall an episode where an addict walked into a marsh and hid in a drainpipe- the show’s producer went after them eventually.
I often get the sense that the more fucked up addicts barely notice the crew at all. If regular people on reality TV can get used to cameras after a few days, it probably takes someone in a drug- or booze-induced haze a few hours. Man… watching heroin addicts or crackheads space out and conk their heads on things… so painful.
As explained upthread, the addict doesn’t know there’s a hook coming…mainly, an on-camera intervention.
The episode I mentioned, with the teenaged boy, was almost scrapped halfway through, when the kid apparently got wind there was an intervention coming. The mother went hysterical, thinking the crew was going to stop filming and the offer of rehab would be pulled, so I assumed part of the deal is the addict doesn’t know the intervention is coming.
They ended up moving it up and having the police nearby in case the kid bolted (he was on probation.)
