S19.E07: Family of Addicts

[Supagirl]

Wow, this episode was intense. This was an excellent example of how addiction and denial is passed on from generation to generation until the whole family is diseased. Kudos to Donna Chavous (who I am admittedly not a huge fan of) for sorting out this family’s mess and keeping all the puppies in the box. It was surprising to me that of all family members, cousin Sean was the first one to wig out and relapse, right at the intervention. I hope they can keep their sobriety together while apart from each other, because going back to Paterson NJ is not going to do any of them any good.

And on a shallow note, mom Linda better quit it with the white undereye liner, because that shit makes her look like a scary doll.

[mythoughtis]

Sean is a perfect example of why ex-addicts shouldn’t spend time with addicts.   He asked Linda if she had drugs on her, then Donna takes him thru a tour of his old haunts, then the film crew lets him help his uncle get high.  I wasn't surprised at all that he relapsed.  I felt so sorry for his Mom. She tries to help her extended family and her son gets caught up in it. 

Most of the intervention addicts that go and stay at treatment look physically better in their 90 day interviews. Linda looked worse.  

What a mess of a family. I hope the two that left treatment and didn’t go back try again. 

[Chaos Theory]

This one was messed up!!!!

The grandmother vaping whiling on oxygen tank was weird as hell but not something to bring up while trying to get an entire family to go to rehab when both grandparents think getting the son back on crack is the the ideal scenario 

i wasn’t too surprised to find mom hooked on heroin as well.

The irony was that the aunt was the only one not an addict and no one liked her.  

Edited May 15, 2019 by Chaos Theory

[Pondlass1]

This was a family saddled with the full blown addiction gene starting with the grandparents and passed on down the line.  It only seemed to have skipped the aunt (or whoever she was).

One day maybe researchers will figure out how to intercept the 'pleasure' receptors in the brain so that any narcotic dulls pain only.  No 'highs'.

And when they're young and addicted like these kids they never learn how to handle the bad things in life.  I remember one addict saying that life was so ugly and dirty when she was sober.

I wish this family well, but I don't have much hope especially if they return to that depressing town.

*The mother needs to lay off the white eyeliner pencil  Yikes!

[Guest]

13 hours ago, Supagirl said:

And on a shallow note, mom Linda better quit it with the white undereye liner, because that shit makes her look like a scary doll.

On an even shallower note, dad John was SMOKING HOT. I mean, take away the homeless bum look and the messed up teeth and DAMN. His younger photos show just how model-handsome he was. 

It's sad, but I don't think any of them has a long-term shot at sobriety. 

[mythoughtis]

That’s probably WHY none of them liked her. She was the one constantly having to be the adult in the family.   After a while, the adult in the room  has had it and reads the other supposed adults the riot act about their behavior. Which is when they choose to blame her rather than look in the mirror. Plus- she’s the one that got custody of those kids for a few years. The addict parents probably blamed her for that. I expect the ones that are now sober will eventually realize what she tried to do for them.   

Edited May 15, 2019 by mythoughtis

[sara416]

I don't think I have ever uttered "holy shit" so many times in an Intervention episode, with the exception of maybe Christy. I was not surprised Sean relapsed, but it was heartbreaking to watch. He was genuinely so mad at himself right afterward. 

I could not believe the transformation of the dad. He looked like an entirely different person. I'm also not a huge fan of Donna, but she did a great job shutting down grandma last night. Someone needed to do it, and grandma wasn't responding to anyone being gentle with her. I can't imagine anyone else handling this particular family. 

[suev33 3]

What a damn shame.  The boys and their father are very good looking men.  But I do understand addiction.   I'm a yr and a month clean.  ( Not heroin...    .....pills and booze).  It's a bitch

[TVbitch]

Donna had her hands full with that family, and she handled it well, but I cringed when she asked Sean to go with her to drugtown to find the interventionees. Dude was already hanging by a thread. 

[Enero]

15 hours ago, TVbitch said:

Donna had her hands full with that family, and she handled it well, but I cringed when she asked Sean to go with her to drugtown to find the interventionees. Dude was already hanging by a thread. 

Sean should’ve said no. I know he loves his family and wanted to help them, but what he didn’t get was that he could not be around active addicts AT ALL. Him relapsing was inevitable. It’s was very sad reading the BSOJ and seeing that now he’s fallen back down that dark hole of addiction after being sober for a year. Just heartbreaking. 

This family was a hot mess of addiction. They all needed a restart. They genuinely seemed to love each other. On a shallow note, the men were nice looking, specifically the father. Even when he was stoned out of his mind I could see a good looking man underneath all the raggedness.  I know this family love each other but unfortunately I think they need to stay away from each other for a very long time. The mom has the right idea in choosing not to return to NJ. I think they all should live lives away from each other in separate cities/states, at least until they’ve had a few years of sobriety. 

Kudos to Donna for the work she did with this family. I wasn’t a fan of hers when she first came on the show, but I’ve come to really like her and her style of intervention. 

[IvySpice]

Quote

I realize that it’s recommended  that you change your life so you don’t slip into old habits/ but it’s not fair to run out on your kids and expect your other kids to raise them.

Yeah, she could have changed her life drastically by doing some actual parenting. And what's José's responsibility here? If he's working and supporting the family, then that's a big contribution, and I realize that there are different cultural expectations for teenage girls vs. fathers in different communities, but I don't think parents have any business putting that kind of responsibility on a teen. She wasn't babysitting; she was mothering. Who's worrying about HER college prospects?

[pasdetrois]

I wondered about the timing of the story, which seemed to say that Sean got high after seeing his uncle. But he was already nodding off at the start of the intervention.

Donna made me chuckle with her exasperated "grandma's vaping while she's on oxygen."

Previous to this episode, had we ever heard Donna reference her own addiction history?

[DC Gal in VA]

Hi all. Was there ever a thread for Season 19, Episode 8 "Young and Addicted" that's on tonight (5/21)? Thanks.

[hoosiermom]

1 hour ago, DC Gal in VA said:

Hi all. Was there ever a thread for Season 19, Episode 8 "Young and Addicted" that's on tonight (5/21)? Thanks.

Start one,please!

[hoosiermom]

I have to say I was really pissed off during a lot of the episode tonight. The mother sleep driving on heroine and that other kid allowed to act like he did for so long and then leaving treatment and being allowed back at the grandparents. I know it’s tough but these folks are given the best of the best to help their loved ones. Hope you don’t think I am too harsh DC Gal in VA.

[Pondlass1]

I was horrified to see production allowing that woman to drive when she could hardly keep her eyes open.  Drug yourself up and overdose for all I care, but don't drive while high or low or whatever and place everyone around you in peril.

And no one wears seatbelts?  My seatbelt goes on without me even thinking about it.

Instead of feeling sympathy I'm getting angry at these Intervention shows.  The young boy needed desperate help.  He looked half dead.  I know we believe in freedom, etc., but he needed to be in a place where could couldn't sign himself out and go back and live with grandma and grandpa.  It was like signing his death warrant... and theirs.  They should have stood firm 'you're not coming back to live here'.  I didn't feel he was equipped to survive on the streets and it might've been the wakeup call to send him back to rehab.

I think we have to get tough with the younger addicts.  They've got a whole life before them.  It's so sad and frustrating.  I don't think I can watch this series of Intervention.  It's the young ones that get to me.  

[DC Gal in VA]

18 hours ago, hoosiermom said:

I have to say I was really pissed off during a lot of the episode tonight. The mother sleep driving on heroine and that other kid allowed to act like he did for so long and then leaving treatment and being allowed back at the grandparents. I know it’s tough but these folks are given the best of the best to help their loved ones. Hope you don’t think I am too harsh DC Gal in VA.

No I don't think that you're being too harsh at all hoosiermom. ITA with everything you said. My frustration level with this episode was off the charts. Brett's mom -- it was his mom right? -- and her constant histrionics when it came to her son really pissed me off. I wanted to shake her and say grow the fuck up, your son needs you. Then, the grandparents, especially grandpa throwing his hands up before the intervention even began. I had hope when he finally got on board but him taking Brett back after he ditched rehab really turned my stomach.

Also, I just can't even with the mom sleep driving and the scene where she and her husband were outside with their little girl and paying absolutely no attention to her was awful. At least she finally got clean at the end and her waste of space hubby was gone.

Sigh, I guess one out of three is the best we could hope for.😢

Edited May 22, 2019 by DC Gal in VA
Effing Autocorrect!

[DC Gal in VA]

52 minutes ago, Pondlass1 said:

I was horrified to see production allowing that woman to drive when she could hardly keep her eyes open.  Drug yourself up and overdose for all I care, but don't drive while high or low or whatever and place everyone around you in peril.

And no one wears seatbelts?  My seatbelt goes on without me even thinking about it.

Instead of feeling sympathy I'm getting angry at these Intervention shows.  The young boy needed desperate help.  He looked half dead.  I know we believe in freedom, etc., but he needed to be in a place where could couldn't sign himself out and go back and live with grandma and grandpa.  It was like signing his death warrant... and theirs.  They should have stood firm 'you're not coming back to live here'.  I didn't feel he was equipped to survive on the streets and it might've been the wakeup call to send him back to rehab.

I think we have to get tough with the younger addicts.  They've got a whole life before them.  It's so sad and frustrating.  I don't think I can watch this series of Intervention.  It's the young ones that get to me.  

Well said Pondlass1. Your post perfectly represents my anger and frustration while watching this episode.

As for getting tougher with younger addicts, ITA. As a matter of fact, we need to get tougher with all addicts regardless of age IMHO. I don't mean that they should just be ware housed in prison or jail because of their addictions; been there, done that and it didn't work. They should get intensive treatment and therapy as well as post rehab assistance. But if you're sleep driving and injure or kill someone, I have zero sympathy for you.

I agree with society acknowledging the drug crisis and we need to pour more funds into substance abuse treatment. What I do not agree with is the addict as victim mentality so pervasive these days: it's Big Pharma's fault, the dealer's fault, a bad childhood, a bad neighborhood, etc., etc. It's everybody's fault except the addict's. Well it's really the addict's responsibility to accept help especially when it's free, first class help given by Intervention. Telling them that they're just victims of circumstance may just send them to an early grave.

[Enero]

On 5/20/2019 at 7:12 AM, pasdetrois said:

Previous to this episode, had we ever heard Donna reference her own addiction history?

Yes. She has. I can’t recall the episode though. 

[tvisme]

2 hours ago, Enero said:

Yes. She has. I can’t recall the episode though. 

I think maybe Tanisha a couple of years ago?

[Azubah]

On 5/20/2019 at 5:12 AM, pasdetrois said:

Previous to this episode, had we ever heard Donna reference her own addiction history?

Yes, in some earlier episode she gave a hair-raising account of her addiction and recovery. She was in some sort of amphetamine psychosis for months and had to be kept locked in the hospital, and they weren't sure she'd ever get her mind back. It was a serious "holy shit!" level of addiction and collapse.

[Enero]

On 5/20/2019 at 7:12 AM, pasdetrois said:

I wondered about the timing of the story, which seemed to say that Sean got high after seeing his uncle. But he was already nodding off at the start of the intervention.

Donna made me chuckle with her exasperated "grandma's vaping while she's on oxygen."

Previous to this episode, had we ever heard Donna reference her own addiction history?

This. When thinking more about it, I too wonder if he’d already started back using before he gave Donna the tour of drug city and helped his uncle shoot up in the bathroom. 

Because after he supposedly relapsed didn’t he say that he needed X amount of heroin to avoid getting dope sick? Now I don’t know much about drug use and addiction, but I’d think if Sean had just relapsed he wouldn’t develop dope sickness once the drug high wears off because he hadn’t used in a year. However, someone with more knowledge may be able to provide insight on this and confirm that this indeed would be the case.