By Julia Gray
“My name is Tim. T-I-M. And I’m addicted to crack cocaine.”
This is how every episode of A&E’s Intervention begins. Each week highlights a person with a life-threatening addiction and they agree to have cameras follow their adventures under the guise that they’re in a documentary about addiction. Little do they know that they will face an intervention during the last 15 minutes of each show with an “interventionist” who, along with family and friends, will hopefully convince the addict to be trucked off to rehab someplace across country – or else.
Normally, I don’t watch reality television. I tried to watch Survivor but during the first 10 minutes of the show, I could hear the synapses misfiring in my head and my neighbors complained about my Tourette’s-esque swearing at the screen. Also, who wants to watch a bunch of half-wits eating turtle turds and drinking rainwater from banana leaves?
I gave The Swan a few minutes of my time, but shut it off when it became apparent that each woman would end up looking like the Hollywood wives I saw on a daily basis during my tenure working in the movie business. The same nose, the same boobs and ditto on the Chiclet teeth and cheek implants. These “contestants” were so mentally whacked out that no amount of liposuction and Botox could ever make them happy gals.
After those experiences, I wiped my hands of reality television until I stumbled across Intervention one Friday night. My eyes were glued to the TV with the fear that if I looked away, I would miss some drunken or drug-induced rant towards a long-suffering friend or family member. Or, the classic public pass-out complete with drool, word slurring and an ‘I see London, I see France’ underwear moment. Because of those shenanigans, Intervention is my new favorite show.
The episode that aired on Friday night involved 20-something music producer Tim and his girlfriend, Madyson (yes, it’s spelled correctly). See, Madyson is a singer in Florida and her parents hired Tim to produce her music since he supposedly once worked with Elektra Records and some boy band producer. The goal is to make her a star, but we really don’t see that happening. Playing a gig in front of a bunch of Bratz wannabes and their moms at the Wild Adventures amusement park isn’t exactly on the road to stardom.
Instead, we witness Tim smoking crack in the recording studio, in a bathroom, in a hotel room and out in the wilds of Florida. We get to peer in on the fights between Tim and “Maddy,” and Tim and Maddy’s parents. One tussle involves Tim tearing apart a Macintosh G4 on the front lawn of Maddy’s house as the neighborhood looks on.
In another skirmish, we see Tim verbally berate Maddy over the phone – while her father listens in the background – about money she is holding at his request so he won’t buy crack. Ahhh . . . the joys of having a your daughter’s crack addicted boyfriend living under your roof.
At one point, we find Tim skulking through a Florida swamp weeping over the phone and vowing to kill himself to a beleaguered Maddy. From there, he heads into a concrete storm drain and lies down in the murky water and we get to hear the dulcet tones of Tim’s whines reverberate across the stagnant water. The producer intervenes and eventually Tim wades out of the mosquito-infested drain and onto dry land. It is quite the picturesque scene and I pray that the video crew is paid well.
“When he’s not high on crack, he’s the boyfriend of any girl’s dream,” says a tearful Maddy.
Sure, if your dream is to have a scruffy, barely employed drug addict who is only capable of booking gigs at some of Florida’s finest third-tier amusement parks.
The actual intervention takes place in a non-descript hotel room. The addict believes that he/she is going in for a final interview. Instead, tearful family members, friends and an interventionist meet them. Tim’s interventionist, Candy Finnigan, looks like a tough broad who has probably seen and heard it all when it comes to dealing with addiction. She’s one of the three interventionists I’ve seen so far on the series.
Each family member and friend has a prepared speech about how drugs have taken Tim away from them and that if he doesn’t accept the help now, then their relationship will be forever changed. That’s code for no more contact, money, help, etc.
More tears are shed before Tim accepts the help and gets shipped off to “A Sober Way Home” in Arizona. There, he meets with counselors, goes to therapy and tries to put his life back together. He stays in rehab for 90 days, then moves back in with Maddy. Soon after that, he relapses.
Tim and Maddy break up, and Tim moves back in with his parents.
If you want to see Tim’s story, you can buy the DVD from A&E. Also, a new season starts this Friday at 9 p.m.
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The What I Watched Last Night archive is available for your enjoyment.
Posted on August 6, 2007