Season 2, Episode 17
Betsy
Age: 40
Location: Annapolis, Maryland
Addiction: Alcohol
What’s Memorable: This episode can’t be found anywhere, and most references to the episode have been removed. Odd. Anyway, I watched it years ago and couldn’t find it to re-watch for this directory, so I’ll just say what I do remember. The wine, the denial, the childish weakness, the shitty supposedly sober boyfriend that convinced her not to get help at the last minute. Well the episode has been uncovered and posted on YouTube by Ramoin so I got a chance to watch it again and oof! What an episode. My original ‘what’s memorable’ wasn’t all the far off from what I would say now so I will only add that her aversion to being alone was at such odds with her compulsion to push everyone away, it’s striking. Also the fact that Andrew was even asked to be in the Intervention seems ill-advised, but that he was allowed to accompany her on the plane to treatment was straight up wrong. I don’t recall anyone else on this show being able to bring someone on the trip with them do you? Love you Jeff, but that was a seriously bad call. She was being a petulant child making unreasonable demands and I think he should have called her on it, not given in.
Update: Betsy ‘Bets’ Bender passed away on August 8, 2018 after a battle with breast cancer. Obituary
Official synopsis: Betsy went through a devastating time when her marriage fell apart. She began drinking heavily to help the pain. Her family is trying to help her with no results. They finally give her an ultimatum. She either quits drinking or she will lose all of their support and she would be on her own.
Interventionist: Jeff
Original Air Date: August 2006
Found it!
https://archive.org/details/17_20221209
Amazing, thank you
I think the reason this was pulled was because Jeff dropped the ball so badly.
That’s my hunch as well. Also, regarding whether or not Betsy was sober, her obituary mentioned how she was active in Bible study, and given how active her family was with her funeral she obviously did reconcile with them.
glad we finally get to see a legendary lost episode! Betsy’s denial of her problem was hard to watch, and so was her attitude. i know she was in a lot of pain, but calling her sister nonstop at 3 AM and then turning around and lashing out at her when she saw her face-to-face was so frustrating to me! it’s a shame she ditched treatment at first – did she ever complete treatment and get sober, or did she drink herself to death? i wonder…
According to the end of the episode she entered treatment later in 2006 and was sober when she died. She also reconciled with her family.
phew, that’s good. i was worried she wouldn’t stick with it. RIP
Nowhere in the episode does it say she was sober when she died, as she died years later.
Merry Christmas to all!!!
https://archive.org/details/17_20221209
it’s a christmas miracle!
Ah, I’m so excited! Thank you.
Can’t wait to hear your thoughts! I know you’ve wanted to watch it for a while 🙂
Wow TY
If you have university access you can watch it here – FINALLY got to watch it. Jeff’s intervention was so poorly executed and he is usually my favorite…my Betsy rest in peace. https://search.alexanderstreet.com/preview/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cvideo_work%7C1796165
No kidding. I honestly wonder if that was why the episode got pulled from syndication/streaming.
So praying that someone can find this ep. I know that sounds cruel but just from the 30 or so seconds of it I saw a long time ago she seemed so eerily like my mother. It’s a morbid curiosity and I’m not sure what to feel about it.
Maybe Ramoin can upload the ep to Dailymotion/Vimeo/elsewhere? That way copyright/A&E are less likely to hunt him down?
You should be on the lookout for used DVDs for sale on Ebay, I know they’re out there for the early seasons, I used to buy them occasionally. That may be the only option at this point.
Indeed. Rommie said above that they got the original edition DVD from Australia.
Wow, so I actually just got done watching it from a friend who’s a psychologist and had access to this and WOAH, this was insane.
I have to say I was expecting to be mad at Jeff for the intervention, and to a certain extent I agree he really dropped the ball on this one, but at the same time I actually have a lot more sympathy for him in this situation than I was expecting. Betsy was, to put it mildly, being exceptionally childish and entitled the whole episode, especially during the intervention, and I almost don’t know that Jeff had any other choice outside of just letting her say no and leaving, like he did with Larry in Season 10, which arguably would’ve been an even worse call. I don’t know, I just really found the situation very frustrating all around and I do hope Betsy apologized to and made amends with her family before she passed.
The YouTube link no longer works as it says the account that posted the videos account has been terminated. If that makes any sense. Anybody have another way of watching this?
I’ve never even found a torrent for it as I have for other long-time missing episodes (Gabe/Vanessa, Mike/Jenny) and I’ve looked hard.
Ugh i wish I knew about this site in 2018 when it was still available on YouTube! Dailymotion has a good amount of lost episodes but not this one… I’m so curious as to how and why it’s been completely scrubbed from A&E (even prior to her death).
Has anyone managed to recover this episode? Desperate for it!
This episode is no longer available anywhere after it was shutdown by A&E and the entire channel itself. I hoped people would eventually rip the YT episode and secure its availability somewhere but doesn’t seem like it. I managed to hunt down a first edition australian DVD that still had it and that’s how I found it. I also extensively investigated about Randi episode but never got anywhere aside from sources claiming it never aired but footage still exists. It just never got assembled into an actual episode, like many other episodes.
There’s also Intervention Brazil episodes (like 12 in total) that aired for a short time but people don’t know they exist and it’s really hard to find.
Anyway I will try to make Betsy episode available again but it won’t be (obviously) on Youtube.
Thanks for the clarification Rommie. It’s odd that the synopsis for Randi’s episode got leaked even though it never aired. Hope your treatment program went well!
Hi Rommie,
any chance on making this episode available again somehow? Thank you!
maybe try dailymotion. that’s where I get to see some intervention episodes that A&E no longer airs
It’s not on there. Trust me I’ve looked!!!
This episode is (unfortunately) no longer available on youtube (Ramoin’s channel). If anyone has a different way to view it, please post.
Unfortunately that’s the only video of it I’ve ever been able to find. I haven’t even found a torrent video of it, as I have other longtime missing episodes (Vanessa/Gabe, Mike/Jenny).
I watched gabe( season 1 gambler) on 123movies. It seems they have all the seasons and most of the episodes.
They don’t have Betsy’s episode. Trust me I’ve searched hard lol
Is her episode still on Ramoin’s YT collection?
Nope it appears to have been blocked by A&E along with the other missing episodes.
Betsy’s memorial slideshow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz9XzM2vw4E
Possible big news. I posted in the above video asking the question of why Betsy’s episode has been unavailable for years, and someone answered that it was because the Intervention production team planted bottles of wine all over the house to get her more drunk. I clicked on the user and it appears to be her childhood friend who was at her intervention (I can’t remember for sure since the episode is once again unavailable):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZYmW8i8TWQ&list=PL3TeapQnnznB427JeDqE1w_07wtnrL1RK&index=2&t=23s
I work in TV production and I think it’s extremely unlikely the producers did that, although I wouldn’t doubt Betsy told her family that. She had a lot of money, she owned that coach house they filmed in (although she had no furniture). Her family was well off and obviously they reconciled at some point so I’m sure they sued to hide the episode. She did seem to have some serious mental health issues, if they highlighted that she signed the release while not in her right mind the network isn’t going to fight them to replay one episode.
I wanted to feel something for Betsy, but I really just couldnt. After she said she got lonely and cheated on her husband I felt no sympathy for her.