Season 3, Episode
Chad
Age: 34
Location: Sacramento, California
Addiction: Crack
What’s Memorable: “At the end of the day I love being on the street. Best times of my life.” Chad’s a voluntarily homeless panhandler who teats women like shit and makes like 2 grand a month and spends it all on crack. To be honest, I think Chad’s kind of an entitled self-righteous ass. He was a jerk before he became an addict and he’s way more of one as a crackhead. I wish him well though.
Official synopsis: After a troubled childhood that sent him to juvenile hall for felony arson, Chad’s father introduced him to cycling at age 15. Chad went pro and cycled on the same team as Lance Armstrong. But after getting kicked off the team for “personality conflicts,” Chad was crushed and turned to drugs. Now homeless, Chad spends his days panhandling, smoking crack, and drinking. His family’s many efforts to get him off the streets have failed. Their last hope is an intervention.
Original Air Date: June 2008
Interventionist: Jeff
Chad unfortunately has relapsed and I recently saw him pan handling in the Old Sacramento area.
Must have been someone else…
Oh – OK.
Dizzy’s assessment of Chad is absolutely correct. He’s an entitled self-righteous ass. My girlfriend at the time rented a room from Chad’s girlfriend, and now baby momma, Jamie. Jamie made brief appearances in the episode. Jamie got prego by Chad during that time and my gf moved out as the baby was due.
During my time at that house visiting my gf, Chad would suddenly appear on his bike and stay a couple days, then disappear again to go panhandle and sleep on the streets. So “voluntarily homeless” is correct as well. He’s a smooth talker, and would talk people out of $5 and $10’s instead of a $1. And it all went to crack. Intervention producers sent him back to rehab on the show’s dime once or twice more. But it didn’t stick. He’s just too f’d up, and his entitled narcissistic parents never changed either. Hard to get well when the family remains screwed up!
It’s too bad he decided to procreate. That baby is doomed to a screwed up life unless Chad decides to grow up and get clean.
I’m almost certain I see Chad on the Light Rail here in Sacramento from time to time. If it’s him, he doesn’t look too well…can’t say for sure though
You’re actually WAY off. He’s sober, working, married, and has a second child.
Any links? Facebook? newspaper articles? photos?
He is actually doing really great!! Got married, and posted a recent pic of his mew born recently
I’m sorry, I do wish him well and hope I’m wrong, but Chad struck me as sociopathic.
Of course being a child arsonist is a hallmark of sociopathy.
I thought he seemed like a sociopath as well. I actually looked up sociopathy while watching the show because he seemed to fit it perfectly. Addict or not. This guy seems like a real prick. I hope I’m wrong.
Does anyone know how Chad is doing now?
I found him on Facebook. He does have 2 kids, and he seems to be settled. I won’t post a link to his facebook page; most people can find it with a little effort. But clearly he is putting effort to maintain privacy, so I don’t want to invade it.
UNlike the very generous and gracious Dizz, I do not wish this guy well. He is not a kind person. Am watching the intervention portion of this episode right now, and I do NOT understand how openly hurtful this guy is.
So there’s an episode of Cold Case Files called Fire Flicks about a teenager who committed arson on several homes being constructed in the Bay Area. The program never identifies the arsonist because of his age at the time of the offenses, but I wonder if it was Chad.
here’s his fb: https://www.facebook.com/chadrocket
there are actually 2 other profiles of his as well but this is the one i believe is the most recent one that he uses.
Last post = 2018
you know, i’m not sure why everyone is so down on chad. yeah, before treatment he acted like a total self-righteous douche, but afterwards he was sincere, apologetic, open, and caring. he cried and apologized to his family for his treatment of them.
I agree Brooke… When the parents went to visit him at the treatment place when he was making amends to his dad and his dad started crying I started crying and when Chad started crying I started crying harder and I’ve been watching these shows from the beginning till the newest interventions and I haven’t cried at one and this is the first one that I’ve cried at… It really touched me and I hope for the best for him and I know recovery sometimes has periods of relapse I just hope that he always finds his way back to recovery ❤️
I agree too! I’ve watched several seasons of intervention now, always faithfully checking this website for updates after I watch each episode, and have never felt moved to comment until now. I think we’ve seen plenty of other “openly hurtful” addicts over the seasons. Drugs turn people into assholes. And people often turn to drugs to cope with their mental and emotional baggage. Chad really didn’t seem beyond the pale with any of that, to me. I could feel his hurt, despite and during his claims that he loved his street life. After seeing episode 7 from season 4 about Tressa, it really makes me feel for former competitive athletes 😥
Holy Moses what a transformation. Regarding comments about him being sociopathic etc above – to compete at top level, I guess you have to have a level of commitment and focus to an extreme level to achieve that, so I thought his personality reflected that. When he lost the opportunity to focus on his main passion it must have been a brutal awakening… I thought he might do well if he could find something new to focus on…hope he is still focusing on right things!!!
Yeah, he’s rude and kind of an a**hole, but that’s what drugs do to you. He clearly has some mental and emotional issues, before and during his addiction. I’m very surprised to see he seems to have turned his life around and appears to be a very involved father.
Found a court document between him and (perhaps ex wife) Hilary from 2020. It didn’t have any details of the case other then it was a family lawsuit. https://unicourt.com/case/ca-sac2-hilary-cade-vs-chad-gerlach-131219
At this point it’s only speculation on what it was about. We know they got married in 2015 and I believe they had a daughter. His Facebook hasn’t been updated since 2018 and Hilary does not have hers public. I hope he is doing well!
Chad: “I love living on the streets, I feel sorry for people who work hard”. then he is seen going to sleep on some sort of palette between two fences, trying to infer that it’s super comfy cozy…
also Chad (the very next day): “The only reason I am seeing my mom today is because I am going to try to stay with her this weekend. It’s like club med. I need it”.
I mean I know crack makes you say some crazy stuff, but I get the impression that he is just a super self-centered person with or without it and that he wants people to think he has everything figured out.
He actually hates sleeping on the streets but wants people to think he loves it so he doesn’t have to admit he messed up.
I love how whenever there is a terrible addict there are comments from people saying, “but that’s just the drugs!” how many episodes of this show do we need to watch to understand that yes, drugs make you do shitty things but there are levels to it, we all know not every addict behaves this way. he is an asshole. “fire, fire, fire, fire”