Season 10, Episode 5
Larry
Age: 32
Location: East Orange, New Jersey
Addiction: Alcohol (Brandy)
What’s memorable: The fact that he beats his wife when he’s drunk, and she’s so in love with him and won’t ever leave him. And that failed intervention was a doozy. Too bad everyone couldn’t have gotten on board.
Official Synopsis:
Growing up with parents who demanded hard work, Larry rebelled with a life of crime. Today, he drinks a fifth of brandy a day even though he’s a spiritual man whose religion prohibits alcohol. Can an intervention save Larry from being ostracized by his spiritual community?
Original Air Date: July 2011
Interventionist: Jeff
I hope Larry has gotten help. I was so sad he didn’t go and then the ending saying he’d be arrested. It breaks my heart. You’ve got to want to get clean though and he didn’t want it.
any updates on Larry? i hope he is doing well
Larry apparently has reduced his drinking according to an update. But when you’re alcoholic you can’t really reduce it to get better. You have to stop drinking. So he’s probably not doing good.
Larry is in fact doing better because he is currently incarcerated and clean. His family feels he needed to hit rock bottom in order to come back victorious. His children are well and so is the rest of the family. Keep his sobriety in your prayers as alcoholism is a disease and we hope he’ll be released soon
Do you have any updates or know how long he’ll be in for? I’m watching his episode now.
Peace and love
15 to 18yrs Hannah. Sad story. But he is well and paying his debt to society which I feel saved his life.
What is he incarcerated for?
To be honest for being Black in the wrong place. His charges did not fit the crime however if he were not out drinking, I do not believe anything would have occurred in general. Or maybe it would have. IDK
The only likeable person in this episode was his sister. I absolutely hated his stepfather for his comments regarding him being a Muslim and claiming that it’s a religion all about rules (I would LOVE to have told him that Christianity is essentially the same, or at least it’s supposed to be) and his prideful remarks before bailing on the intervention.
Thank you for you compliment Stefan. Unfortunately the interventionist was a bad fit for my family and a bigot to say the least. With that, they edited hours of tape to 30 mins. Neverthless, it is what it is. If I could do this over, I would recommend the network consider the cultural and background of the family before picking anyone to address such personal and sensitive matters, which was very counterproductive.
Oh no, I’m sorry to hear Jeff was a bad fit as well as bigoted. That’s terrible. I think you make a good point, there should be a larger pool of interventionists to choose from so they’re not sending in someone who can’t be sensitive to a family’s cultural background or beliefs. Maybe it would be better to at least have close family members meet with a few interventionists first then pick the one they think their loved one would respond to the best.
That would be good Dizzy however that was not an option and we only met the interventionist 1 day before the actual intervention. So he did not get a chance to bond or build even an immediate rapport with my family. As a clinician myself this was not a good approach or move for either party. The interventionist nor the family.
Yah as much as I love this show it definitely has a white slant to it. It’s too bad that Donna wasn’t available to be Larry’s interventionist. I’m pretty sure she would’ve handled it better.
I completely agree. She would’ve been great for us.
Larry’s episode is a prime example of why I can’t stand JVV. I totally agree that he ruined your chances with Larry’s intervention and the way he treated Larry’s poor wife who was a victim of DV was disgusting, no wonder she left and didn’t look back.
Jeff is an amazing interventionist and I don’t believe bigoted. The fact that Larry is a wife beater and chose not to get help has nothing to do with Jeff. Half of the family didn’t show up, he had no bottom lines given that would have mattered to him because his wife was still staying married to him and allowing this behaviour to go on. The fact that none of you called the police on him for beating his wife when there were children present is disgusting. We have seen time and time again the cycle of abuse and what it does to families. He was offered help that 100000’s of families apply for and half of the family couldn’t be bothered to try and help save his life.
You have a right to your opinion of course and yes he’s generally a good interventionist, but that doesn’t mean he dealt with this particular family in the sensitive way they may have needed, which possibly could have contributed to the failure of the intervention. If that’s what the person who was there is saying, I’m inclined to take her perspective seriously. She worked with Jeff for days and has insight that we don’t.
I would agree. The timeline is bullshit. Fly in one day, meet the family, do an intervention the next? That’s a cookie-cutter approach and ultimately failed in this episode. There are those that argue the entire Johnson Intervention model is flawed but that’s for another day.
To believe that a 70 something white man from Minnesota is bigoted isn’t really that big of a stretch, especially when a credible person is saying that was their experience. It doesn’t undo the good work he has done but it definitely makes him a bad fit for some families.
Does anyone know how they go about picking the interventionist, is it just whoever is available?
I think they try to match stories/backgrounds where they can. They put candy with adoptees a lot and Sylvia with people who have major trauma of losing children. Dawna has been with most of the African Americans. I guess they cant always be available so sometimes they just fit what they can.
Hi Larry,
AssalamuAliykum. I’d appreciate a chat…
I am a convert. A wife. A mother and have an unfortunate relationship with alcohol..
..Melinda
What is Larry’s last name? I would love to know more about the setails of his incarceration. 15-18 years is a long, long time. From the comments here he may be a victim of the system and racial injustice towards sentencing for black men.
I do not find anything good about racial injustice, it’s disgusting.
But he beat his wife a lot of times.
For that alone he should go to prison for a long time.
Maybe a little karma here 😉