Season 24, Episode 2 PART 1
Chantel, Joey, Jordan, Tim, Christine, and maybe Joe?
Location: Garden Grove, CA
Addiction: Fentanyl
Official Synopsis: When Christine’s brother died in a tragic accident, she turned to methamphetamine and her seemingly perfect family spiraled out of control; interventionists Ken Seeley and Sylvia Parsons team up on the biggest case of their careers.
What’s Memorable: Five people alternating between sick and high, nodding off and overdosing in a single room for YEARS. Joey’s rambling psychosis, Chantal’s inability to function, Christine’s very bad parenting, and poor dad Joe just accepting that this is how it is now and his role in his family is to literally try to keep them alive as they all exist perilously close to death on a daily basis. That’s just harrowing. Hard to imagine how heartbreaking and stressful his life was when this was being filmed. We don’t know if he’s using anything other than alcohol yet but if he is, I can hardly blame him for wanting some escape as well. What a life. Fentanyl is the devil.
Interventionist: Ken and Sylvia (no intervention in this episode)
Date Aired: June 21, 2022
Sorry everyone, I wanted to have this up on the night it aired but life got in the way. I will do my very best this season to have the bones of the post up before the new episodes air so that y’all can discuss without having to wait for me to watch it.
I have never been more annoyed by an addict on this show than I was with Chantal. Like in the picture above; high out of her mind and that ever-present smirk on her face, like she thinks the whole thing is so funny. *slap*
One of the Intervention subreddits is having a field day with the ever-present smirks of Chantal and Christine.
Oh man, I wish I could see that. Glad I wasn’t the only one!
Reminded me of Erika and her family last season – the compulsive smirking. Like WHY ARE YOU SMILING RIGHT NOW but honestly, it’s probably a maladaptive coping mechanism.
There’s multiple intervention subs?!
Honestly her and her mother’s smirks creeped me out way more than they annoyed me, primarily the blank stare in their eyes.
I immediately thought the same thing. You have children who are addicted to deadly drugs and you have a smile on your face. I can’t wrap my head around this. Definitely some type of coping mechanism, it has to be.
Christine will probably lose herself and her kids to this drug.
Christine is something else. Her spectacularly bad parenting is on a totally different level than most of the people we have seen Intervention cover. One of the Intervention subs has a comment describing her as the biggest piece of trash ever documented—I think that commenter is off, but not by much. She really does seem to be glib about how her addiction impacted her kids and actually smug about who they all are as addicts.
But mark my words that a bigger shock with Joe is coming, and I don’t mean just finishing out he’s also battling substance use. His youngest child has an odd timeline—living out of state, only meeting her half siblings when she was nine and the last time she saw them was also nine years ago? That means she’s at least 18, and she made references to her dad’s enabling that didn’t seem to entirely line up with her questions about how bad they’ve all gotten.
This may be the sickest household Sylvia’s ever worked with, but for Ken, I wonder how this will compare to the Las Vegas family for a few seasons back? I’m glad Intervention made the decision to support this family with more than one Interventionist. Sylvia and Ken have two very different styles, but I don’t know if the two of them together are the most effective combination.
Christine is an addict. Addicts are not good parents. Never. Some might make it look like they somehow do a good job from the outside, but it’s just never true.
Part 2 is next Monday, right?
Right. It’s probably going to be wild.
Definitely one of the more disturbing episodes! This entire family is so sick! Definitely a flashback to the family in Vegas. I felt especially concerned for the youngest Joey. Wow! So young and so messed up already! Walking around like a literal zombie in a complete psychosis! That was hard to watch and no one seemed to think it was urgent?! Wtf? My heart broke for all the kids! Growing up with a mom like that, they had no chance at a normal, healthy life. Sad! The indifference from the mother was sickening! I’m eager to see part 2 and I hope and pray they all recieve help before it’s too late! 🙏
Joey is way out of it., hoping it’s not too late for him. He is the sickest, and really needs to get off fentanyl for a chance to get out of his pyschosis.
This is completely heartbreaking. I have a family member who is going through the same thing. This certainly can be drug induced, but unfortunately, this could also have lasting effects or be the sign of mental illness.. (considering his age – certain mental illnesses can start to present themselves at that time). He seems so lost and must be so terrified at times. I can’t imagine having a parent who is addicted when you are in need of their help. I’m praying for all of them.
Wow – what can you say about this crew? I wouldn’t even know where to start. Well I suppose the Mother. Talk about not setting a good example. The daughter, Chantel, she’s a bit arrogant. It’s like the whole thing is a joke to her. As far as the two boys – no offense to either of them, but I don’t think they were bright enough to think for themselves. Seemed like they were just tagging along and following what they watched. I had a lot of sympathy for the Father – but as the episode progressed – I started having doubts about him. Is he a sympathetic Father? Or is he on drugs, too? It’s probably going to turn out to be a bit of both. We’ll find out in part 2.
Yah I got that impression about the boys too (your sole ambition in life is to join the Marines?).
I thought the same thing. However, he could be searching for some structure in his life. He takes the role as the man of the house pretty seriously in his own way. He would probably thrive if he could get on the right track.
Nothing wrong with any of the armed forces being a goal for a career, but OH MY, he probably wouldn’t make it through basic in the event he has lasting physical damage from the addiction, never mind any mental problems there would be with the recruit. .
This is one sick family, I hope they all make it and get off that fentanyl.
I said this in the part two post, but this episode frustrated me so much. Intervention usually strikes a good balance between delivering an unflinching account of the addict themselves and letting the addicts’ loved ones make the case for their value, but this episode, in my opinion, had very little to offer in that respect. There were more questions raised than answered, and the dancing around of issues—namely Joe’s, including how he has fathered a child in another state who has seemingly only met her half-siblings twice in her life and his evasive “She had a different mother”—made all of them hard to connect with. The episode just felt so inauthentic, although whether that’s the result of editing or the addicts themselves is probably up for de are. I think most of us still want them to get clean and stay sober, but this cast of characters just doesn’t have the same draw as most of the addicts we want to root for.
Up for debate, I mean. Sorry for the typo!
This was very hard to watch
Wait, so everyone got out of treatment except for Joey and Tim?
Cause they updated us in the other brother, Chantal and Christine but we didn’t get any news about the dad.
So, what, did he quit treatment and has he gone back to funding the remaining addict family members’ drug habits?
Trying to find out what happened to the Dad, any updates?
This episode made me cry so much. I used with my mom. She’s never been a mother to me. Didn’t raise me, stayed in jail. When I was 18, she got out and I was smoking weed daily at that point. It escalated to daily meth use then IV heroin in less than a year. Luckily, I made it out alive but my mom is still using after 26-27 yrs, my whole life. I had to except that I can’t recover for her or fix her so I keep her out of my life until I see evidence of her getting (and staying) clean. I hope this family does the same and doesn’t let their codependency drag them down.