A&E struck gold back in 2005 when they launched the Emmy-winning Intervention, a docu-style series following alcoholics, drug addicts and those struggling with other disorders from the depths of their addictions through a staged intervention and, if all goes well, off to treatment. Though briefly canceled in 2013, the show was (thankfully) revived just a year later and is now continuing its 15th season. The 12th episode aired Sunday, June 26th.
This is Daniel M
Once a respected paranormal expert, Daniel’s sensitivity to the spirit world led him to alcohol and drugs to “numb out the voices” at a young age. As the adopted child of a religious family, his uncanny relationship with the supernatural didn’t sit well with the beliefs of his parents and the community around him, leaving Daniel to feel like an outcast. Though he ended up parlaying his gifts into a fruitful career, his private life was never devoid of outside energies, good and bad, driving Daniel to the bottle for relief.
But Daniel’s world began spiraling downwards when he was diagnosed with lupus, an autoimmune disorder that attacks various parts of the body, causing inflammation and pain. Eight years later, Daniel finds himself addicted to alcohol and an excessive amount of opiate pain medication that he claims is managed by a doctor. His condition leaves him unable to work or fulfill his role as a husband or father and his fears keep him in a vicious cycle of addiction.
What It Was Like
Adopted into a loving but strict Southern Baptist family, Daniel’s mom reports that he was a happy and fun-loving child. However, at an early age, he began to show signs of sensitivities to a world that his family and religion believed to be “of the devil”—not an easy plight for a young boy, especially one who may have also been coming to terms with rejection from his biological mother.
It’s no surprise that young Daniel turned to alcohol and drugs to ease his emotional anguish and confusion of his life. But Daniel wasn’t like other teenagers—he wasn’t just at odds with his folks, he was at odds with the spirit world and himself. By the age of 13, he was drinking Nyquil and popping pills, by 15 he was doing coke and by 16 he was doing meth—all to cope with the supernatural forces that were invading his life and that he didn’t feel equipped to deal with. It wasn’t until he met his wife, Sandi, that Daniel felt like he had a partner in the world; someone who understood his proclivities and shared them. They had happy times, working together and starting a family.
What Happened
When Sandi was pregnant with their son Gabriel, Daniel was diagnosed with lupus and given a hefty prescription for opiates to manage his pain. Within no time he was hooked and began mixing alcohol with his medications. He now uses an average of 15 prescriptions of various narcotics a day, in addition to a gallon of vodka and cough syrup. “Danny has so many doctors, I can’t keep them straight,” Sandi says. “He picks and chooses what he wants to hear from each doctor so that he can accumulate more medication.”
What It’s Like Now
Today, Daniel’s life, which has been slowly unraveling over the course of nearly a decade, is officially falling apart. A self-admitted alcoholic, his rapidly declining health is physically apparent in his bloated face and strained mobility. If Daniel doesn’t take a drink every three hours, his body seizes and goes into convulsions; including all hours of the night. “I wake up at three in the morning to pour a drink because my body needs it and craves it,” Daniel admits. “It’s no longer about getting drunk.”
Daniel consumes a gallon of raspberry vodka every single day. “I can’t put it down once I start,” he says. “That’s the change. I used to be able to put it away and walk away.”
Fed up, Sandi has left the house and taken Gabriel with her, living with Daniel’s mom until things get sorted out—essentially, he’s either going to get help or Sandi is going to leave him for good.
The Pre-Intervention
The good news is, Daniel and his family could not be in better hands with crisis interventionist Candy Finnigan. Part of the original cast of the show, Finnigan is a veteran and has the experience and no-nonsense attitude to handle a situation drenched in denial and deceit.
Finnigan starts by sitting down with Sandi, as well as Daniel’s mom, sister and one of his friends. Surprisingly, the first thing she asks is, “Who was in the room when [Daniel] got this lupus diagnosis?” Sandi admits that no one was in the room with him and that in all these years, she has only hear one doctor refer to him having lupus. Finnigan then asks his mom and sister, “Has he always wanted something wrong with him?” To which Daniel’s mom admits that as a little boy, he used to make the most of being sick. Sandi then adds that the lupus “cover” really does help him disguise his addiction.
Finnigan proceeds, going over the nuts and bolts of the process and re-assessing each of his family members’ personal commitments to hold to the consequences they have listed in their letters to him. Sobriety for Daniel will mean having to face his demons—both his own and the ones that may also be circling around him. Sobriety means facing the emotional pain he has caused the people he loves and possibly the physical pain he has been running from.
The Intervention
As Daniel’s loved ones anxiously await his arrival, Finnigan gets word that Daniel has taken an indeterminate amount of morphine pills and is barely coherent. Unsure if he will be lucid enough to sit through the intervention, Finnigan asks Sandi to call the pharmacy and find out what medications he recently picked up. They discover he was given 90 pills of morphine, more than enough to be extremely dangerous. Once the van arrives at the intervention location, an on-site nurse attends to a nodding off Daniel, checking his vitals and determining that he is in stable enough to be brought into the room.
Daniel seems un-phased by the site of his family gathered in one room, not to mention when Finnigan introduces herself. Of course, with the amount of opiates he is on, it is unlikely he would be phased by much. Daniel plops down on the sofa and with heavy eyelids and slurred speech, requests that they “get this over with.”
His sister begins with a letter that addresses what Daniel was and what he has become. She asks that he please consider help so that he can be a husband and father and so that she can have her only brother back. That is followed up by a reading from his mom, who agrees with her daughter’s sentiments and adds that if he doesn’t get help, she will no longer give him any money. Then Sandi reads her letter, informing Daniel that if he does not accept help today, she will leave him and take their son.
Daniel admits he is scared to face his demons and his pain and without much further coercing, he agrees to go to treatment.
89 Days Later
Though it’s been nearly 90 days since the intervention, Daniel admits that he’s just shy of 30 days sober. Now in a different treatment program, Daniel confesses that during his first 60 days, he really didn’t get what he needed in the program and relapsed as a result. Yet he feels differently this time around and now seems to understand the gravity of his mistake and the possibilities that await him in a sober life. After he completes the 60-day program at Destination Hope, Daniel plans to move into a sober living facility closer to his son.
Whether or not Daniel actually has lupus was never confirmed.
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