Steve Martorano 
The Behavioral Corner is produced in partnership with Retreat Behavioral Health -- where healing happens.

The Behavioral Corner
Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano, and this is the Behavioral Corner; you're invited to hang with us as we've discussed the ways we live today, the choices we make, the things we do, and how they affect our health and well-being. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner. Please hang around a while.

Steve Martorano 
Hi everybody. Welcome to the black-tie edition of Behavioral Corner. My name is Steve Martorano, and I'm hosting guide what we do is talk about everything on the Behavioral Corner because everything affects our behavioral health. And the reason for the tuxedo is, as I mentioned to one of our guests earlier was going through the closet looking for, you know, a t-shirt that wasn't soiled. And so on my old tuxedo and said, I'm putting it on because I'm going to meet with the mavens, our movie mavens, the lovely, talented, and intelligent Maggie Hunt, and Grace Shober from Retreat Behavioral Health. These ladies are professionals in their fields of substance abuse treatment and are also successful in their lives. They are both in long-term recovery. So months back, we said, you know what, the popular media covers this topic a lot in a lot of movies, lots of television shows that have as their central premise what happens to people using drugs or alcohol. And we wanted to take a look at how accurate they were or are somewhere, some are not. If you go back and look at the Behavior Corner podcast library, you'll find the reviews there -- they are state-of-the-art. These two know what they're talking about. And so when we have questions about the media and how they depict this situation, we go to our mavens I'm dressed up because I'm going to start doing it from now on as though it were red carpet. So next time...next time, guys -- not that you don't look lovely. But, you know, let's dress up a little.

Grace Shober 
No sweatshirt next time.

Steve Martorano 
No, no, I actually can do it. Grace. I can go, "What are you wearing?" I love that question. Don't you love it when they do that..."What are you wearing?" Well, we can see what you wear. Apparently, you went to Aardvark University?

Steve Martorano  
Well, yes...

Steve Martorano 
Harvard, I see. Okay.

Grace Shober 
I really truly didn't.

Steve Martorano  
And Maggie is very stylish, Hollywood, black.

Maggie Hunt 
I'm sponsored by Retreat Behavioral Health.

Steve Martorano 
Oh, there you go. That's your designer's Retreat Behavior Health. Alright, guys, here's what we're doing. We're looking at a television show rather than a movie. I know I'm overdressed. Because it's a television show, not a movie, but it is a television show that is pretty well ingrained in the culture with regard to the topic of substance abuse and alleged treatment. It's a reality television program called Intervention. And what it does is every episode, they surprise a substance abuser, with a group of their friends and family in the context of offering them an ultimatum. If they accept the terms of the intervention, recognize they have a problem. The producers will pay all expenses paid trip to rehab. That's exactly the way it is -- you can win an all-expense paid trip to rehab. And it's very graphic. They have accompanied users as they got high in very dangerous situations. They put themselves in getting credit for that. But there is something troubling about the whole thing for me, not least of which is that when you look to see what the producers claimed the success rate is of the 1000s of people who reach out to them and say we want to do this. They claim a 50 to 55% success rate in people who are on the program or intervened with and then go to rehab. Fifty-five percent!

Maggie Hunt 
Wow, the whole world can't get that statistic.

Steve Martorano 
Okay, so let me ask you right off the bat, how does that number strike you? Grace?

Grace Shober  
If they're talking about long-term recovery, 55% like Maggie said, I mean, that's something that the whole world strives for. And I just find that to be pretty unbelievable.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, other articles that I read later claimed a 70 to 75% rate. So it just gets sillier and sillier. You know, God bless them. I mean, if it happens to 10 people out of 1000 That's terrific. But the claims are amazing. And in case you're thinking this is like a low-rent kind of operation. It is not intervention, now in its 24th season has won an Emmy as an Outstanding Reality television program. Alright, so let me begin just with a word right on my sleeves. I look at a lot of this stuff, as you'll pardon the expression addiction porn. I think what they want to do is show us the grimmest, most desperate situations people are in and I mean, show us put our faces right there and appeal to our I don't know, period interests. Let me look at how messed up these people are. And then wave a magic wand and everybody gets better. Maggie, what's your experience with the show? I'm sure you don't watch it weekly. But what was your experience with those programs you've seen?

Maggie Hunt  
Oh, yeah. I learned that you could smoke heroin when I watched Intervention. I didn't know that you could do that, you know, circa 2007. But I don't watch the show. Now, I used to watch the show because I was obviously like, the baddest, you know, MFer in Bucks County. Okay. So I needed to watch to make sure that like, they were also equal to like my level of hood. And so I would watch just while they were using, and then I would stop watching because like, I don't want to see the success, especially when I'm like in the thick of it. I want to know that I'm not the only miserable person out there. I want to know that, like, other people are doing the same things that I'm doing. And you know...

Steve Martorano 
And they are on television. Grace, what was your experience seeing the programs?

Grace Shober 
Yeah, I mean, the same kind of thing. I don't watch it now. The only time I really did it was like, in the midst of a relapse or something like that, because I was like, glorifying like Maggie said watching the terrible things that they were doing. Now, on the flip side of that, too, I always did wait till the end, because I did like to see their transformation. Because you know, they gained weight or you know, things like that. And I enjoyed watching the transformation. But it didn't make me want to get sober. You know, like, the whole thing I thought was ridiculous. I was sitting there myself as somebody who would like, I'm like, why would you ever let somebody videotape you do that? Do you know what I mean? Like, it's just, I feel like it's exploitation to the addict, and alcoholic because you see him at their worst, you see people all sloppy and messy and things like that, which I don't know if that's necessarily what they sign up for. And they just sign up for a crew to be following them around, I guess, with the intent that they're going to get money from it. And so of course, anybody who's like down and out and totally struggling for any money or whatever is going to say yes to being on this TV show. But it ends with like you said that ultimatum, but they still get money from the show. So it's like, unbelievable to me. I think it's exploitation.

Steve Martorano 
Well, I couldn't find any evidence that paying anybody but if they did, well, there's a special place in hell for a production company that would pay a substance abuser, any money, just so they can then go in and watch the using.

Grace Shober  
People who are on the show, actually, you can find their videos because nobody's gonna say yes in their addiction, you're not doing anything for free. You're not doing anything for free. So...

Steve Martorano 
So who do you suppose the people are -- and I have no doubt that 1000s of people requested to get on the show. Maggie, what do you think is the percentage of active users who say let me be on the show? It's probably the families, right?

Maggie Hunt 
I don't even know because I don't think I would have anybody follow me around with a camera when I was...I'd be like, get away from it. You know, I mean, unless, unless, you know, like Grace said, like, unless I was really down and not and like meeting somebody, but I don't think so.

Steve Martorano 
Both of you found yourself when you were actively using in very dangerous places, right? Physically dangerous, right?

Maggie Hunt 
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Philadelphia, like right in the city down there. In the heart of it.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, yeah. Well, I told you about the episode I watched recently. I went back and looked at a couple of them. One had the I guess she's a rapper, entrepreneur, social media wizard. She was a guest discovered by Kanye West. Her name is Amber Rose. She's strikingly beautiful...and she's got close-cropped, blonde tight hair, but it's fantastic. And Kanye West put her in a video many years ago. And she's done very, very well. She's from South Philadelphia. And the episode I watched involves her coming back to save her childhood friend Tina, who was in real trouble. It's a cook's tour of the neighborhood you're just talking about. And every time I see Kensington, we all know about Kensington. We've all heard about Kensington. But when you see Kensington it's shocking.

Maggie Hunt 
Shocking.

Steve Martorano 
That a place like that can exist in a major city in the United States in the 21st century is outrageous. Outrageous. And yet there they are, filming it for our viewing pleasure. Tell me about what you know to constitute an interventionist. Maggie, is there any officially sanctioned interventionists? How does that work?

Maggie Hunt 
There are some credentialed intervention training that you can take. I don't know what kind of no professional aspect they would hold again in terms of exploitation. It's like another thing, you know, like, obviously, like, if you want an intervention, you want that person to be a certified interventionist. And that's, you know, and through Pennsylvania, we do you have one, but other states will try to use like different credentialing for interventionists as well.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. Grace, let me ask you, what would you say are the qualifications for someone who says I'm an interventionist? What should they be good at?

Grace Shober 
So if somebody goes, and they say, I'm an interventionist, they need to be good at handling irrational situations, desperate situations, and over-the-top situations, because people are going to flip out, most of the time, they're going to not take that well. And like now, you said, there's credentialing and training and things like that. Now, I don't think you need that type of interventionist, in my opinion. I've done a lot of 12 Step calls, Maggie has done 12 Step calls, and a lot of people have done them. And for me, hands-on knowledge, and being in the field, is way more important than taking a test to be an interventionist. Like I think that you have to like, actually know how to think like somebody who's in active addiction, how to think like somebody who has tried to save somebody in active addiction, or has lost somebody in addiction, like the family, and how to keep things as calm as possible. Those are the qualifications, I would think are the most important,

Steve Martorano 
It would seem to me that an interventionist is Maggie also has to know, something beyond personal experience with the situation and something deep about human interaction. Because as the handful of episodes, I've seen on this television program demonstrate time and time again, the problem is essentially getting the active user to sit down and listen, right? And then maybe acquiesce to it. But that's only part of it. The family dynamic in those rooms is terrifying. You'd have to be a pretty qualified psycho...or at least a psychologist to be able to manage what's going on in that room. Right?

Maggie Hunt 
Well right. Well, and so I just looked up, like, as we've been on here, what the requirements are in Pennsylvania to be a certified intervention, professional -- CIP is what it's called. And it's a high school diploma, work experience, two years or full time, 4000 hours or part-time experience, providing direct substance use intervention and related services for at least 50% of that. I mean, there's like, you know, there's some education and training that's required, but I have done an intervention before, you're putting in work with the family more than you're putting in with the individual. I mean, I spent, you know, obviously, like, I didn't charge anything for this intervention. And I spent time with the family, preparing, changing how we were going to do it, you know, talking to Aunt Lisa, talking to Uncle Brian, like, you know, because they want to bring everybody in, which is good, but and they want to make it perfect so that the person doesn't know...blah blah blah. And it is intense.

Steve Martorano 
GraceYou've actually done an intervention. Grace, have you been the subject of an intervention?

Grace Shober 
I've been the subject who did an intervention. I've done an intervention on people who aren't. I certainly have, like my qualifications are working at Retreat for seven years working and you know, the experience. And from your point of view, I hear what you're saying about needs to be the psychoanalyst's needs...I disagree with you on that. But we can agree to disagree. I just think that at the end of the day, when it comes to the decision of...because it wouldn't matter. If you had Dr. Drew in front of me telling me to go somewhere, I don't listen to that. What I listened to is my family at the end of the intervention being like we're cutting you off, if you don't go. It has nothing to do with the person that was sitting there trying to manage the situation.

Steve Martorano 
I don't understand because, as I said, they use the word ultimatum, the producers of intervention, in every description of what they're doing. We're there to offer them an opportunity for treatment that they will pay for. But they have to accept the ultimatum. That baffles me. I mean, is it...when you say the family threatens to cut you off? How many times has your family threatened to cut you off?

Grace Shober 
So many times?

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. Well. So we're merely saying this is the end, as far as we're concerned, doesn't really get you there, right?

Grace Shober 
It doesn't always get you there. But these people that are going on this show know for sure there's something going on. They just do. I mean, you're not, like, followed by these cameras and like, oh, let's go meet in this big room and just talk about it. They know something's going on. And I think the fact that they're sat down and talk to you, it's always cut out. It's cut out at one point, and then they're freaking out, and then they find them again. You talk to him about you're gonna be flown to California. You're gonna be flown to Florida, Arizona, somewhere really cool, right? And then in a couple of...we're gonna follow you around the TV cruising. Probably around the end, we're going to do this like a big thing or be on a TV show. They're saying yes to that. They're not saying yes to the interventionist. They're saying yes to that. They're saying yes to their family. They're saying yes to a little bit of like their 10-minute fame.

Steve Martorano 
Exactly, right. No, listen, there's some people will tell you that one of the things that saves our culture is that nothing really terrifies us. If we can turn it into entertainment, if we can somehow figure out a way to entertain people and make a couple of dollars, it won't look so bad. It'll look like a television show, no matter what good comes out of intervention. How different is it than Survivor or any of these programs that are alleged to be real people in real situations? It's not.

Maggie Hunt 
Now well, I think it does it, either. It definitely helps some people, you know what I mean? I'm sure there are some people who like, watch it, and they're like, you know, what, we're going to try this with our family. And we're going to do this, and then they're successful. But I think it also brings a lot of associated stigmas, which would make people not want to go to treatment. You know, depending upon what the outcome is, I mean, you know, you're stereotyping it. I mean, like, they want the drama of it all. They want them to be like, No, I'm not going. And, you know...

Grace Shober 
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve Martorano 
Well, by the, by the mere fact that they offer 90 days of rehab, and as you point out Grace in some exotic location, you know, there are plenty of places...this episode I saw was in Philadelphia, you didn't have to fly to California, but that's, you know, a trip to California. And by doing that, by saying all expenses paid when a trip to rehab, they right away stigmatized socio-economic groups. I mean, there are people with insurance, who don't need to go on that television show to benefit from an intervention. But if you don't have insurance, it's a little bit different, I would have to watch more to see how many upper middle-class people have subjected themselves to a televised intervention. So let me ask you, Grace, how many legitimate interventions were you subjected to? One, two, how many?

Grace Shober 
Yeah, like legitimately, I would say, probably one, like, was an actual interventionist in the room.

Steve Martorano 
And, you know, where that intervention just came from? How he came to be part of it, he or she?

Grace Shober 
My parents hired him to work with me as a difficult case. And so then they were like Maggie said, when she was working with the family, he was working with my family, unbeknownst to me -- how dare they -- as I'm homeless on the street, you know, so and then I was actually like, told, Oh, you're gonna, this guy that we know is gonna be your coach, and he's gonna pick you up and get you something to eat. And he's got this BMW and blah blah blah. In. So I got in, I wanted to get something to eat. He just wanted to talk to me to be my recovery coach, and then I'm stuck. Until I flip out, and then I leave, you know?

Steve Martorano 
Did you just walk out of the intervention?

Grace Shober 
Oh, yeah. No, you can't intervene, Grace Shober.

Steve Martorano 
Maggie, tell me about your role as the interventionist. How did you manage that? How many people were involved?

Maggie Hunt 
Oh, my God, it was like a sister who initially called, and then it was her brother, and then the parents, and then his children, and then aunt's children. I was a lot, a lot.

Steve Martorano 
So, in other words, people are desperate to be in the room, out of the desire to unload on the abuser who's ruining their lives. Are they there to help?

Maggie Hunt 
Well, I think that they initially wanted to be there to help. Our world is so easy, because like, we just think that everybody knows this, but some people don't. And so some people do reach out to the interventionist, and then that interventionist does kind of help them walk them through that. And for that specific population of people, that is beneficial, I would say, you know, yikes. But usually, it's, I mean, I don't know, my dad always talked about it because I, people, had always been like, we're going to do an intervention on your dad. And I was like, Oh, okay. I don't really think that's a good idea. And he's like. I would have lit the house on fire.

Steve Martorano 
Right. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure that there are people that you know, who are actively using, first of all, who probably never consider it, but the thought of it would, would just freak them out. I mean, just freak them out. So let me ask you that and I'll and we'll, we'll put this one away. I've wanted to talk about this program for a long time. The other one I love is that I don't even know if it's on anymore. It's not about substance abuse. It's the one Cops, you know? I've always said that if, if Hitler had won the Second World War, it would be his favorite television show. He rewatches every week. It's just outrageous. We take people in their most desperate moments and put it on television. See, right away I think there's some problem here. If it's on television, it changes everything. It changes everything. So my question to you to our movie mavens on the program Intervention at the end of the day? Is this a good thing? Can it help some people? Or should it not be entertainment? Maggie?

Maggie Hunt 
I don't know. I actually...

Grace Shober 
I know!

Maggie Hunt 
Yeah. Grace, you go first.

Grace Shober 
I don't think that it should be used as entertainment. Absolutely not. The only people it's entertaining are the addict who is looking to entertain more ideas of how to get high, in my opinion. I don't think it should be used as entertainment. Do I think that it's helped, anybody or somebody? Yes. It's probably helped even if it helped one person. Great.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, I agree. And I'm, you know, I'm, like you guys I'm a First Amendment guy if you wanted on television. But I don't know if I could recommend it to anybody. Would you recommend it to anybody Maggie using?

Maggie Hunt 
No.

Steve Martorano 
Or any family members of people?

Maggie Hunt 
Yeah, I would recommend it sometimes in with families. Yes. Yeah. But I wouldn't put it on television.

Steve Martorano 
No, I know what I meant. Which would you recommend to a family thinking about intervening...intervening, so he should watch Intervention? Both of you agree on that one. So here's our advice to you from the red carpet of the movie Mavens reviews. Don't watch the program. There's a lot of junky television on. You don't have to watch that junky television. You can watch this junky television, you know, crap. I mean, bad television. And it's not people suffering, which just, it's just heartbreaking. But they turned it into entertainment. It's always bothered me. Anyway. Ladies, always a pleasure. Thank you for your time. Next time, you know, maybe some jewelry and some gowns for you to wear in my tux

Grace Shober 
And an up doo.

Steve Martorano 
Alright, guys, thank you so much for your time. For those of you looking to see more of what they do. We've got a whole bunch of them on the shelves of the BehavioralCorner.com website. You can find more there and other shows as well. Don't forget to subscribe and like. We appreciate that very much. And we'll catch you next time on the Behavior Corner.

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