Intervention Episode 101: Gabe V.'s Follow-up

"Gabe and Allison return to tell their stories after they both faced interventions and treatment. Gabe used heroin to deal with the deep emotional scars caused by his adoption. Will Gabe ever be able to accept his family's love and support? Meanwhile, Allison, who was addicted to inhalants, visits home for the first time to try to make amends to the people she hurt."

Gabe's follow-up episode finds him in detox, feeling slightly resistant to the first stage of treatment. He seems to feel that the detox drugs he is being provided with are not sufficient, due to his daily patterns of use, and grows increasingly frustrated with the physical pain that he is experiencing through detox. He says, "The feelings that I hid from my adoption have been fifteen years building up inside, and I've been suppressing them by drugs...I just don't want to deal with it." He expresses that despite the fact that detox has relieved his physical symptoms of addiction, the anger that brought him to addiction has not yet been dealt with, and is "like a ticking time bomb". However, he finishes detox and is transferred to an in-patient treatment center.

The next stage of the follow-up, three months later, finds Gabe 93 days sober, and he seems very excited about being sober, although he does express that he is confused by the feeling of sobriety. His treatment facilitator says that, "Gabe really still has some very open wounds from his abandonment, so I think it is critical for Gabe's parents to tell Gabe that he is loved unconditionally, and that he is needed as part of the family unit." In order for this to be achieved, Gabe's entire family comes to visit, and together they sit with his primary therapist in order to work through some of the remaining issues. When Gabe is asked to express to his father what he needs from their relationship, he says, "I don't need anything from you guys...I don't deserve it." He feels that because his actions have caused his family so much pain, he does not deserve a relationship with them. His father expresses that he wishes that he could help Gabe work through his pain, and his mother expresses her unconditional love and adoration of her son: "You'll never know how much of a part of our hearts you are". She recalls a car ride in which a young Gabe told her that he looked in the mirror and believed that his eyes were "almost blue", and she felt pain for him because his eyes would never actually be blue, but the fact that his eyes were brown is a "treasure." Gabe leaves the session promptly.

He expresses to his therapist that he feels frustrated, and that what his parents were saying to him was "bullsh**t", and that the only thing that helped him feel safe was drugs, despite the destruction that they had caused. Back in the session, Gabe's therapist explains the stop-and-go nature of recovery, and that it is a continual process. He asks that the family respects Gabe's reluctance to continue. In a private session with his therapist, Gabe says that he believes he will always be alone, but that he needs to find a healthy way to deal with that feeling. He also says that his inability to accept love is preventing him from finding a new thing to define himself, away from drugs. He says, with tears rolling down his face, that "I thought if I was white, if my eyes were a different color, I would be able to be loved. But now I think, my family has given me the love, and they're just throwing it at me, and I cannot receive it. I can't catch it." He seems to feel incredibly frustrated, knowing that his family loves him, but not being able to open himself to it.

He says that it will be incredibly hard for him to make advances in his repairing his relationship with his family, but he is dedicated to making that progress. The episode ends with Gabe relapsing, leaving treatment, and returning home. He has enrolled in an outpatient program where he is tested for drugs daily, and has maintained sobriety.

The most interesting facet of Gabe's case is the outpouring of love that he was given by his family, and his consistent reiteration of a feeling of being unable to accept that love. It seems that Gabe felt that because he was of a different ethnicity than his family, he was less desirable and less deserving of the love that they heaped on him, despite their protestations. His drug use may not have provided him with the feelings of worth that he was lacking, but instead reinforced his feelings of failure, which created deeper feelings of unworthiness.