List of Intervention Episodes - Season 7: 2009

When he was three, Gabe's mother abandoned him on the streets of Calcutta, but he was adopted by a young American couple. Gabe seemed happy in America, but he secretly felt like an outsider. In high school he started to rebel and resent his conservative Christian upbringing. He began using marijuana and cocaine and later graduated to heroin. Then he squandered all of the $37,500 he received after a car accident to support his drug habit. Now the family fears that without an intervention, Gabe's addiction and depression will soon lead to his death.

Forty-year-old Jeff was once known as a heroic firefighter after he saved his partner's life. But Jeff was traumatized by the harrowing event and his drinking increased drastically. Jeff has received two DUI's and been rushed to the hospital numerous times for seizures. Jeff's alcoholism has also forced his son and wife to move out. Now his family's last hope is that an intervention will stop Jeff from drinking himself to death.

When he was five, Donald's parents divorced. He longed for a strong father figure, but his father had very little contact with him. Donald became a gifted boxer, but ultimately chose drugs over his career. He joined a violent gang and turned to stealing to support his crack habit. Donald's girlfriend just had a baby and Donald has a second chance to be a good father, but his crack use is spiraling out of control.

When she was young, Nikki's mother and grandmother worked hard to give her a good life. Nikki excelled in school, but she was devastated when her grandmother died. She began hanging out with a rebellious crowd, skipping school and using crack. Nikki eventually had two daughters, but has remained addicted to drugs. Her daughters desperately want to have a relationship with Nikki and know that an intervention is their only hope of saving their mother's life.

Forty-two-year-old Bret grew up as a "golden boy", playing sports. He married his high school sweetheart, Amaya and they had two children, Kelsey and Kyle. Bret was a real estate agent. He and Amaya divorced after he began drinking heavily. He had an intervention before; this time, he strongly resisted and angrily left and walked back to his house. His family broke into his condo to take his shotgun after worrying he may use it on himself. He agreed to treatment after his family threatened to make him take a psychiatric evaluation. Bret went to the Hope by the Sea treatment center in California. Eighty days into treatment, Bret was diagnosed with advanced esophageal cancer. He died three weeks later on June 19, 2009. He was sober for 104 days.

As a boy, Aaron Brink was subjected to his parents' divorce and custody battle. He lived with his father while his 2 brothers lived with their mother. Aaron began rebelling in his teens, experimenting with alcohol and other drugs and spending time in juvenile prison. In his 20s he began a successful career as a mixed martial arts fighter and also worked as a porn star. He was introduced to crystal meth through the porn industry and addiction quickly took over his life. His wife and family are at their wit's end and hope Aaron will accept treatment to save his life.

Danielle lives in Vancouver, BC, with her two children and husband Rod. As a child, she and her two sisters struggled with her father's drinking and subsequent neglect by him. Now an adult, she is addicted to Percocet, taking up to 40 pills in 1 day. She gets the pills from her mother's prescription and stole one of her sister's identities in order to get more.

The episode features Chad Gerlach, clean nearly a year, in training for his first competitive cycling race (in Italy) since undergoing treatment. He has signed on with a cycling team consisting of and sponsored by recovering addicts. His relationship with his girlfriend, pregnant with their first child, is also featured. Sobriety and impending fatherhood have caused Chad to mature significantly as a person. Chad performs poorly in the race, but has recovered and matured enough to realize it's just an early step in his road to recovery.

As a boy, Joey was subjected to his parents' divorce and subsequent remarriages. Both parents were focused primarily on their new marriages and starting new families and often neglected Joey's emotional needs. Joey entered his teens feeling rejected and abandoned by his parents, and began experimenting with marijuana and other drugs. At 19, he broke into his mother's house and stole her credit cards to finance his burgeoning heroin habit. His mother pressed charges and Joey spent a year in prison. Upon his release he entered treatment, began a successful career as a tattoo artist, met his girlfriend (also in recovery) and fathered a little girl (Lyla). Fatherhood proved to be too much pressure on Joey, however, and he relapsed. Now, Joey is seriously addicted to heroin, spends over $200 per day on the drug, and is in danger of losing his family, his home and his life to his addiction. Joey's family hopes an intervention can help him accept treatment, repair his relationships with his family and become a better father to his young daughter.

Sebastian, 22 and Marcel, 20, brothers and the sons of Chilean immigrants, grew up overindulged, inadequately supervised and spoiled rotten in Palm Springs, California. As a result of the irresponsible and negligent parenting they received, Sebastian started experimenting with alcohol, drugs and sex before he even reached puberty. Once Marcel started to witness his older brother's self-indulgent behavior he quickly followed in his footsteps. By age 17 Sebastian had become addicted to cocaine and crystal meth and was sent to treatment in Chile for 6 months. Marcel remained at home and continued to use. Upon his return from Chile, Sebastian got caught up in Marcel's lifestyle, quickly relapsed and eventually started to use heroin. Both brothers still live with their parents, smoke up to $600 worth of black tar heroin a day and are involved in trafficking to finance their addiction. Sebastian and Marcel's parents are held hostage by their sons' addiction and criminal behavior, are in severe denial, think their sons are perfect and can do no wrong and think themselves powerless to stop their sons' self-destructive behavior.

Gloria, 53, is an attractive African-American caterer living outside San Francisco who has been an alcoholic for 30 years. She drinks because, in her words, "African Americans don't have it very good in this country and that's just what we do." She has survived giving birth to a stillborn baby, domestic violence and breast cancer and sees herself as a passive victim in life instead of an active participant. She puts on a front of being a "functional" alcoholic, but 30 years of alcoholism has left her anything but. Her drinking has left her in debt and has prevented her from having any sort of meaningful relationship with her two adult daughters whom she basically abandoned when they were very young. Gloria's daughters hope that an intervention will give them the sober, loving mom they never had.

Marci, 36, grew up in Chico, California in a dysfunctional family with an alcoholic father and a mother in denial who tried to cover up the family's secrets in order to impress outsiders. Marci began drinking and experimenting with drugs in her late teens and early 20s. She stopped using after her 2 children were born, but being trapped in an unhappy marriage with 2 young children proved too much stress and drove her back to the bottle. After her divorce, in which her ex-husband was awarded custody of the children, Marci began using methamphetamine. Three years later, Marci smokes, snorts, or injects meth multiple times a day ad is showing signs of drug-induced psychosis. She has no job and no home of her own. She has minimal contact with her children, and a heavily strained relationship with her family, including her mother and her brother (who is seriously ill with a heart condition). Marci's family hope an intervention will help Marci give up drugs, re-establish ties with her children. and restore her relationship with her family.