I usually watch A&E's show intervention when it's on.  I guess you could say it's a guilty pleasure.  Last night's episode stuck out for me as one of the most disturbing episodes yet.Katie is such a pretty girl who had such a promising future.  It all went to hell in a hurry with alcoholism.  She dropped out of college in her junior year, started drinking, stripping, and ultimately prostituting to get alcohol.  How horribly sad.

 

It turns out that what caused he to drop out of college was the fact that she was violently raped.  If she had a family to turn to, things may have turned out differently.  Which leads me to the most disturbing part of this episode:

Her parents.  Her mother April was a mean drunk in denial, and her dad was just a straight up jerk.  Her mom would hide her wine bottles in her closet, and drink a couple bottles of wine each night.  She didn't have the problem though, her daughter did, right?  The more she drank, the more she verbally abused Katie.

I'm not saying Katie wasn't at all responsible for her drinking.  She was.  But what a horrible support system.  I was shocked when her father verbally abused her in front of the camera.  What he was saying was true, but calling your daughter "worthless,"  or referring to her as "my 25 year old loser daughter"  isn't going to help her.

The interventionist that was brought in immediately saw that this family was a mess and suggested that April lead the way for her daughter and enter rehab.  She reluctantly agreed, but left rehab early.

April completed her 90 days, returned home to her family (bad idea.) and relapsed.  She entered another 90 day program and I pray that she can stay clean.  Hopefully she can stay away from her parents until she has the confidence.

If you want to see the episode for yourself, you can find it on A&E.

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