Meth Mountain, Burl and the Intervention

A&E's documentary series “Intervention” is a fascinating and terrifying look at a day in the life of an addict. The addictions can be anything from Crystal Meth to Alcohol to Heroine to Cocain and even Obsessive Compulsive Disorders.
The series is back with new episodes that appear to focus on the methamphetamine epidemic sweeping the nation. In the latest episode that aired on Monday, December 8, 2008 focused on a day-in-the-life of a logger who is a crystal methamphetamine addict.
So, it’s back. “I could probably do as much as you could give me,” Coley, a logger and crystal methamphetamine addict, says on tonight’s episode, the first of four new ones. He is extolling the virtues of being incredibly high on speed while one-handedly felling huge trees. “I could just move mountains,” he says.
The episode is scary given that the addicts accessory is a chainsaw. And his character is like something out of a horror movie - — a deranged American frontiersman. It is instantly terrifying, but, as a working-class outdoorsman and a head of household, he also comes from a demographic underrepresented on “Intervention” as stated in a New York Times review.
What’s uniquely fascinating about Coley, however, is his bizarre obsession with finding burl in the woods: the swirly cancerous growth on trees that can be used in guitars and gun handles. His quest for burl takes on epic proportions, and both he and his wife are mindful of the burl-speed connection. There’s an unusual poetry in how they discuss it. This is such a far cry from the concerns of other “Intervention” addicts — the money-and-appearance preoccupations of Caylee on next week’s episode are more typical — that even (or especially) a hardened “Intervention” viewer will find it difficult to look away.
Coley’s house and family are lovely, naturally, but he locks himself away in one of the murky corners that viewers of “Intervention” have come to recognize as the addict’s refuge. In Coley’s case it’s a garage stocked with garden tools, flammables and his sacraments: a broken piece of clear plastic on which he flattens out white powder with some kind of credit card. He then heats it up and inhales it. There’s also a dog.
There’s a protocol for the intervention: People read letters, and cry and hug, but the goal is to get the addict to consent to go to treatment then and there.
It turns out that Coley’s mother had speed problems of her own, and introduced her son to alcohol at the age of 9. He found her wicked ways thrilling, and was dealing meth with her by the time he was in high school and quickly went to prison. (Caylee of next week’s installment also shares addictive behavior with her mother, as well as a grim mutual obsession.) During a period of reform — after a spell in jail — Coley met his wife, and they had three children; he’s had some treatment for addiction in the past but evidently suffered setbacks after his mother died of an overdose.
Coley’s experience with drug treatment suggests that he’ll be amenable to the intervention, but I’d never spoil the suspense and give away whether he consents to mend his ways — or walks out. Addicts on “Intervention” do walk out. The feeling of betrayal can be extremely potent.
“I really don’t know where I’m going, but I’ve been there before,” Coley says, at one point, on his way to seek burl. As the episode rolls on, and tension mounts, Coley becomes among the most endearing of the “Intervention” addicts to date. This twistedly compelling series has clearly not lost its appeal. Its compassion for addicts and their families — and for the thorny idiosyncrasies of their plights — redeems its seamier side.
And then there are the characters, like Coley. As a man who clearly loves both his mother and wife to distraction, he’s also been on drugs for so long that he has a hard time finding the part of his brain that’s unaffected by them. Possibly as a consequence, he tends to think and talk with a kind of mandarin detachment, though he’s slightly abashed about lapsing into what he calls riddles. At times he turns existential.
“I’m not being, like, weird or anything, but that’s not me in that camera right there,” he says at some point. You believe him.
This series is a sombering fact about millions of Americans - that addiction is a real problem that the health care system cannot help. Without a loving family and big bucks to enter private organizations to treat these diseases - it will only get worse. In addition, the worsening economy will no doubt add to the masses of addicts in America.
If there is anything to learn from this series - it is that it can happen to anyone and we need to be aware of the symptoms - to prevent our loved ones from falling into the despair of these dreaded realities.