Season 13, Episode 2 brings us the powerful story of Elena; a 63-year old grandma who is struggling with a meth addiction and how her family try to make her go to rehab.
This episode starts out by giving us a peek inside Elena's life as a grandmother and how much she enjoys being one (obviously not as much as she enjoys meth). After this little clip, we find out that she has been using crystal meth for only 6 months (possibly one of the shortest addiction periods i've witnessed on the show) and how her life is spiraling into a frenzy of destruction and self-loathing.
During the documentary we find out that she spends up to a thousand dollars a week on meth and that she pays for it by guilt-tripping her family into giving her money and using her social security benefits to get money for meth. As many of the other addicts on the show she uses other drugs as well. In this case, prescription medication (she has 16 different prescriptions and she usually pops a few pills after snorting meth).
Later on we get to see how a few of Elena's relationship have gone down the drain and how she's using her elderly mother to get money to buy drugs. In one of the title cards we find out that Elena has taken over $11,000 dollars in the last 2 years to feed her addiction and how the other family members feel about it. (Obviously not too happy about it, seeing as how Elena's mother is basically senile.)
This show's intervention is led by Candy Finnigan who talks to Elena's family in order to solve some of the unresolved family issues still affecting them. During the pre-intervention she makes it a point to let the other family members that what's going on with Elena is partially their fault for enabling her. After a few sad moments and meaningful letters being read out loud to Elena, she decides to go to Hanley center in West Palm Beach, Florida for drug rehabilitation. The show's ending title card lets us know that Elena completed her treatment and that she's regularly attending 12-step meetings. According to the show, Elena has been sober since December 19,2011.
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