DJ AM Helps Heroin Addict in “Gone Too Far”
In the first episode of the late DJ AM’s intervention program “Gone Too Far,” we learn that from age 19 until his mid-20s, the celebrity DJ was addicted to heroin. When he met 23-year-old Amy on the first episode of the show, he knew exactly what she was going through.
Gil Kaufman writes on MTV.com that in the show, AM (born Adam Goldstein) told Amy he wanted to help her clean so she can avoid the pain caused by her own father, who was also a heroin addict and died as a result of his drug use. The episode shows AM driving around his old hometown and meeting with Amy’s family, who called him for help.
"Heroin has destroyed my life," Amy tells the camera in the show’s first scene, which is followed by a meeting between AM and Amy’s younger sister, Meghan. Meghan explains that while she and her sister used to be inseparable, once Amy began using heroin, "all of a sudden she was gone."
Meghan explained how their father—a lifelong addict who sometimes walked into the room with a needle sticking out of his neck—died when they were kids, and how she fears Amy is going down the same path. Their older brother Joe tells a similar story, describing how Amy has stolen his children’s baseball cards and thousands of dollars in cash from him to feed her addiction, forcing him to install locks in the family’s house to keep his sister from robbing him.
AM sympathizes with Amy’s family while pushing them to get her into a proper treatment program. "I can’t cure addiction, but what I can do is offer Amy a chance at a different life," AM says before meeting Amy. Then he tells her about his own father’s death from AIDS after a lifetime of drug abuse and how it triggered his own drug addiction.
Showing the swollen injection sites on her hands, Amy breaks down. "It just sucks, because I know I’m better than this, that I used to be a good person, and I don’t want to live like this the rest of my life," she says, admitting that she knows her drug use will either cause her to end up in jail or in the grave.
"I promise you, you can be freed of that," AM tells her. "Because I swear to you there is another life."
After meeting with Amy’s family, AM stages the intervention at the family’s house, during which Amy is clearly uncomfortable about the idea of entering a treatment program. Though the trip to the California facility is a difficult one—Amy lashes out about not getting a chance to get high one more time and insists that a friend bring her some drugs before she boards an airplane—she eventually agrees to give rehab a try.
Like many people going through detox at a facility, Amy wants to leave during the first few days and obsesses about getting high again. She says that the pain in her teeth—she needs five root canals—is driving her to want to use again.
AM visits after Amy’s first five days and is amazed at how she looks after less than a week. After going to the dentist, Amy returns to rehab for 40 days, during which she receives counseling and medical treatment, eventually moving to a sober living house outside the facility after nearly 50 days.
When AM visits her at the sober house, along with her mother and sister, everyone is amazed at what a difference rehab has made.
"I’m proud of you," AM tells her, handing Amy a customized iPod that has the inscription "Don’t pawn me" as well as some of his signature mixes. "It makes me so happy to see this. You’re like a family again."
The episode ends seven weeks after AM and Amy’s first meeting, as Amy praises AM for reaching out to a stranger and giving her a second chance at life. "He understood that I was in a circle that was way too deep," she says. "He didn’t pass judgment on me, and he just took me underneath his wing and he helped me through the tough times that I had here…I never had anyone that didn’t know me that cared that much about me."
Speaking about AM’s death, Amy says, "You did help and touch lives. I want to make you proud. I don’t want to throw this gift away."
Tags: celebrity addiction, intervention, rehab, treatment
