Dear Gov. Newsom: Here’s a real California story for you. Ronald Reagan, Frank Sinatra, Phyllis Diller and Bob Hope are immortalized on Palm Springs’ Walk of the Stars — and so is reality TV celebrity Ken Seeley.
Seeley gained the national spotlight as a real-life superhero on A&E’s gut-wrenching “Intervention,” sweeping in as users spiral into addiction’s dark depths and often, against all odds, helping yank them out. His star power lent a special sheen to Seeley’s addiction treatment facilities — Ken Seeley Communities or KSC, doing business as Intervention911 — and attracts folks seeking similar miracles.
And so it was for Susan Rea of San Juan Capistrano. Despite repeated brushes with death, emergency room ordeals and stints in rehab, her 22-year-old son Dean just couldn’t shake perhaps the most dangerous addiction of all: to fentanyl. As you well know, Gov. Newsom, this synthetic opioid is some 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Just two milligrams of it — think a dozen or so grains of table salt — can kill.
Dean was more than his addiction. A skateboarder who loved the ocean. A surfer who taught kids to ride waves at Doheny Beach. A jokester with a gift for helping others see their own worth. A young man who had trouble seeing his own. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety, ADHD and depression. It was 2021 and Rea was desperate to save her son’s life.
An acquaintance told Rea about Seeley and his operation in Palm Springs. Intervention911 could treat people with complex issues, routinely drug-tested clients and accepted her medical insurance.
They signed on and Rea drove Dean to Palm Springs herself. “I was looking for professionalism,” she said. “We all wanted Dean to get better.”
Dean entered detox at Intervention911 on March 13. Less than six weeks later, he was dead.
And this, Gov. Newsom, is where you — and California’s insurers and rehab regulators…
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