Drug Rehab Center

By Geoff Thompson, Ph.D. (cand.), CCC
Program Director

It’s very interesting that most research in the addiction field—at least, research in the US and Canada, though not so much in other places — ends up with the same conclusion.

Here’s the conclusion: The drug takes over the person, leaving them more or less powerless to control themselves. Some of the bad things about addiction are that it mucks up the chemicals in the thinking part and in the reward part of the brain, it empties bank accounts, it breaks up family, it causes liver damage and other problems, it causes problems at work.

If this is true, then why do people continue to use drugs? The answer: People succumb to drugs because of some defectiveness. In the old days, this was a moral defectiveness. Addicts were sinners and irresponsible lay-a-bouts. More modern interpretations of defectiveness say that addicts have a brain disease or disorder or that they have maladaptive learned behavior.

Here’s an example from a textbook on Abnormal Psychology, by Durand and Barlow. The authors quote an alcoholic explaining why alcoholics drink: “When I drink, I don’t care about anything, as long as I’m drinking. So when I’m not drinking, the problems come back, so you drink again. The problems will always be there. You just don’t realize it when you’re drinking. That’s why people tend to drink a lot.” As the book title suggests, this is an example of those who are not normal.

What is odd about this is that it’s a pretty weak explanation of why millions of people continue to drink and use drugs, and have done so for thousands of years. When we listen to addicts themselves and when we read about addiction in works written by addicts we find a much different story. The famous drug users in Victorian England did not reduce addicts to being defective. They described many of the positive experiences of intoxication. A typical example is Charles Baudelaire, who even wrote a poem about hashish. A more modern example is Eugene O’Neill, the Nobel-prize winning addict-writer. O’Neill provided us with an in-depth understanding of addiction that had nothing to do with being powerless over alcohol or self-medicating some mood disorder or being irresponsible or suffering from a disease. O’Neill explained the reason why he drank was that he could never find a sense of belonging, except when he was drunk.

What Baudelaire and O’Neill and hundreds of others have in common is that they examined drug use at a human level. They did not reduce the addict to having a disease or a defective personality or a bad habit. They saw them as normal human beings who were searching for something to feel whole, feel more energized and vital, make more sense of their lives. Many of them talked about intoxication as a spiritual experience.

And, of course, Bill W., the main force behind the development of Alcoholics Anonymous, was convinced that the thirst of the alcoholic was his thirst to feel whole and find some connection with the universe. Remember that speech he gave in 1948 at the Shrine Auditorium: “An alcoholic is a fellow who is ‘trying to get his religion out of a bottle,’ when what he really wants is unity within himself, unity with God. . . .”

In this blog article, we’ll examine the pervasive idea that addicts are addicts because they are defective. If you or a loved one are struggling with addiction, this idea will help you appreciate the influence that the stigma has had on your or a loved one’s recovery.

Part One: Hollywood Movies & Stigma

Believe it or not, researchers have examined how Hollywood movies have portrayed addiction and its treatment. Curt Hersey, for example, has written on how Hollywood portrays addiction and recovery from addiction. In an article examining 28 Days, Clean & Sober, and When a Man Loves a Woman — which take place mainly in treatment centers — he concluded that the films offered only “one conceptual framework for addiction” and that the portrait of recovery was “unrealistic, when compared with the availability and realities of real-life programs.”

Addicts portrayed by Sandra Bullock in 28 Days and Michael Keaton in Clean & Sober are presented as suffering from defectiveness. This defectiveness means that once the drug enters their brain, they lose control. This is, of course, the disease model of addiction. They are selfish, intolerant, in denial, and so on. It’s not that Sandra Bullock is a horrible person; she’s just got a disease. And Michael Keaton’s lying and manipulating is not because he is evil; he, too, has a disease, and he will do anything to get the drug.

Part Two: Popular Opinion & Stigma

Popular opinion sees the addict, even in treatment, as defective. When treatment centers open in neighborhoods, it is inevitable that the neighbors are against it. The typical excuses for wanting to shut it down are that the center will make property values drop, that it is too close to schools (don’t want all those nasty addicts near vulnerable school kids), that the clients will make the neighborhood “unsafe,” that the clients will get up to all kinds of mischief in the neighborhood, and so on. (FYI. Research studies on these complaints have shown they are not valid.)

Even many of those who agree that addiction is a health issue, often carry with them this idea that addicts are out of control. There is a famous documentary called The Fix: Story of an Addicted City about Vancouver’s notorious downtown eastside. In the film, a non-addicted person said that she believed addiction was a disease and addicts needed help — just not in downtown Vancouver. She suggested they should go to Surrey! (I’ve often wondered what the mayor of Surrey thought when she heard this.)

According to popular opinion, one of the biggest problems with the addict is that he or she appears to be out of control. Many experts have recognized that people in our society are very uncomfortable around others who appear unable to control themselves. We tend to like the John Wayne or Sarah Palin type of person, or someone like Terry Fox, who overcame his struggles. We tend to shy away from people diagnosed with mental disorders or HIV or, even, cancer.

Part Three: Mainstream Research & Stigma

Tens of thousands of research studies seem to confirm that addicts are defective. Studies have shown that those trying to overcome their addiction have high levels of anxiety and depression, low self-confidence, poor image of themselves, have mucked up the thinking part of the brain that controls, for example, not acting on impulses, and so on.

It’s possible to argue that all the studies are simply discovering the “truth” about addiction. They have similar conclusions because all this defectiveness is what addiction is all about. But then how do we make sense of, for example, Eugene O’Neill, that Nobel-prize winner? Even though he won the Nobel Prize, do we simply dismiss him because he suffered from a disease or maladaptive learned behavior? Do we conclude that all his ideas on addiction were just plain wrong? That all his ideas were just excuses to justify his drinking?

To understand how all these studies come up with the same conclusion, it is necessary to understand how this research is conducted. Basically, the researcher comes up with an idea then designs an experiment to see if the idea is true. What this means in real life is that it is the original idea that is the key, so researchers design studies to discover level of criminal involvement, anger and aggression, antisocial personality traits, and so on. If the researcher thinks that addiction is a disease, he or she will design an experiment that focuses on disease. But what happens if that is not really what is going on? Unfortunately, the method does not allow for other interpretations.

This is one of the reasons why many experts, such as XXXX, have lamented that “the prohibitionist spirit is still strong.”

Part Four: Other Research & Stigma

Another kind of research does not use statistical analyses. This research is interested in understanding the subjective experience of, say, addiction. Usually, the researcher talks to a handful of people to understand their experience of addiction and recovery. The odd thing is that even most of this research focuses on defectiveness.

A typical example was a study of an alcoholic woman by two researchers, Drs. Shinebourne and Smith. The woman talked about how she was a different person when intoxicated and that she did not like this person. At least, that’s what the researchers focused on. But it is interesting that she also talked about the benefits of being intoxicated: “feeling creative, you know, some feelings of like fun and excitement. . . like unlocking some sort of artistic feeling.”

But the researchers didn’t pay attention to these feelings of creativity, fun, and excitement of intoxication. Rather, they dismissed this and focused on the bad stuff. After all, if addiction is bad and the person out of control, then the woman’s comments on fun and excitement and being more creative probably were not all that important.

Conclusion: Stigma as a Barrier to Recovery
In this article we’ve examined remarkable power that “addict = defective” holds on people. This sort of thinking is at the root of the stigma of addiction.

Almost all clients at our residential program, Sunshine Coast Health Center, have internalized the stigma. They call themselves “drug fiends,” “drunks,” and other derogatory labels. Many clients think that they must have a mental disorder because this is the only way they can understand why they keep using substances, even knowing that this behavior was causing them serious problems. And, of course, there’s always the declaration, “Of course I lie and manipulate. I’m an addict. That’s what addicts do.”

But here’s the problem. If you believe in this idea that you are defective, then your recovery will suffer. Several researchers have shown that the stigma of addiction is a problem. Jason Luoma is one such researcher who has written about how the stigma of addiction causes problems for those who want to clean up and actually can weaken their recovery.

By Geoff Thompson – MA, CCC                                                                                                           Program Director, Sunshine Coast Health Center

Introduction

One of the main therapeutic points at Sunshine Coast Health Center is to help clients be the author of their lives. This means that you have no need to hide your feelings or your thoughts or your actions. But to achieve this, you have to gain a sense of responsibility for yourself. You have to stand up for what you truly value and believe. And you have to recognize that you, like every other person on Earth, is imperfect, that you make mistakes, have regrets, and so on.

It is one of the sad things about those in active addiction that they struggle to be responsible for their lives. They have, what psychologists call, a weak sense of self. Basically, this means that they don’t trust themselves, they have low self-esteem, low self-worth, low self-confidence. It is frightening for them to let their actions match their thoughts and feelings, so they feel the need to hide them.

Believe it or not, there are addicts who do take responsibility for themselves—in an odd sort of way. Perhaps the most famous popular example of an addict who takes full responsibility for himself is Barfly—a semi-autobiographical film about the addicted writer Charles Bukowski. In the movie, Henry Chinaski (the Bukowski character), spends his nights in a bar drinking and fighting the bartender. Something of a literary writer, he composes poems and stories during the days, also accompanied by booze. A literary agent, who sees his potential as an artist, cleans him up and has him meet the local “high class” society who praise him for his work. But Barfly, rather than feel he has improved his life, feels that he is not in control of his life. He rejects the literary world in favor of returning to the bar, getting drunk every day, and getting into fights with the bartender.

Barfly is one of the very few addicts who takes responsibility for the decisions he makes. He would not consider asking for help to break out of his drinking lifestyle. He makes his choice and feels no need to justify himself or to make excuses for the way he is. He feels no need to manipulate others into thinking that he is something he is not. His actions match his thoughts and feelings.

The vast majority of addicts are not as confident as Barfly is. They have a weak sense of self—they don’t really know who they are or what they are feeling or what they want out of life.

We know from psychology that people develop an image of who they are as a person. They might believe they are decent, honest, responsible people. They might believe that they are champions of justice. This self-image works as long as nothing interrupts it. Here’s a famous example of such an interruption from Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the great thinkers of the 20th century. Late at night in a hotel, a man sees a woman enter her hotel room. No one else is around. He decides to peak through the keyhole and watch her undress. Because no one is around, he can still maintain his self-image as a decent, responsible, good person. But a second later, another person comes around the corner and sees him. At that moment everything changes for the man. His problem is that the image he has of himself as a decent, responsible, good person has been confronted with the fact that he is a peeping Tom. Alone, he’s fine, but it’s that other person who screws him up. As Sartre says in his play No Exit, “Hell is other people.”

Now, this fellow, to preserve his self image, might do any number of things. He might run down to the front desk and warn the clerk, “There’s some guy upstairs peeping through a women’s keyhole.” This is an old trick—the best defence is a good offence. Or he might pack his bags immediately and bolt out the door. This is another old trick — run away. But it is highly unlikely that he will admit he is a peeping Tom; that is, it is highly unlikely that he will take responsibility for his actions. His outside does not match his inside.

In the same way, many people with addictions struggle to take responsibility for themselves. (This is certainly not to suggest addicts are peeping Toms — but you get the idea.) The reason is that their actions do not match the image they have of themselves. A “good” father steals his child’s favorite DVD because it is easy to pawn. A “responsible” son lies to his parents to get money for drugs. A “stand up” guy borrows money with no intention of paying it back. As long as these men are not found out, they can retain the image they have of themselves as a good, responsible, and stand up guy. But if another catches them out, then the self-image shatters.

In this article we examine how a weak self-image shows itself and, finally, some of the things you can learn to overcome a weak self-image. The key point is making sure that your actions match your thoughts and feelings, so you have no need to deny or distort who you are or what you are feeling. It means looking at yourself for exactly who you are. It means becoming the author of your life.

Part One — Manipulating Others

Interestingly, some family members of clients feel it their duty to warn us how manipulative their loved one is. They want to make sure that he doesn’t pull the wool over our eyes!

But from a deeper psychological perspective, such behavior is, in large part, an identity issue. For example, some Sunshine Coast clients have admitted that when they need drug money they ask parents for money to “fix my truck.” Such a person likely has an image of himself as a good son, rather than as a common thief or a liar or a con artist.

We can ask why he isn’t up front and tell his parents that he’s a drug addict and wants the money for drugs. On the surface this seems obvious. But if we peel back a layer, we discover that he is embarrassed or ashamed about being an addict. He’s definitely not Barfly. He’s unwilling take full responsibility for himself. He feels the need to distort or deny the truth. He’s like Sartre’s man at the peephole. He can still maintain his image of himself as a good son, as long as no one else figures out that he he’s an addict.

Similarly, at Sunshine Coast, it’s quite interesting when we learn that clients will invent nonsense to keep their families from coming to family program. These clients are often scared that the family will tell us things that contradict what the client has told us. To be caught out in a lie can shatter the self-image.

Manipulating others takes many forms. For some, it means actively working to construct an image for others. For others, it is passive. These passive types don’t let others know what is going on for them. They hide their feelings, and often their actions. They tell half-truths, don’t volunteer any information, and so on. One client remarked that talking to these people “is like pulling teeth.”

Part Two — Being a Puppet

A weak sense of sense also shows up in the amount of energy that addicts expend worrying about how others think of them. Because their sense of self is weak, they seem to have an almost desperate need to rely on others for their self-esteem. It makes them feel good when others pat them on the back. It makes them feel better when people think positively of them.

Unfortunately, relying on others is also dangerous. It makes them feel uncomfortable when others give them the finger or gossip about them. And if you take some time to think about this, you’ll realize just how insane this sort of life is. Our fellow might be driving, and someone gives him the finger. The other driver doesn’t know him from a hole in the floor, but our fellow takes this personally and gets upset.

In reality, our fellow is a puppet, who feels this way or that way depending on what feedback he gets from others.

Similarly, have you noticed how many people with addictions feel the need to justify themselves? This is another typical pattern of those who have a weak sense of who they are. It’s not enough for them to believe they are making choices based on their own perspectives; they feel a need to convince others that their decisions are correct. Only if they can convince the other person will they feel good about themselves.

Part Three—Being a Victim

Those who have a weak self-concept face another danger—becoming a victim of life. One of the common patterns we keep seeing at Sunshine Coast Health Center is the client who tries to convince others (maybe himself, too) that he is a victim. (Of course, at Sunshine Coast, we interpret this as choosing to be a victim.)

Because those with a weak sense of self look to others for their emotional well-being, they easily become victimized. And they actually start to believe that they are victims. They blame others for all their suffering. But blaming is not a good approach for recovery. First, if others are to blame, then why would the client do anything to change? His behavior and ways of thinking are not the problem.

Daily, at Sunshine Coast we hear clients who choose to be a victim. Here are a few typical examples. “If my wife would just quit nagging me, then I wouldn’t drink.” Or “Sunshine Coast is not helping with my recovery because my day pass wasn’t supported.” Or “If my brother had not turned me on to crack, I never would have been an addict.” Or “You are making me angry.” Or “You’re triggering me.” And so on.

The obvious problem of being a victim is that you are not in charge of your life. And we know from research that the key to your recovery is to take responsibility for your choices.

Part Four — Learning from Barfly

We’ve been talking about the problems that arise from a weak image of yourself. The need to manipulate others, the danger of being a puppet, the risk of being a victim of life. But what’s the solution? The solution to all these problems is to become the author of your life, to take responsibility for your thoughts and feelings and behaviors.

But this takes work. And it takes practice, practice, practice. And more practice. The example of Barfly can teach you a lot about what it means to take responsibility for yourself.

(1) Barfly has a realistic appraisal of who he is. He does not walk around other people, even the drunks, presenting an image that he is superior to them.

(2) Barfly takes action to take control of his life. He could have accepted the literary agent’s offers of a nice middle-class life, but he felt trapped by this life. In fact, he tells the agent she is like a bird living in a cage with golden bars. Rather than passively accept this life, he takes action to get a life in which he feels in control.

(3) Barfly’s actions reflect his thoughts and feelings. In psychology, we call this “congruence.” He feels no need to present an image of himself to the world; simply being himself is sufficient. He does not have to pretend to be something other than he is.

(4) Barfly allows his thoughts and emotions act as his guide. Following the “rules” of the high-class life of the celebrated poet—making polite small talk, dressing up, attending official functions—was not being true to himself. At the end of the movie, he chooses to return to the bar scene, even though he knows that others will condemn him or pity him or dismiss him.

(5) Barfly accepts others for who they are. This does not mean he agrees with how others live their lives, but he does appreciate that everyone is doomed to live the life he or she chooses. From Barfly’s perspective, all people struggle to exist in the world. You may disagree with his dark view, but he is true to his values and beliefs.

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, talks about Victor Frankl’s theory that to be happy in life you have to figure out that suffering is a meaningful experience.

By Geoff Thompson, Program Director

Sunshine Coast Health Center

A requirement for living a fulfilling life is feeling a sense of belonging in the world. One of the key problems with those suffering from addictions is that they feel they are different. They feel they don’t fit in. They feel they don’t belong. Clients at Sunshine Coast are often asked to think back to their life in active addiction: did they feel they just didn’t fit in, that they didn’t feel that they were the same as others, that something was wrong with them? Perhaps they became something of chameleons just to fit in with different groups of people. In fact if you listen to the stories of addicts, this is one of the most common themes. If you are in recovery, listen for this at the next 12-step meeting you go to, or read any of the stories in the Big Book, or watch a drug movie such as Barfly with Mickey Rourke or Panic in Needle Park with Al Pacino. You will hear what it’s like to be an outcast in the world.

So a great deal of life in recovery is often spent finding a sense of belonging in the world. So often, clinical staff at Sunshine Coast Health Center hears from those clients who have slipped or relapsed that they didn’t feel this belonging. Here’s a typical example: ‘I cleaned up, did everything suggested to me, I’m living this middle class existence…and I’ve never been so bored in my life!’. Other clients report that they don’t find a sense of belonging at 12 step meetings. Or even at home. In short, they still don’t feel comfortable in the world.

So how do we pull off this trick of feeling completely comfortable, whether at an AA dance or at work or at home? This article looks at some of the strategies people in recovery can use.This is an important point: To find a sense of belonging in the world requires action. Clients are often reminded that they are the authors of their lives. Waiting for someone else to help may mean waiting an eternity. 

Tip # One: Start asking yourself, “What does Life demand of me?”

Addicts are notorious for demanding that people (and situations) change to suit their own needs and expectations. What this looks like in daily life is that they usually go about their lives making demands on the world. Some examples: I demand that I be able to use drugs, even though they are illegal. I demand that I be allowed to drink and drive, because I’ve run out of booze and I really need more. I demand that I be allowed to leave the family for three days to get loaded and then be forgiven. I demand that I be the centre of attention. I demand….I demand…I demand. For Sunshine Coast clients, this may remind them of the story King Baby.

Alumni at Sunshine Coast are often asked: “What are you prepared to do for your recovery?” One of the reasons we ask this is because so many clients come into treatment making demands on recovery: ‘I will stay in recovery if and only if…’ and then come the demands. ‘I came into recovery to learn how not to use my drug of choice….but I demand that I be allowed to have a beer or smoke pot because they were not problems for me’. Or how about this one: ‘I will take risks…but I demand that I only have to take risks that I’m comfortable with’. Or this one: ‘I demand that my recovery progress only if my family is fully supportive’.

Some clients get upset when they call a government office and then get put on hold for 30 minutes. They are demanding that someone answer their call immediately. Some clients get frustrated when they have to wait 90 minutes at the hospital to get their blood tests done. Some clients get upset when there is no space in the van to go to the recreation complex. Some get upset when their family members do not visit.

In all these examples, the person is making demands on others and on situations. The reason that this is dangerous for recovery is that anyone who makes demands on Life is still an outcast, still on the outside of life looking in.

A much better approach is to stop demanding that people act a certain way or think a certain way. The strategy to accomplish this is to ask yourself, ‘What does Life (this situation) demand of me?’ The genius of this approach is that people in recovery then join in with life. When they join in with life, they’re no longer on the outside looking in, no longer an outcast.

Tip # Two: Start connecting with others in the community

Another approach to feeling a sense of belonging is to get involved in the world. 

It probably isn’t a surprise to you to learn that researchers have found a very strong link between recovery and volunteering. And, as we remind our clients, at every 12-step meeting there are really three meetings: the get-together before the meeting, the meeting, and the get-together after the meeting. The reason for this is that you need to feel ‘part-of’ the group.

Here are some examples of things that Sunshine Coast alumni are doing: volunteering to be the contact person for Sunshine Coast clients when their program is over, volunteering to sit on a Board of Directors, volunteering to be the Group Service Representative of their AA group, helping out serving Christmas supper in a poor neighbourhood, coaching a minor hockey team, giving talks to high school kids on the dangers of drugs, raising money for a charity, helping out at the local amateur theatre group, helping promote environmental awareness, joining a political party, etc. It’s quite remarkable that those alumni who do these things also say they are doing well in recovery.

It’s a strange thing, but most of us don’t even know our neighbours. It’s hard to feel a sense of belonging when we don’t even know who’s living next to us. Lots of people in recovery go out of their way to be good neighbours. Some typical examples are helping out shoveling snow after a snow storm, holding a neighbourhood barbeque, joining a neighbourhood-watch program or an ‘adopt-a-street’ program to pick up litter, sending Christmas cards to each neighbour, inviting a neighbour over for coffee.

Tip # Three: Start taking action to make different parts of your life more appealing

It’s interesting that people who are fulfilled in recovery do things that are very meaningful to them.

Some alumni have worked jobs that they find no longer a challenge. In recovery, they have returned to school or are pursuing other careers.

Some are near retirement or have other obligations, so they cannot realistically give up their jobs. But they have done things to make the job more interesting such as relocating to another company office, shifting to a new location, asking their manager if they could work toward a higher position, giving up working overtime, sitting down with someone they have a conflict with and working it out, sitting down with their manager and expressing what is troubling them, etc. All of these strategies have the same purpose: to make the job more comfortable to go to.

As well as making work more interesting, many alumni have made their home life more exciting. Here are some of the strategies alumni have used: Wednesday night is family movie night, doing something special for each member of the family once a week, having coffee in bed with their partner on Saturday morning to talk about their relationship.

Tip # Four: Start looking at the positive

We all know that life is filled with misery. In fact, psychology researchers have discovered, as have artists, that our greatest fear is the knowledge that we will die. This is what the so-called ‘midlife crisis’ is all about: we’ve lived half of our lives, we’re not as physically resilient as we used to be, and we have gained the wisdom to begin reflecting on what we’ve accomplished.. And we also know that we will likely get sick or have an accident or have to deal with the goofy things our teenagers do.

We all suffer. People in recovery may find It’s easy enough to complain about the jerk at work or the AA member who smokes pot and yet takes a cake. It’s easy to dwell on our own weaknesses and the weaknesses of others.

But it is also true that we have many gifts: freedom of choice, freedom to change the way we look at ourselves and at the world, freedom to find something meaningful even in the worst possible situation. We’re not like a rat in a cage, who is trapped. We have the blessing of changing our situation and our attitudes. Remember that passage in the Big Book that says, “nothing happens by mistake”? We have the wonderful ability to learn and grow even from our worst failures.

We’ve known for thousands of years that we react to things according to how we make sense of them. It’s not the things in life that are important, but how we interpret them.

By Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC
Program Director, Sunshine Coast Health Center

Movies provide good lessons on what it means to be an addict and what it means to recover. Thoughtful movies, that is, not the sanitized and simplistic versions of recovery promoted in, for example, 28 Days with Sandra Bullock. This month on the alumni online program we’ll look at four thoughtful movies: Leaving Las Vegas, Under the Volcano, Hurlyburly, and Barfly.

These four movies don’t bother with superficial aspects of addiction or recovery. None of these movies is interested in what ‘triggers’ the addicted character’s cravings or their ‘maladaptive coping skills’. None of these movies labels addiction as a ‘disease’ or some sort of escape from life.

Rather, they provide us with a deep psychological understanding of what it means to be addicted. Like so many thoughtful works on addiction, they see the addict at a human level. The main characters are simply individuals who are struggling to make sense of their lives.

If you were at Sunshine Coast Health Center (“Sunshine Coast”) under our new therapy, you heard about the great psychologist, Viktor Frankl. These movies confirm Frankl’s explanation of addiction: “[A]lcoholism…is not understandable unless we understand the existential vacuum underlying [it].” The term, “existential vacuum,” means that a person struggles to find any satisfying meaning or purpose in life. Because of this, life seems boring and dull.

If you were at Sunshine Coast under the old therapy, the 12-step program agrees with Frankl’s idea. Narcotics Anonymous’ version is that the addict’s life is “meaningless, monotonous and boring.” Alcoholics Anonymous calls this feeling the “God-shaped hole” in life. Bill Wilson believed, of course, that this existential vacuum was why alcoholics drank, though he didn’t use Frankl’s term. The alcoholic was trying to fill the vacuum with booze. Remember that Bill W. said at the Shrine Auditorium in LA in 1943 that the alcoholic is the fellow “who is ‘trying to get his religion out of a bottle’, when what he really wants is unity within himself, unity with God….”

So many people in early recovery do not really appreciate how profound this idea is. They truly believe that if they quit the drug and get over their anger, depression, or whatever, then they will lead the good life. And they seem very surprised when they realize that this plan isn’t working too well for them.

But Bill W. and Frankl would not be surprised. They understood addiction at a human level. So, we’ll examine our movies and see if we can find in them any nuggets to help you fill that ‘God-shaped hole’ or that existential vacuum. 

Movie One—Leaving Las Vegas

Nicholas Cage (as Ben) and Elizabeth Shue (as Sera) do a wonderful job bringing to life John O’Brien’s novel, Leaving Las Vegas. This movie won 17 major awards and was nominated for 25 others. It’s a sad movie, but not depressing. And the great thing is that it doesn’t have all those stereotypical comments and scenes that we find in the sappy Hollywood versions of addiction.

As a sideline note, the late film critic, Roger Ebert, wrote his review of the movie on November 10, 1995, and said: “The practical details are not quite realistic—it would be hard to drink as much as Ben drinks and remain conscious….” Ha! Ebert obviously didn’t hang out with alcoholics.

One very interesting point about Leaving Las Vegas is that we really know nothing about the main characters. We don’t know about Ben’s ‘issues’; we don’t know why he’s drinking. All we know is that he is drinking himself to death. When this is pointed out to Ben, he turns it around, saying that his dying allows him to drink.

Ben knows exactly what he is doing. The movie is a plea for us to care for each other. It is a love story, and Ben and Sera care for each other even if the rest of society dismisses them. Ben knows that he could find happiness with Sera. But something makes him take another drink. This isn’t because he has a ‘disease’ or poor coping skills. Ben is struggling to find some sort of answer to suffering.

Ben’s real problem seems to be that he isn’t willing to fight for himself. Frankl said that happiness demands the “defiant human spirit,” the willingness to fight for your life. Ben recognizes his own suffering, he recognizes that most people live superficial lives, he recognizes that what advertisers call the ‘good life’ is all nonsense. But he is unwilling to take a heroic stand. Instead, he clings to his belief that only through drunkenness can he be free to be himself.

You should know that O’Brien committed suicide two weeks after signing the rights to make his book into a movie. His father said Leaving Las Vegas was his suicide note.

Movie Two — Under the Volcano

This movie with Albert Finney is based on Malcolm Lowry’s famous novel, Under the Volcano. There’s a BC link to the story. Lowry wrote the novel in Deep Cove, where he sobered up. And, interestingly, Nicholas Cage said that he studied this film as a role model for his character, Ben, in the movie Leaving Las Vegas.

Under the Volcano is one day in the life of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British consular officer in Mexico. We spend the day with him as he tries desperately to stay drunk, despite pleas from his doctor, friends, brother, and wife. 

The setting is the Festival of the Dead, which foreshadows Firmin’s fate as well as his life. He’s not very happy. He has lost his wife to the booze, his brother thinks he is crazy, and his doctor repeatedly warns him that an alcoholic death is not far off. Firmin struggles desperately to figure out a future where he can find peace of mind.

The year is 1939, when the world was plunging toward world war. The Western world seemed to have gone insane—another world war, one generation away from ‘the war to end all wars’. Safe in the obscurity of a small town in the south of Mexico, Firmin has tried to run away from the craziness only to find that he, too, is no better off.

Movie Three — Hurlyburly

Originally a famous play by David Rabe, Hurlyburly brings together several small players in the Hollywood film business in 1980s (the film version was updated to the 1990s). All the characters exist in an ‘existential vacuum’—there is a ‘God-shaped hole’ in their lives.

Eddie is the main character. He’s a drug fiend and is soon to hit bottom. The other male characters are in little better shape. There aren’t any real connections between the characters, which they openly admit. And women are useful mainly as sex objects and as presents to give to other male friends.

Eddie talks a lot, desperate to find some meaning in his empty life. A typical example is this dialogue between Eddie and Mickey:

Mickey (Kevin Spacey): You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t.
Eddie (Sean Penn): I do.
Mickey: No. I know you think you know what you’re saying, but you’re not saying it.
Eddie: No, I know what I’m saying. I don’t know what I mean, but I know what I’m saying. Is that what you mean?
Mickey: Yeah.
Eddie: Right. But it’s not like anybody knows what anything means, right? It’s not like anybody knows that. So at least I know I don’t know what I mean, which is better than most people. They probably think they know what they mean, not just what they think they mean.

This little exchange highlights Eddie’s dilemma of trying to figure out how to live a meaningful life. People only think they have meaningful lives, according to Eddie, but they’re just fooling themselves.

In the film, drugs (and sex) are distractions from coming to terms with his “meaningless, monotonous and boring” life, as Narcotics Anonymous would judge Eddie’s existence.

Movie Four — Barfly

Barfly is a novel written by the addict-writer Charles Bukowski. He based it more or less on his own life. Bukowski became famous writing lots of poetry and short stories and novels about the addicted ‘down-and-outers’. The film version of Barfly (with Mickey Rourke) has become a cult classic about the American subculture.

The central setting of the film is a bar, where Henry (Rourke) is at home, drunk as usual and getting into fights as usual, particularly with the bartender. But Henry also has a talent for writing poetry. A healthy-minded socialite appreciates his literary genius and convinces him to sober up and get serious about his writing. He agrees, and she organizes his life for him, including providing him with a place to stay and making sure he is introduced to the movers and shakers in the artistic world.

But Henry soon realizes that he has given up control of his life to her. Eventually, he returns to the bar and his old lifestyle.

A typical healthy-minded person would likely be perplexed why an addict would choose to be an addict, especially after tasting the ‘good’ life. Henry has a new wardrobe, is well fed, is making new healthy friends. So why return to drunkenness and fighting the bartender?

The problem for Henry is that, clean and sober in his new clothes and going to formal parties, he realizes that he has lost control of his own life. If a person is to be happy, says the movie, he must feel in charge of his life. For Henry, the only place where this is possible is in the bar, drunk and fighting. 

Obviously, coming to some place like Sunshine Coast is not even in Henry’s mind. But if he did come to Sunshine Coast, he would hear us tell him: “You are the author of your life.” That would make sense to Henry.