Intervention

I have been watching this show on and off since it first came out. I am grotesquely fascinated by it, because I have never seen a tv show that depicts this issue with such sensitivity. It is not something that is easy for most of us to watch, because unfortunately we may be watching it in real life. It is like holding up a mirror for society, and the mirror is telling us that the party lifestyle is not as glamorous as we may imagine.I do just hope they will continue to work with the families of the addicts in future shows. It is a little disturbing to me, as a person who has been affected by a loved one's drinking, to see just how much attention is focused on the addict. The show illustrates just how confusing and mixed up the atmosphere can be - that it is not usually just the addict who is suffering within the family.... If the family members do not get help for their own problems, the addict is so much more likely to go back to their drug of choice. I really do hope to see either more episodes that include the family in long term treatment, or even a spin-off show. It could be focused on helping the families recuperate and heal themselves while their addict family member is in treatment. We become addicted to our role in the addict's life, and when the addict changes, it can set off huge issues within a family. Some families don't even realize that their behavior is encouraging the addict to have a setback. In our desperate attempts to behave in a way that feels "normal" our ideas of normal are not in fact healthy.Addiction doesn't just affect the addict! If we really want to see addicts become healthy, we must first make our society healthier. It is not just the problem of the person who takes the drug. We can no longer simply condemn drugs, ignore their presence when we see it, and put the addicts away in jail. We must do more than that to help fix this problem. Let's start with the families. Families are basic building blocks of society, can be the small groups we start with, making change in drug policy and in our attitudes and beliefs around this disease.