Alcohol Use on Television
Alcohol use on television can have quite an impact on viewers according to today’s guest author, Candice Rasa, LCSW. Candice is the clinical director of Beach House Center for Recovery, a drug and alcohol addiction rehabilitation center in Juno Beach, Florida. With more than 10 years of experience in the mental health and substance arena, Candice supports healing in the clients she serves from a perspective of spirituality and alternative Eastern methods.
Alcohol Use on Television: The Good, the Bad and the Dangerous by Candice Rasa
Guest author, Candice Rasa, LCSW, shares her thoughts about alcohol on television.
Art imitates life, so it’s no surprise that in many television shows, there are portrayals of characters in various stages of alcohol misuse. Over the course of many episodes, viewers witness representations of alcohol abuse and addiction from its roots to its rock bottom, and hopefully to recovery—or sometimes to a deadly conclusion. Whether it’s in a comedy, drama, sci-fi thriller or even cartoon, alcohol is repeatedly a main character of modern television.
But this becomes dangerous when art starts to imitate life, and a study showed that people who watch shows that feature heavy drinking are more likely to become heavy drinkers themselves.
Fans are exposed to alcohol misuse on television starting at a young age. On youth-driven shows like Beverly Hills 90210, The OC and Gossip Girl, they see characters who are rich, beautiful and popular face problems with drinking and drugs, often with few consequences. Though these programs portray high school life, their fan base is often much younger, and instead of acting as a teaching moment, these fictional scenarios have the opposite effect on impressionable viewers. Whether they mean to or not, shows that exploit alcohol misuse or addiction for ratings make the problem seem cool, rebellious or even sexy. The audience only discovers differently when they witness it in real life—but by then it may be too late.
Other shows, like How I Met Your Mother, Cheers and even The Simpsons, take place in bars, making light of binge drinking and other dangerous habits in their comedic formats. This is one of television’s biggest failures; rarely do characters on light-hearted primetime sitcoms face real-life repercussions, and reckless conduct is treated as a goofy punchline instead of a significant plight. Worse, this kind of imagery helps desensitize the viewer to high-risk behaviors, so they’re less likely to interpret unhealthy behavior in their own lives as such.
Fortunately, as quality television makes more of an effort to mirror our gritty reality, there have been some laudable portrayals of alcohol abuse on television. For every Game of Thrones, which often shows its stars reveling in drunken behavior, there’s a show like The Sopranos. On the critically acclaimed HBO series, the young mobster Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) turns to drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism for the pressures of his violent lifestyle. Christopher’s journey is hauntingly realistic: His addictions escalate until he hits rock bottom. Afterward, his family and friends stage an intervention and cart him off to rehab. Once he’s clean, Christopher struggles to maintain his sobriety amid temptation, heartbreak and workplace pressures, and he even enters into a toxic, enabling relationship with a fellow addict. Though fictional, this character is an excellent example of a serious truth of recovery: It’s not easy. It takes constant work, and it takes cutting the negative triggers out of your life.
The Sopranos has inspired other programs, like Mad Men and Fear the Walking Dead, which should also be lauded for showing the truth behind addiction. Even traditional broadcast sitcoms are beginning to tackle addiction in a more honest way; on the recent CBS hit Mom, Anna Faris and Allison Janney portray recovering addicts, and despite the laugh track, the show has featured glimpses of support meetings, homelessness and a fatal overdose. And it still manages to be funny.
While the issues surrounding alcohol abuse and addiction are unique to each affected person, the affliction itself is extremely common. Otherwise, it wouldn’t appear so often on our television screens. At times, this can be harmful, but when we see addiction treated fairly and honestly on our favorite programs, it makes owning up to the disease all the easier. The representations may be fictional, but they can have a tangible impact on viewers.
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