TVScope
Going Cold Turkey,
Channel 4, 20th-24th February 9.30am; 20th-23rd February, 11pm.
We have become so used to heroin addiction, in Dublin at any rate, that it has moved from being the stuff of horror to being a source of humour.
The three heroin addicts canvassing for votes on the RTÉ comedy series Stew produced some of its funniest moments. There is nothing wrong with this. God knows, society pays enough of a price for heroin addiction to be entitled to get a few laughs out of it. That said, though, heroin addiction is a deadly serious phenomenon. Last week's Going Cold Turkey series on Channel 4 underlined the misery it brings to addicts and to their families.
The series followed three heroin addicts as they tried to kick their habit at a detox clinic. By the end of the week, two were able to go home. The third had detoxed from opiates but was suffering symptoms from benzodiazepam and was kept in the clinic.
Detoxing is only the start of a long road to recovery, as the programme made clear. One of the addicts, Alison, had been on heroin for 16 years. Her daughters are teenagers which means that her heroin addiction has been a reality for them throughout their lives. Will Alison make it this time? Unfortunately she didn't make it to the TV studio for an interview following her release. But her mother and daughter expressed their optimism that Alison is on the road to recovery.
The scene brought home the fact that heroin addicts survive on hope and love. They survive on their own hope, and on that of their families, that they will get clean. And they survive on the love of their families who build their lives around their addicted sons or daughters. The family sacrifices time, emotional energy, physical energy and money to helping the addict. Very often, unfortunately, the task goes on for years and years and is exhausting and painful for all concerned.
Of the three heroin addicts featured in last week's series, viewers would probably give the best chance of a sustained recovery to Darren who appears strong and confident but well aware of the size of the challenge that faces him. He compares his five days off drugs to his 10 years on them. And he is aware that he must find ways to fill the time that used to be taken up with getting and using drugs.
Amanda, who has multiple addictions and who was kept in the clinic at the end of the week, appears, on the face of it, to be the most hopeless case. Yet we learn from her parents that her brother had gone to this clinic a few years previously and is now doing very well. One can only guess at the disruption that that family has suffered because of addiction and wonder at the glowing hope in the faces of her parents.
Addiction is all around us, to heroin and cocaine, alcohol, sex, pornography and anything else that can help people escape from pain and boredom. We live in a contradiction: a society that offers us a previously unimaginable quantity and variety of amusements is unable to satisfy us.
For more on addiction, Channel 4's website around the programmes at http://www.channel4.com/
health/microsites/A/addiction/
programmes.html is well worth spending some time in.
Padraig O'Morain is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.