Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Intervention


Quote of the day:
"The great secret of doctors, known only to their wives, but still hidden from the public, is that most things get better by themselves; most things, in fact, are better in the morning."
--Lewis Thomas

Reality TV ranges from the insightful to the insipid. I’m watching across this spectrum--from “Intervention” to “House Hunters” to “Kitchen Nightmares” all the way down to “Survivor.”

“Intervention” has just begun a new season. It's an excellent show, though it’s very easy to dismiss it as “depressing.” It’s about addiction. More precisely, it’s about addicts and their families and friends.

Each show ends with an intervention involving the addict, family and friends, guided by a trained professional. Just before the credits, there is a moment where a slide explains what happened in the weeks or months after the intervention.

But the show is really about what addiction is, and how it happens within loving, normal families. By “normal,” I mean families with problems. All families have problems. Some show them, most don’t.

One of the reasons this show is so good is that addiction is so pervasive through our society. When our culture’s predisposition to pleasure-seeking, quick gratification and control meets the psychological and biological needs of an addict, it’s like a spark hitting gunpowder.

“Intervention” is done in a very straightforward documentary style. There is no narration. We simply see all the participants either living their lives or talking into the camera.

I don’t know exactly how it’s done, but the producers have full access to the lives of its subjects. We see as matter-of-fact the usually-concealed daily habits of alcoholics, drug addicts, anorexics and gambling addicts.

It’s not always pretty, but it is very insightful. Most of the people portrayed are normal people who live and work among us. We see how easily their lives have gone wrong.

And we see how mostly well-meaning friends and family members are almost always part of the addict’s problem. And they need to change their self-destructive expectations just as the addict needs to change her self-destructive habits.

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