A good listen
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Sad , thanks for sharing that one
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I wasn’t quite sure where to put this but this thread seemed close.
This article is written by a media writer and director who is in recovery from alcohol (4 years now). In her view, while the shows and movies featuring female alcoholics are sincere in their intent, none of the ones she’s seen really portray the depths and the details of women and their experiences of alcoholism:
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I don’t watch many scripted shows with female alcoholics …haven’t seen any she mentions. The most recent movie I saw was The Good House and it hit in a lot of ways.
The opinion piece lost me here tho…
The final character I’m waiting to see on a show with a sobriety storyline is God. The only universal sober experience I see again and again is a religious one. Evangelical, spiritual or scientific, you feel a larger hand guiding you toward life when you’ve favoured death. Having the courage to believe that life can be better feels holy. Whether they want to or not, sober people see saints, angels and omens everywhere they look.
Definitely not my experience. Tho perhaps I should look at life more metaphorically to grasp what she is suggesting??
I find more resonance with some movie depictions of women and drinking vs TV shows. Except some of The Housewives who have drinking problems. I find some of their behavior relatable and especially when they grapple with not drinking anymore. The real struggle of Countess LouAnn on The Real Housewives of New York…mug shot and all. Her bouts of sobriety and then drinking again and then sobriety. Real stuff and I got it…as well as friends reactions. Same with Leah and her sobriety or Taylor and her alcohol induced outbursts when her husband was still alive and abusing her…and how her friends couldn’t believe it all and their incredibly callous approach to something they obviously did not understand. Real life, magnified or mirrored.
Thanks for getting me thinking on this topic Matt!! 
Editrd to add…not that my life is anything like The Housewives…ha! Just in how they relate to eachother and the sadness, grief, shame and sloppiness of their drinking.
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I also think she’s probably talking big-picture here; I don’t think she means “God” in a strict traditionally Western, religious sense (though I don’t know her, but I’m assuming based on her words “Evangelical, spiritual or scientific, you feel a larger hand guiding you”), but instead as a larger pattern.
Sort of like a flower in a garden. The flower grows on its own, but there are unquestionably other forces - earth-level forces like worms, soil, organisms; and forces that are definitely far more powerful than the flower (for example, the sun, a force on which every cell of every organism depends for its life, but which also has the power to exterminate us in an instant) - there are other forces, greater in scope and power, that shape the bigger picture.
If recovery is a flower and we are working to grow, one day at a time, then the more we do to get in harmony (give and take, up and down, learning, growing) with those wider natural patterns and forces, the more we grow.
Anyway that gets a little philosophical - a little metaphorical - but it’s all to say I think you’re right on, I think she’s being metaphorical here.
I think the story of women in addiction and women in recovery has as many stories as there are women. It’s a rich, heartbreaking, but also hopeful space for storytelling. There are definitely more stories to be told.
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Thanks for posting this. The Flight Attendant showed some of the ugly of alcohol addiction, but it still managed to glamorize consumption as well. Thanks for reminder of The Good House, Sassy!
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The book and movie are brilliant! Plus…Sigourney Weaver!!!
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Indeed Matt. For men as well. I harken back to Faye Dunaway in Barfly…tho romanticizing (it is Bukowski after all), still personifies the life for some (again, Bukowski…the guy knew his way around a bar). Carrie Fisher had some honest writing and acting portrayals that landed for me as well. 
Her and her Mom
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I am all for it.
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Not 100% specifically about recovery but Jason’s addiction and recovery feature big in this beautiful (IMO) documentary.
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Eye-opening! Thank you so much for this. I understand a lot more now what’s going on inside me and a lot now makes sense!
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Love your videos…I’m from Detroit and your interviews help us see the person behind the addiction with compassion. Thank you.
All Addictions and recovery based.
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Another good video I have posted in the past. Hope you don’t mind me reposting it here. I’ll check out the one you suggested tonight!
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never had these videos when i got sober only Face to face meetings no internet i went to meetings and it worked that was in the 20th century still sober in the 21st if these videos help people thats great wish you guys well
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Please remember that sobriety can be progressive too. We can go from fighting urges minute to minute to living happy joyous and free.
It takes work, energy and time to get to a place where alcohol problems are removed from us, where they don’t exist anymore for us, and it is so worth it for us to arrive there!!
Haven’t had an urge or thought to pick up in decades!!
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