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| A Star is Born (2018) Movie Poster |
SPOILER ALERT
Whether it's rum, tequila, whiskey, wine or beer, having too much of it radically often, can lead to further issues. If there's a debilitating sense of withdrawal when one’s sober, maybe just then one might realize there's a problem with alcohol dependency. Hollywood has portrayed this disease for years now in hundreds of films. Some are accurate, some seem to be pure parody, but whether they get it right or wrong, alcoholism is not something to joke with, laugh about or run from. In the 2018 film A Star Is Born, Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) is an acclaimed musician who travels across the country playing concerts and charming fans with his voice. In one of his trips he ends up in a bar where he meets Ally (Lady Gaga), who he immediately falls in love with.
The movie received 8 major Academy Awards nominations and won Best Original Song for Shallow. We learn throughout the film that Jackson had a strenuous upcoming. He was born to a 63-year-old father and a 17-year-old mother who passed away in childbirth, leaving young Jackson in the care of his alcoholic, absent and abusive father, and Bobby, his significantly older brother. Maine saw no other course of action to manage the pain following his childhood trauma and his escalating fame, so he surely turned to alcohol (mixed with other drugs), which quickly became an addiction with which he couldn't live without, a wrenching habit he couldn't seem to kick.
As the story progresses, we are witnesses of a true love story, but also a heart wrenching life led by alcohol dependency often combined with substance abuse. Although Ally shows unconditional support for his partner, there comes a time where she demands he gets help, and so he does. While her husband is in treatment, we hear Ally say to him in one of her visits “It’s not your fault. You have a disease”. How different would Jackson's life be if he heard this in his young teenage years. As the movie is coming to an end, we are shown the devastating effects alcoholism has on people who suffer from it, witnessing Cooper’s character take away his own life.
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| Still image of Jackson Maine drinking. |
FACTS AND FIGURES
Alcoholism is not something to mess around with. It's been proven that every day, kids start drinking at a younger age. In fact, a study made by Columbia University points that underage drinkers account for 11.4% of all alcohol consumers, boys having their first drink at the average age of 11 and girls at 13. Teens who start drinking by the age of 15, are five times more likely to develop an alcohol dependency or substance abuse as they transition to adulthood, as to someone who starts drinking at 21.
Not only does underage drinking put the young ones life at risk, but the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has revealed that it also leads to alternative problems including (amongst others):
School problems: higher absence and poor or failing grades.
Social problems: fighting and lack of participation in youth activities.
Legal problems such as arrest for driving under the influence (DIU) or physically hurting someone while drunk.
Physical problems such as hangovers or illnesses.
Physical and sexual assault.
Unwanted, unplanned and unprotected sexual activity
Higher risk for suicide and homicide.
Regarding alcoholism in people over the age of 18, the NIH (National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism) has stated that only in the United States, 14.4 million people suffer from AUD (Alcohol Use Disorder), from which only 7.9% have received treatment in the past year. Furthermore, in 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) determined that annually, 3 million deaths occur as a direct result of harmful alcohol consumption, accounting for 5.3% of total deaths. The same research presents that in people from ages 20 to 39, such ingestion is responsible for 13.5% of all passings.
A study made by Our World in Data presents detailed information as to the average alcohol consumption by country. The following image shows a global map, followed by color related exposure regarding the amount of liters of pure alcohol drank by people aged 15 or older.
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| Alcohol consumption per person, 2016. Recovered from Our World in Data |
Alcohol consumption in large amounts has been proven to take serious trolls in one’s health. The NIH (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism) has stated that some of the main consequences include, but are not limited to:
Brain: interference with neurological communication pathways, brain structure, mood regulation, behavior and concentration/focus
Heart: cardiomyopathy, arrhythmias, strokes and high blood pressure.
Liver: steatosis (fatty liver), alcoholic hepatitis, fibrosis, cirrhosis
Pancreas: production of toxic substances that lead to pancreatitis, dangerous inflammation and swelling of the blood vessels preventing proper digestion.
Cancer: there have been studies that present the serious relationship there is between alcohol consumption and the development of certain cancers including head and neck, esophageal, liver, breast and colorectal cancer.
Although the journey to sobriety presents a serious challenge to most alcoholics, there are several institutions that provide help to those willing to surrender to their disease. Hundreds of treatment centers are available, but Alcoholics Anonymous continues to be the global number one source that people turn to as a tool to reach and maintain sobriety. AA is an international fellowship made of people who have had a drinking problem, it’s nonprofessional, self-supporting, multiracial, apolitical and available almost everywhere. There are no age or education requirements. Membership is open to anyone who wants to do something about his or her drinking problem. Alcoholics Anonymous offers a safe place for those who struggle with binge-drinking, and a 12-step-method guided by their AA Big Book for all the men and women who seek sobriety.
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| Alcoholics Anonymous Official Symbol |
OUTSIDE THE WIDESCREEN
A young woman was interviewed regarding her alcoholism and her journey towards sobriety. For anonymity purposes we'll name her Jill. Here’s what she had to say about her condition:
How did your alcohol dependency start?
So my alcohol dependency started after I graduated high school. I had gotten drunk a few times in high school, but I was so tightly wound around school and all of that stuff that I wanted to stay in control of that. Then after I graduated and I started drinking and it just felt so good to lose control and let the alcohol take over. Very quickly after that, it became a daily thing for me with other drugs mixed in.
What were you looking for when you drank?
When I was drinking I was looking for, like I said, just the ability to lose control and take over my body. I wanted to forget everything, I wanted to have fun, I didn’t want to be stuck in the thoughts and all of that that I had in my head all the time, so alcohol was a huge release for me. I felt better, I felt out of control for the first time in my life and I did a lot of bad things but I didn’t remember, so alcohol became my best friend.
How did your alcoholism affect your family and friends?
My alcoholism affected my family and friends deeply. With my family they were worried about me all of the time. I went from being a perfectionist student who always followed the rules, never did anything wrong, to not coming home and not communicating, ending up in places I didn’t know how I got. I drank and drove a lot so I was put in the risk a lot in that way. With my friends I just became a terrible friend. I acted out in a lot of behaviors that hurt the people I loved the most. I isolated all my friends away from me that didn’t want to do what I was doing. So basically, the only people I wanted to hang out with were the people who were drinking and using drugs like I was.
Do you feel like your alcoholism put your life at risk at any point? If so, how?
Alcoholism definitely put my life at risk. I got in several car accidents. Like I said I drank and drove a lot. There was one time I crashed straight into a wall and totaled my car. I’m actually not quite sure how I didn’t get hurt at all. I ended up in a lot of bad places with men, a lot of places I didn’t even know where I was. One time I accidentally got in the car with people I didn’t know and they just drove off with me in the car. They ended up taking me back but I was in a lot of shitty situations that I should not have been in. I just got really lucky. There’s a few times that I drink way too much and would pass out. The worst time I think I was at a sorority event and I drank a lot. I was mixing in other drugs and I ended up overdosing and luckily my friends called 911 and they had to use the defibrillators on me. I was taken to the hospital, my blood alcohol level was .41, so I was really lucky I survived that as well.
Along with your alcoholism, did you struggle with any other issues or mental health illnesses?
So along with my alcoholism yes, I have other issues and mental health illnesses. I’ve been diagnosed as bipolar, PTSD, OCD, anxiety and depression, but I think the main issue I have asides that is an eating disorder. I’ve been diagnosed anorexic and bulimic. Anorexia has always been my primary issue from when I was little, even before I was drinking. But my bulimia and alcoholism went hand-in-hand, like they were best friends: one could not live without the other. I think the alcohol kind of put an edge on me so that I could continue going deeper into my eating disorder. I think that if I didn’t have my eating disorder from when I was little, I really don’t think I would have all these other issues, because that has been my number one thing throughout it all, but it has made my alcoholism much worse.
What made you realize that you needed help in getting sober?
The first time I got sent to treatment was after I overdosed on alcohol and other drugs. My parents made me go there. I didn’t really want any part of it, I had no intention of getting sober. So I went, I came home, I relapsed, and after that it was my choice to go to rehab. I remember that I had gone out of town with some friends to another college and I was alone in my car drinking a bottle of vodka by myself like I always did. I always kept vodka in my car and I was about to go into an event and I could not go into one social event sober. I couldn’t go anywhere sober, I didn’t know how to socialize without alcohol. So I’m sitting in my car, drinking and drinking and drinking all this vodka and I got to a point where I wasn’t really getting drunk any more. The alcohol stopped turning off my head and I was still having all of the thoughts so at that point it was like it’s not working any more, something else has got to work because I can’t do this anymore. It was miserable. After that I ended up going to treatment and I have been sober since then.
How long have you been sober ?
I have been sober since March 26, 2014, so coming up on seven years.
What does your sobriety look like today?
Today my sobriety looks a lot different than it used to. When I first got sober I was heavily involved in AA. Since then, I’ve gotten into a relationship and I’ve had a baby so I have a one-year-old. There's just not as much time now for sobriety. Like I had mentioned before, my eating disorder has always been my primary concern, so I focus more on my eating disorder recovery because I know that if I'm active in my eating disorder I will not be able to stay sober. So yeah, I’m not really an AA me more but I still go to therapy and I still do work with my eating disorder.
If you could give advice to your younger self, what would it be?
If I could give advice to my younger self, all I would say is don't let other people's opinions of you or what other people say to you become your truth, because I think that a lot of the self-deprecating thoughts that I had about myself that played a large part in my alcoholism and other issues, were things that other people said to me. I kind of took that on as my own and with childhood traumas and stuff like that, I let that become my reality. I let it happen to me and build who I was as a person. I saw myself as nothing more than a worthless piece of crap. So, what I would say is don't take those things to her like just because these things happen it doesn't mean that that's you know who you are and love yourself. Try to find some self-love because I think if I had had some self-worth and self-respect and all of that I wouldn't have done the things that I did
Regarding the entertainment industry, what do you think of movies (Ex. A Star Is Born) that portray their main characters as alcoholics?
The entertainment industry… I think that a lot of movies actually do a really good job portraying their main characters as alcoholics and I remember seeing A Star is Born in theaters and watching Bradley Cooper. I was almost in tears the whole time because he is such a phenomenal actor. It's like, especially as an alcoholic has been through similar things it was like you could feel his pain through the movie. You know there were parts where I was crying throughout it because I have so been there. Some movies kind of glamorize it and make it look like alcoholism is a cool thing and it's cool to do drugs and get messed up, but I think A Star is Born actually did a really good job at showing what it is to truly be an alcoholic and experience the pain and frustration and secrets and the loneliness that comes with it. So yeah, I think it portrayed alcoholism very, very well and Bradley Cooper did a great job with that. Very relatable.
RESOLUTION
So, Jackson Maine’s portrayal of such a condition was not far from the truth. We are able to see in both cases, a real one and a fictional one, how alcohol is used as a coping mechanism to deal with childhood trauma and other situations that are too hard to handle by oneself. For people with alcoholic tendencies, such substance promises relief, happiness, and ease. But in reality, alcohol dependency puts one's life at risk as well as those who surround him/her. It has devastating effect on one’s lifestyle and it compromises the mind and body, along with other cataclysmic outcomes.
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| Still movie image of Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) and Ally (Lady Gaga). |
Alcoholism is not something to joke with or aspire to have. It is a serious condition that threatens one’s life and should be taken seriously. Alcohol has taken enough lives and ended millions of relationships between family members, friends, etc. Ally and Jackson's story should serve as an example of how unconditional support should look like between loved ones, but also between family members and friends while working towards recovery from such condition. It’s about time to end the stigma regarding alcoholism, and instead of fearing and avoiding people with the disease, lend a helping hand and show support in their journey to sobriety.
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