I watched the final episode of Smash recently. I recorded it on my DVR so I was a bit behind the times.
I don’t watch a whole lot of TV but when I’ve become attached to a series, I always feel some sadness whenever it comes to a close. The people I’ve come to know and love, even in all their dysfunction, are leaving my life. And so, while the sadness will pass quickly, I thought it was a good opportunity to use the characters and script to further our understanding of addiction.
We’ll focus on the character of Jimmy. He’s a great example of how addiction works and what it does to so many lives.
Over the last few episodes, we learned more about Jimmy’s personal story and history. Having grown up in a family with an abusive mother who disappeared, he was left with his brother to fend for themselves.
They got into drugs, first taking them and, eventually, dealing them. Jimmy was haunted by things he did that were not at all in alignment with who he knew he was on some level. Those things made it impossible for him to let love in. He couldn’t trust that somebody would love him if they knew who he really was, what he’d really done.
So, it was a great example of how addiction works to isolate its prey making it even more vulnerable to sinking deeper into relying on a substance or behavior to find some relief.
Jimmy had people in his life who cared about him. His friend, Kyle, who died in an accident really helped to pull him out of the dysfunctional life he was living. Early on, we could see that while Jimmy might not be actively consumed by his addictions, he was certainly not (by any stretch of the imagination) happy, healthy, whole, and fulfilled.
He was obviously a very troubled soul. It wasn’t until Kyle’s death that it struck him. He realized that he needed to grow up.
So, I think it’s a great example for those of us who find addiction so fascinating – whether you’re struggling with addiction yourself or you have a loved one that really struggles with it.
Addiction is almost always, at its core, a coping mechanism. It’s just a way to try to manage the feelings that are overwhelming.
At a certain point, as you start to try to extract the addictive behaviors from your life, all of these emotions that you were managing with your addiction are going to rise to the surface and have to be dealt with. So, ultimately, you have to be willing to go through the healing – all the way to your core.
Healing the core trauma, in order to really find true recovery, takes bravery and commitment.
This is the reason why so many fail in recovery. Getting sober is not really that hard. It’s dealing with what happens once you get sober that is monumentally challenging. All those emotions that you were using the addictive behavior to avoid dealing with simply must be addressed. There’s no way around it.
So, have empathy for yourself and for those struggling to recover. It’s a courageous journey to commit to do the work to heal yourself. But, that healing holds the promise of lasting, sustainable recovery so that you can live a happy, healthy, whole, and fulfilled life.
