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Requiem for a Dream

Requiem for a Dream depicts the personal and environmental factors underlying addictive behaviour.

It is a movie about addiction in a wider context, which highlights the devastating impact on physical and mental health.

Personal ambitions and dreams can lead to addictive behaviour and turn into a disastrous deep dive into one’s darkest side, when placed on an unrealistic and distorted base.

Loneliness, psychological isolation and avoidance of reality in different ways result in a devastating and disastrous reality on the expense of the “dreamer”.

Empathetic human-agent interaction can offer comfort and support empowering and strengthening recovery and rehabilitation.

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Big In Japan

Christiane F. – Wir Kinder Vom Bahnhof Zoo (1981)

Christiane F., a 13 year old fascinated by Berlin’s nightlife in late ’70s falls in love with Detlev, a 14 year old lad hooked on drugs.

Her love for Detlev prompts her to use drugs including heroin. She wants to be at the same state with Detlev and feel the same high. She gets hooked on heroin and after her 14 birthday scores humiliating herself.

Detlev and Christiane go cold turkey and relapse. Their best friend dies from overdose and they end up at a Detlev’s acquaintance’s flat. Christiane wakes up in the middle of the night facing the gloomy reality and devastated runs away. Overwhelmed by a series of woeful events she overdoses.

Christiane finally made it to recovery, however most of her bunch either died or are still hooked.

Christiane F. – Wir Kinder Vom Bahnhof Zoo (1981)

*Big in Japan: it is used to symbolise the idea of being drug-free, of being successful in another world

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The Rat Park Studies

unknown author. The Rat Park Experiment. Marin Mikulic website

In the late 1970s and early 1980s Bruce K. Alexander and other researchers run a series of experiments investigating the self-administration of morphine in rats firstly under a cage alienation and loneliness condition; then in a rat fun park condition, where there were other rats to associate and play with and engage in a number of playful activities. In both conditions rats were provided with two bottles: one contained just water and the other morphine in water. In the first instance rats consumed the morphine water to death; in the second they were interested in socialising mating and resisting to the morphine solution. The conclusion of these experiments confirmed that environmental and societal conditions are key in developing addictive behaviour, thus addiction.

References:

Alexander BK, Beyerstein BL, Hadaway PF, Coambs RB. Effect of early and later colony housing on oral ingestion of morphine in rats. Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 1981 Oct;15(4):571-6. doi: 10.1016/0091-3057(81)90211-2. PMID: 7291261.

Alexander-et-al-1981-Effect-of-Early-and-Later-Colony-Housing-on-Oral-Ingestion-of-Morphine-in-RatsDownload

Hadaway, P.F., Alexander, B.K., Coambs, R.B. et al. The effect of housing and gender on preference for morphine-sucrose solutions in rats. Psychopharmacology 66, 87–91 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00431995

Hadaway-Alexander-Coambs-et-al-1981-The-Effect-of-Housing-and-Gender-on-Preference-for-Morphine-Sucrose-Solutions-in-RatsDownload

Rat Park drug experiment cartoon. (2013, May 29). Retrieved from http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/

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It’s All Gone Wrong!

It’s all gone Pete Tong1!

…Frank just locks himself up in his room…didn’t come out of his villa for a long time.

He had this theory he was gonna get his hearing back…

He hired people to bring in supplies for him to the villa. The only accounts we have of Frank during this period come from various drug dealers. He was in a very dark place.

References:

Dowse, M. (2004). It’s all gone Pete Tong. Vertigo Films. True West Films.

see full movie transcript here

  1. Cockney rhyming slang for “wrong”. ↩︎