Drug addiction is preventable. Drug education and prevention efforts aimed at children and adolescents and involving families, schools, communities and media can be effective in reducing drug misuse.
Risk and Protective Factors for Drug Misuse and Addiction:
| Risk and Protective Factors for Drug Misuse and Addiction | |
|---|---|
| Aggressive behavior in childhood/Good self-control | Lack of parental supervision/Parental monitoring and support |
| Poor social skills/Positive relationships | Drug experimentation/Academic competence |
| Availability of drugs at school/School anti-drug policies | Community poverty/Neighborhood pride |
These 13 principles of effective drug addiction treatment were developed based on three decades of scientific research. Research shows that treatment can help drug-addicted individuals stop drug use, avoid relapse and successfully recover their lives.
- Addiction is a complex, but treatable, disease that affects brain function and behavior.
- No single treatment is appropriate for everyone.
- Treatment needs to be readily available.
- Effective treatment attends to multiple needs of the individual, not just his or her drug abuse.
- Remaining in treatment for an adequate period of time is critical.
- Counseling— individual and/or group —and other behavioral therapies are the most commonly used forms of drug abuse treatment.
- Medications are an important element of treatment for many patients, especially when combined with counseling and other behavioral therapies.
- An individual’s treatment and services plan must be assessed continually and modified as necessary to ensure it meets his or her changing needs.
- Many drug-addicted individuals also have other mental disorders.
- Medically assisted detoxification is only the first stage of addiction treatment and by itself does little to change long-term drug abuse.
- Treatment does not need to be voluntary to be effective.
- Drug use during treatment must be monitored continuously, as lapses during treatment do occur.
- Treatment programs should assess patients for the presence of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B and C, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, as well as provide targeted risk-reduction counseling to help patients modify or change behaviors that place them at risk of contracting or spreading infectious diseases.
(These principles are detailed in NIDA’s Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research Based Guide.)
How to Help a Friend or Family Member
Some suggestions to get started:
Learn all you can about alcohol and drug misuse and addiction.
Speak up and offer your support: talk to the person about your concerns, and offer your help and support, including your willingness to go with them and get help. Like other chronic diseases, the earlier addiction is treated, the better.
Express love and concern: don’t wait for your loved one to “hit bottom.” You may be met with excuses, denial or anger. Be prepared to respond with specific examples of behavior that has you worried.
Don’t expect the person to stop without help: you have heard it before – promises to cut down, stop – but, it doesn’t work. Treatment, support, and new coping skills are needed to overcome addiction to alcohol and drugs.
Support recovery as an ongoing process: once your friend or family member is receiving treatment, or going to meetings, remain involved. Continue to show that you are concerned about his/her successful long-term recovery.
Some things you don’t want to do:
Don’t preach: Don’t lecture, threaten, bribe, preach or moralize.
Don’t be a martyr: Avoid emotional appeals that may only increase feelings of guilt and the compulsion to drink or use other drugs.
Don’t cover up, lie or make excuses for his/her behavior.
Don’t assume their responsibilities: taking over their responsibilities protects them from the consequences of their behavior.
Don’t argue when using: avoid arguing with the person when they are using alcohol or drugs; at that point he/she can’t have a rational conversation.
Don’t feel guilty or responsible for their behavior; it’s not your fault.
Don’t join them: don’t try to keep up with them by drinking or using.
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
- National Institute on Drug Abuse: Drugs, Brains, and Behavior – The Science of Addiction
- National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence
- National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University
- Alcoholics Anonymous
- Narcotics Anonymous
Adapted from: National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence
American Psychiactric Association,https://www.psychiatry.org
American Psychological Association, https://www.APA.org
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) https://www.drugabuse.gov/
Narconon, http://www.narconon.org/drug-abuse/signs-symptoms-heroin-use.html
EMPOWER COMMUNITY HEALTH - Counseling Services - 617-729-9111 
The strongest determinants of drinking patterns in society are socio-economic, cultural, and bio-behavioral factors and ethnicity/gender. Alice was genetically vulnerable to becoming an alcoholic because of her father’s and grandfather’s alcohol addiction. She also lived in a family or culture where alcoholism use was common and accepted, so the environmental factors were predictors in her case as well. On the other hand, low self-esteem could also be a trigger for alcoholism. If parents fail to make their children feel valued and important, the children may end up having poor self-esteem. Alice’s mother used to put her down. Alice received too much criticism while growing up. When children feel that they have failed to live up to their parents’ expectations, which was Alice’s case, they might find it difficult to value themselves. This situation could have left mental scars on Alice. Looking at Alice’s life, we can see that she had a high risk of following her dad’s pattern due to environmental and biological factors.
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I believe that that the biggest factors that contributed to Alice’s alcoholism were genetics and her current circumstances with her family. I believe that genetics have something to do with her alcoholism because she did bring up the fact that her father was an alcoholic when she was younger and she did have to go through that. As a child, Alice probably saw her dad drinking and thought it was alright to use alcohol as a way to deal with your problems. Another big factor that contributes to her alcoholism is the absence of her husband due to his occupation. His absence forces her to take on a lot of stress by being the head of her household and raising their children. Problems with feelings and thoughts also probably have a lot to do with her disease because since her husband is absent for the most part she probably doesn’t have anyone to vent her frustrations to.
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Typically, alcoholism develops gradually over time. Alice got to that point where she cannot stop drinking, hiding her problem by using tactics to cover her addiction. However, her situation got out control, hurting her daughters and husband emotionally and psychologically. For instance, Alice’s oldest daughter, Jess, was the most negatively affected by Alice’s alcoholism. One afternoon, Alice got home drunk, commanding her daughter to finish the homework and ignoring her daughter’s request. After that argument, Alice retrieved a liquor bottle and drank it mixed with some aspirins while her daughter was observing her. Jess was concerned, and she asked her mother if she was okay. Alice responded violently by slapping Jess. This physically abusive behavior is a common alcoholic parent issue and is common during intoxication. After that incident, Alice was so intoxicated that she lost consciousness, falling and breaking the shower doors; Alice got seriously injured, and Jess thought that her mother was dead. She was so affected by her mother’s behavior that she started avoiding her mother. Jess avoided eye contact with Alice, and she did not want to be close to her mother. Usually, children of alcoholics are in fear of abandonment, lack of love, and embarrassment. Even though Jess missed her mother, she took on the role of a mother, cooking breakfast for her younger sister Kasey. The little girl was mentally hurt.
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I agree that alcoholism can affect the person and if not the people around them in their everyday lives even more.
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I agree as well, the repercussions of alcoholism on the loved ones of the alcoholic can be much more severe that on the acoholic themselves. A luckily, Jess was mature for her age; she did not really struggle with feeling abandoned by her mother, Jess seemed to understand that her mother was struggling with issues of her own. When Alice was leaving for rehab Jess is noticeably cold to her. She also hides behind Michael when they go to visit Alice at rehab.
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It is sad to see that Jess has to go through the same thing Alice went through when she was her age. It came to mind reading your comment… what if Jess becomes an alcoholic later in life because of watching her mom do it? Also for those who believe is genetics, will Jess inherit the alcoholic gene just like Alice did from her father?
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What caused Alice’s behavior?
Early childhood experiences
Alice’s drinking addiction may have generated from her father’s previous drinking problems. Although she does not really digress, she mentioned her father to have had alcoholism. Watching her father drink as a child, especially to escape the stressful situations happening in him, could have established drinking as a coping method in Alice’s head. Also, children with alcoholic parents tend to suffer from constantly seeking affirmation and fear if abandonment. Which leads to the next possible attribute to Alice’s drinking.
Problems with feelings and thoughts?
Alice may have been struggling with personal fear if her husband leaving her or her children being taken away, so she drank to escape the internal conflict; which only could make things worse. Especially having her husband traveling for work, she did not have enough security in their relationship. Alice being alone with just her girls also got no secure affirming from anyone. Possibly even feeling down about herself.
Current circumstances
Alice’s husband was an airplane pilot, traveling for long periods of time. Alice had the stress of taking care of her daughters, her home, her job as a guidance counselor and all of her kids at school, all while her husband was away. Alice had to handle everything in her own. So she used drinking, like her father did, to escape the harsh reality.
What causes alcoholism?
Alcoholism does not have a set list of specific causes, but factors that create the alcoholic. Children with alcoholic parents are four times more likely to be alcoholics themselves. Also kids who drink before they are 15 are five times more likely. Also alcoholics can arise from more internal, emotional causes such as ptsd, stress, anxiety or depression, and any other mental health issue.
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This movie provides an in depth look into the struggle of addiction and recovery, but even more so, it illustrates the process of rebuilding relationships and a life after recovery. I think genetics definitely play a role in Alice’s addiction. As she explains, her father was an alcoholic, and she had her first drink at 9 years old. Her mother was abusive and unsupportive growing up. From a biological perspective, Alice may have had a genetic predisposition to need to drink more than her peers. From a Freudian perspective, the trauma from her childhood may have caused her drinking. She could not depend on her parents, so maybe she learned that alcohol was something she could depend on. I think behavioral theory definitely plays a role too. After growing up watching her father drink, there was probably part of Alice that learned drinking was an appropriate or affective way of dealing with the stress of life. With these factors from her childhood and with the stress of her daily life combined, it makes sense that her drinking escalated. While her husband clearly loved her very deeply, he was gone frequently for work, and Alice was left alone with the kids. She may have felt once again that she was alone and needed something to depend on, and turned to alcohol. Because Michael tends to enable Alice and does not hold her accountable for the mistakes she makes while drinking, Alice has an easier time hiding her behavior and her drinking quickly escalates. In recovery, Alice takes a very humanistic stance on her current state and the decisions she made in the past. She takes ownership of what she has done, especially when she gives her speech. She admits to hitting her daughter, to driving around with them while she was drunk, and even tells a story about when she went to go grab the paper and wasn’t wearing any clothes, which she is able to look back on and laugh. While she may feel ashamed, Alice still takes ownership for her actions, and does not let herself get caught up in the past. She is learning to accept her mistakes and move on towards the person she really wants to be. I think the bio-psycho-social model works the best for determining the causes of alcoholism. While genetics and environment play a role, nothing is set in stone. I think you need to look at all different aspects of life, because so many factors contribute to why a person could have substance abuse issues.
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I agree that one of the major points that I saw this movie bring out was that addiction doesn’t only affect the person itself but also the people around them.
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I first must say I have seen this movie before ,but never noticed any of psychology aspects involved in the film. In the Simplest form Alice’s drinking began when she was young. I personally believe that events that take place in early childhood, tends to mold and shape a person future decision making. Whether a person decides to follow or go a completely different route than their model is up to them. Genetics could possibly have played a role in Alice’s drinking problem, but that is not able to be determined. There was no other sibling mentioned to do a comparison too. I also believe that coping mechanisms like drinking alcohol are not whats genetic, but maybe depression or an addictive gene could be passed along .
Earlier like I was saying that early childhood could definitely play a role in future issues. Alice had her first drink when she was a child. She watched her father drink constantly and his behavior change. This was normal for Alice. Another reason why it happens in early childhood is parenting. Alice’s mother told her that she would be just like her father. Professing this to your child sometimes causes them to be even more defiant. Her mother played a role in her development by allowing Alice to see her father’s behavior and not preventing Alice from going down the same path but instead she promoted it.
Problem with feelings and thoughts also can play a role in Alice’s drinking problem. Alice had a lot of inner demons and she repressed all of this. She also had low self-esteem which was quite visible. She didn’t think highly of herself which gave her the reason to drink as her father did. She uses drinking as a mechanism to deal with her emotions instead of talking about them. She also felt alone most of the time. She also was upset with aspects of her marriage and was unable to voice it. This was another reason in Alice’s mind to turn to the bottle. Also having the voice of your parental figure saying your worthless and that your just like you father is a constant reminder for Alice to drink. I know with personal experience that sometimes there is the thought about “Who Am I without this thing?” Alice deals with the thought of can I survive without drinking and will I even be the same woman who Michael loved without it.
I think the current circumstances that Alice faced during her issue with alcoholism was a factor of everything she had been going through. She craved a better connection with her husband. Even more so and this is just observational, but her children also caused Alice to drink more. I myself am not a parent, yet I know the duties are sometimes overwhelming. Drinking was comfort for Alice and it was a way for her to step away from her issues with her marriage, raising children, her mother’s approval and her low self-esteem which at the time was eating away at her.
A wider society perspective that could have played into Alice’s drinking issue was the feeling of not being a good mother and wife. Alice herself felt like she was not living up to the expectations and took it out on not only herself by drinking but also mistreating her children while intoxicated. Another reason why I believe this played a role washer husband Michael. He was an enabler. When Alice was down he felt like he could be there for her finally that he was being helpful. In the form of healing the wider society also played a role because it allowed to step out of this world she created and go to rehab. It helped her connect with people who were going through the same thing as her.
In all honestly I truly do not know the causes of alcoholism. I do believe that it starts with parenting a child’s development and experiences that they go through. Different philosophers and theories even believe that its caused by different circumstances. I believe that all of these theories and concepts play some role in the obstacles presented but that in each individual case some factors are more prominent than others. In Alice’s it was childhood and that caused a spiraling effect in her decision making in adulthood.
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Fajr,
I really like your points about how Alice’s mother played a role in her drinking. I agree that her telling Alice she will end up just like her father probably left a huge impact on Alice. Drinking was normal for her, and she may have assumed alcoholism was her inevitable future, because she did not have anyone else telling her she was capable of so much more. I think this contributes to her fears during recovery of who she is without alcohol. Drinking has always been a part of her identity, so recovery might feel like complete transformation of personality for Alice. It makes me feel so sad for her that she fears Michael will not love her anymore. She is fighting so hard to improve herself, and unfortunately that means possibly giving up one of the things she loves most.
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Parental alcoholism is linked to a number of psychological disorders in children, affecting children’s emotional functioning. Alice no only had a father with an alcohol problem, but she had a mother that abuse her mentally putting her down.
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Something to think about, while watching this film is being able to look at a person, as just human rather than an “alcoholic”. A person’s vice does not have to be their definition. In this film you see the protagonist’s downfall and you think about what makes up a person internally. Watching Alice destroy herself as well as her family it makes you upset to watch her spiral down. Being married to a pilot, and having to take care of their daughters causes loneliness and doubting feelings of self worth, these factors drove Alice to resort to heavy drinking developing her alcoholism. Not onl y did this effect Alice but her whole family and those around her, her home became a toxic environment for everyone.
Psychodynamic Perspective: Alice suffered from alcoholism which could be considered to be an oral fixation, according to Sigmund Freud. Alcohol shows up within the first scene of the film. She meets her husband at the bar of the restaurant they were in. Early exposure at the age of 9 to alcohol may largely contribute to addiction and can be considered for an oral fixation.
Psychoanalytical Perspective: Alice’s vice could be attributed to genetics, as well as her early exposure of alcohol, which was also at her father’s bidding. Her mother would give her a hard time and constantly compare her to her father which could give some insight to what their relationship was like growing up. As a grown woman, her life pressures began getting more intense and having her husband distract her from these responsibilities definitely added to her addiction.
Problems with feelings and thoughts: Alice experiences a lot of loneliness, her loneliness was coped with her drinking. She was unable to function while being in her home with her daughters without drinking around them. The memories of her mother telling her that she is just like her father can be a source of trauma and could further be another reason for her drinking.
Current Circumstances: Her current situation, is the biggest factor. Being alone and raising children while your husband is constantly working can be enough for someone to go insane! For Alice it was drinking. To make matters worse, she also holds in her true feelings under a mask at work on a daily basis. She drowns her sorrows by talking to students and concerning herself with these students and their problems rather than facing her own.
Wider Society: Alice does go to seek help and she attends her AA meetings which offer her a great support system along with Michael and her children who serve as a motivational factor in getting better. She feels because admittedly she can not function without alcohol that she actually has a problem. Being able to open up and admit having a problem as such is a big step forward.
I can not help but wonder what would happen if she chose a cleaner path, how would her life turn out, or her children..
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Kei,
I thought your post covered all the aspects of psychology very well! I totally agree with you, it was very difficult to watch Alice’s downfall in the movie. I liked your comment about, “a person’s vice does not have to be their definition”. It can be very hard to look past someone’s vice, and try to understand the underlying causes for them drinking, smoking, etc. The continued trauma of memories from her conversations with Alice’s mother about her drinking can definitely affect how she views alcohol as her “savor”. We sure hope that Alice’s children were not deeply affected by Alice’s actions.
Sam
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When a Man Loves a Woman is a story about love an addiction. In the movie we see Alice engaging in alcoholic behavior much like her father did. I do not believe her alcoholism was genetic, but I believe its the only thing she ever knew since se grew up with alcohol in the home at such a young age. Even though Alice’s father was an alcoholic does not mean his children have the “Alcoholic gene” That simply does not exist. Environment and stress related issues may have not helped Alice stay sober, but I believe her choosing the drinking was absolutely a choice an not something she had to do. Her early childhood experiences with her drinking at a young age and seeing her father absolutely made her think it was “normal” to drink heavily, and we also had John who’s mother simply told him he was the odd man out of the family didn’t help his circumstances either. Alice’s problem with feelings and thoughts is tied to drinking when she is happy, sad, or indifferent. Her thoughts of drinking to be productive and successful is sad, and when she realizes this she tries to go to rehab to get sober and become ore successful with her family, job, and improve her quality of life. Alice’s current circumstance is her getting over this addiction an really trying to move forward. The wider society when it comes to issues like this, is like a host and its prey. John feels the best when Alice is under the influence, and he is trying to help her. He now has this idea that if Alice is drinking its his chance to show her how much he loves her an wants to care for her. But once she starts getting her life on track, he feels threatened. There are many causes of alcoholism, such as environment, learned behavior and observed behavior. I believe Alice was hit with all these major factors and didn’t know initially how to overcome her obstacles, but now she is learning and this is making her a better wife, mother, and productive member of society.
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When a Man Loves a Woman follows Alice on her journey through battling addiction. There could be many factors that cause Alice’s behavior. Most likely it is a combination of her upbringing and genetics, as well as current stress. She mentions several times that her mother treated her very poorly and made her feel unimportant. This would lead to a lot of pain and stress, and alcohol is her coping mechanism. She also says that her father was an alcoholic. This could have affected her genetically, environmentally, or both. She may be predisposed genetically to become an alcoholic. Alice’s father’s behavior could also have had an impact on his daughter. Children often end up mirroring their parents behavior in some way, so she probably first tried drinking because she watched him do it all the time. In addition to genetics and her childhood experiences, Alice’s situation in her adult life could have triggered her drinking. She appeared fine on the surface, but truthfully Alice struggled with feeling stressed out and undervalued. She turned to drinking to try to make the pain of her mental health problems go away. I think it is most likely that this combination of factors is what triggered her alcoholism.
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Hannah,
I agree that an upbringing can have a lot to do with alcoholism because as a child you tend to follow by example and if your parents are giving you the example of using alcohol to cope with problems than you are most likely to do the same when you get older.
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What causes Alice’s behavior:
Genetics could have caused Alice’s behavior due to her father’s shared role as an alcoholic. Just him being an alcoholic alone creates a greater chance for Alice to be one as she was exposed to alcoholism at an early age and it was in her environment as well as her father’s behavior was affected by it. Alice’s dependence on alcohol can also derive from the lack of independence she felt from her husband. Although he did try to be helpful and supportive with her drinking problem, his role was held solid by the consistent reassurance that Alice’s role as an alcoholic by default made her husband the one that had more control of his own life, making him seem like the superior figure in the parenting relationship.
Early childhood experiences play a big role in the contribution to Alice’s alcoholism because Alice began drinking at an obscurely young age. Her father’s constant alcohol consumption didn’t discourage her from continuing either. One connection here that we can relate back to the John case study is when John’s mother referred to John as the black sheep of the family, meaning that he was going to end up like his rebellious father. In Alice’s case, her mother just permitted to happen and dismissed it as being something Alice inherited through the alcoholism her father struggled with.
Alice also had obstacles with problems with feelings and thoughts. She didn’t think very highly of herself and loses control of her ability to be good-natured when she gets drunk and mistreats her children. She made bad decisions when around her kids by not taking care of them or physically hurting them. Michael tried to be supportive, but eventually as Alice becomes a more self-sufficient person and gains control of herself back, Michael doesn’t know what to do because he enjoyed being the one who was stable and having control of his wife and himself. Her newfound independence makes him uncomfortable and feels like he doesn’t have a place because apparently Alice can’t be her own person and have a marriage too. Alice feels that she can only be drunk to be productive or successful by any means in her life
Alice’s current circumstances include trying to overcome alcoholism by going to rehab, regaining her mother’s approval, and taking control back of her life by being the person she needs to be for herself and her two daughters. What current circumstance mainly causes Alice’s behavior could be that she has not told anyone about her actual problem, but finds much peace in releasing the truth.
Wider society may cause Alice’s behavior because Michael thrives off of Alice feeling helpless to make him feel helpful. Michael finds peace in being the one not falling apart, which is why when Alice seeks help and actually starts developing into a responsible person, he feels threatened. Wider society could have also affected Alice’s behavior by how she was not fulfilling the expectation for a good wife or a good mother and she drank to hide from the expectations.
There are many interpretations on the causes of alcoholism. They can be due to the environment, to learned behavior to drink to suppress something upsetting that is being experienced, or through the environment. As well as in the John case study, Alice’s drinking could be an oral fixation due to Freud’s psychosexual stages of development. To find the reasons for alcoholism, Neo-Freudians would look at family member’s outer expectations of Alice’s role and how she was not meeting it. Alice also learned drinking by an observed behavior through her father so that can be interpreted through the behavioral perspective. From a humanistic perspective, we could look at Alice’s deteriorated view of herself and connect it to using alcohol as a coping mechanism to deal with her inadequacy in her family situation.
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Hi Emily,
I completely agree. I enjoyed reading your post. You put in context the probable cause of her addiction, using the different theories. Thank you!
Cristina
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I believe Alice’s behavior is caused by early childhood experiences and current circumstances. Some people may argue Alice has her father’s gene therefore she has to be an alcoholic too. I have to disagree to agree on that. Although genetics play a role on who we are I believe your environment and experiences shape you into who you are. At the end of the day you are the one making decisions for your life whether you have a certain gene or not. According to the behaviorist approach, her envirnmenont has shaped her into who she is. As we all know when Alice was only a child she would watch her father battle alcoholism himself and she even had her first drink t nine years old. You could infer Alice learned her behavior from her childhood experiences with her dad. In addition to her childhood experiences, Alice current situations made her turn to drinking for comfort. The environment she lives in you can say is very toxic for her. Her mother puts her down, her husband (even though very great) puts her down, and her work stresses her out. She feels as if her world is crashing down on her with expectations. This negative environment she lives in makes her resort to drinking the problems away. If you take a look at her addiction through the humanistic approach Alice drinks so she can have a higher self esteem as she believes she was the fun wife she once used to be. The hardest part of an addiction is admitting you need help. She takes a huge leap forward when she seeks out help. She has made great progress. Before she never spoke about her feelings and now that she does she feels liberated and less need to turn to a drink for comfort. I believe Alice will keep making progress to be a better mom for her children.
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Elizabeth,
I agree with your statement about genetics. Overall, it comes down to a person’s individual choices. Regardless of genetics, people still have free will. I think it probably was the environment she grew up in that started her drinking habits. I am curious how you think Alice views alcohol after recovery. Do you think she still craves to be that fun wife and use alcohol to give her a higher self esteem? Or, do you think she has changed so much that now the thought of drinking alcohol would make her feel terrible about herself? Your post also made me think about how her Husband will support her recovery now. He was such an enabler before, do you think he will be able to remain a positive influence in Alice’s life?
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I feel as of once you have experienced an addiction of any sort you still crave it. I believe Alice can fall back into it if she doesn’t put any effort of staying away from it. Ive seen many cases where someone will go so long without the use of a drug, alcohol ect. but have fallen back into it when they put their guards down and get too comfortable. I feel as addiction is an ongoing battle, once you start that journey the road is endless. It is up to Alice to always keep that guard up so she doesn’t fall back into.
I feel as if the husband won’t change much, he’s too comfortable the way he is. For someone to change it takes tremendous effort which I think he doesn’t have. I feel as if he wants this perfect picture family that he won’t ever get with Alice. He has a very hard time stepping into Alice’s shoes and seeing what really is going on instead of what he wants to see.
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Hi Elizabeth,
I have to agree with you when you say that our environment shapes us into who we are. I tell people all the time
” More is Caught than taught” Children are sponges and they soak up everything we do and listen to nothing we say. It’s the visual things that stay in their memories even when they aren’t aware.
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Totally agree! kids are sponges, Iv’e always been extra careful what I do or say infant of children because the next thing you know they are repeating what you just showed them. Especially since children are so naive , they don’t have much sense of whats wrong or right. You as an adult teach them whats the norm of right vs wrong.
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What causes Alice’s behavior?
1. Genetics:
Alice grew up with an alcoholic father. Since he was addicted, she is genetically more likely to become addicted as well. Since she was exposed to alcohol so young, she had become very familiar with it and it can be argued that her addiction is a learned behavior because of her father and alcohol’s unbreakable relationship. She was basically taught that abusing alcohol is an acceptable behavior, from someone that she is supposed to look up to and learn from.
2. Early Childhood Experiences:
Since her father was an alcoholic while Alice was very young, her exposure and access to the substance in her early years did not help Alice’s situation. At a young age, it is very common for girls too look up to their fathers very much in many different ways. When she saw her own fathers behavior it gave her the illusion that this was okay to do, ultimately leading to Alice having her first beer at just 9 years old. Alice’s lack of support coming from her mother also could have lead to Alice following in her father’s footsteps. Instead of teaching that these behaviors were wrong, Alice’s mother often said that Alice would end up “just like her father”. At that age, having no guidance as to what is right or wrong to either parent definitely effected Alice’s behavior.
3. Problems with feelings and thoughts:
Alice often kept to herself. She did not like to express her feelings and did what she could to appear happy. Even to people who she should be able to talk to and confide in like her mother and Michael, she still felt the need to hide her true feelings. She did not like to speak her mind, even when she was being disrespected or attacked. In instances where there were problems at home with Michael, Jess, and Casey, Michael would attempt to “help” or “fix” the situations but obviously showed no disregard for Alice’s actual feelings on the situation. He often came off very rude and inconsiderate when speaking to Alice about their problems. Alice’s mother also had an unkind way of interacting with Alice. Her mother often disapproved of Alice, and hardly had a kind opinion of her daughter. Instead of Alice communicating her thoughts and feelings in these reoccurring situations, she often let her mother and Michael walk all over her. She did not like to speak up, and often repressed her feelings instead of standing up for herself.
4. Current circumstances:
Michael and Alice’s marriage was unhealthy. She had an extremely hard time being away from him while he worked. She felt an overwhelming amount of loneliness. Even when she was with people at work, or she was at home with her kids, she could not seem to find happiness. Alice had a very hard time trying to figure out how to be there for her daughters like she wants to be, without alcohol. This ultimately causes a disconnect between her and her daughters. Alice actions are similar to her own mother in the sense that her responsibilities are a mother do not hold priority over much in her mind. Michael disapproved of the way Alice parented, and never failed to vocalize his opinion on Alice’s parenting in an extremely demeaning way.
5. Wider society:
Alice always felt as if she was disappointing the people around her, so she felt a large amount of pressure to gain the approval of her own mother and husband. Because she felt as if she could never please them, her feelings of loneliness and hopelessness were hard to escape.
6. Causes of alcoholism:
From a psychodynamic perspective, Alice’s early childhood experience play a major role in her alcoholism. These being her early exposure to alcohol, her alcoholic father, and her mother’s attitude toward her. Biologically, because of Alice’s alcoholic father, she already had inherited the “addictive gene” which would make her that much more likely to become an alcoholic herself. From a behaviorist’s perspective, Alice would have learned these behaviors growing up. She watched her father drink, which she saw to be a positive relationship, so she drank. It can be argued that this behavior was tested by Bandura with the bobo doll experiment. This would mean that if young Alice’s father would have displayed alcoholism to be a negative thing, Alice would do the same as her father and not drink. The lack of positive regard is also a very big factor in Alice’s behavior, as a Humanist would argue. Because her mother was disapproving of Alice basically her whole life, and Alice lacked the love and support needed from her parents, she ended up drinking.
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After watching the movie it was brought to my attention how alcoholism does not only affect the person who has it but also everyone around them involved in their life, such as her kids and her husband. In the movie the main character Alice exhibits alcoholism. We learn that she may have developed alcoholism from her genetics since her father was an alcoholic and she also could have developed alcoholism from just observing him at a young age and her mother treating her poorly. Thinking that it is passed down in the genes is part of biological psychologists views on humans. We learn that Alice had her first drink at the age of nine and now she drinks excessively until she loses control of her family and her life. She finally realizes that she needs to get help and goes to rehab and gets treatment. From Freud’s psycho-dynamic perspective, he might say that her alcoholism is caused by oral fixation, such as someone needing to smoke and have something in their mouth to calm them down. From a humanistic perspective theorists would say that Alice lacked self esteem and this caused her to depend on alcohol to make herself more confident. I believe Alice wouldn’t have been able to recover without the support of her family, but it does get me thinking whether or not her one of her children may have alcoholism and I would like to know if she will raise her kids differently knowing that they could develop it as well.
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Maddy,
I agree with what you stated. I mentioned this in my post, but in the movie, Alice said that she would drink about a quart of vodka a day. That is insane! It’s as though she feels she cannot fulfill areas on Maslow’s hierarchy until she is drunk, or has a drink. I mean that when she has a drink, her self-esteem and self-confidence increase immensely, even though she may lose control. Scary that she feels this way.
Sam
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Hi Madlyn,
Completely agree with you. Low self-esteem has a lot to do with Alice’s alcohol problem. If parents fail to make their children feel valued and important, the children may end up having poor self-esteem, which was her case. Her mother constantly disqualified her with inappropriate comments about her father’s alcoholism, making her feel that she was worthless. This situation could have left mental scars on Alice, and trigger her to alcoholism.
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what caused alice’s behavior? genetics?
because alice’s father was an alcoholic when she was growing up and because fathers are often role models for children, the fact that he was doing it made it look like an acceptable behavior and a normal thing to do.
early childhood experiences?
some experiences from when she was very young also caused her behaviors. Alice’s mother said that she would end up just like her father, and because this thought was in her head it could have triggered something to make her behavior more prevalent. She had her first beer when she was only 9 years old and her father was constantly drinking around her.
problems with feelings and thoughts?
Alice repressed all her feelings and never told anyone what was going on in her head. Because of this, she looked happy on the outside. No one really knew what was going on. She had problems with her husband at home because he would come in and try to make situations better but actually just make them worse. She would get upset and then Michael would be rude. Alice’s mother also didn’t approve and made that known.
current circumstances?
Alice felt very alone since her husband was a pilot and not often home. She struggled being away from him. She has a job as a school counselor and felt very overwhelmed with that because she had problems herself, but her job was to help others with theirs. She had to take care of her daughters on her own and that can really take a toll on someone struggling themselves. She had to help people at work and help her daughters at home, and she had no one or nothing to help her. She didn’t know how to take care of her kids without drinking, which ended up putting them in danger. Michael also didn’t help and made Alice feel bad about her parenting whenever he came come.
wider society?
She felt pressure from the outside world, especially the people close to her like her husband and mom to be this picture perfect mother, even though she was struggling with something serious. She felt helpless and like she wasn’t being the person they all wanted her to be.
causes of alcoholism?
psychodynamic perspective: her childhood had a huge influence on this from her father. She also had very rocky relationships with both her husband and mother, who are very important people in her life. That just added to the stress which negatively affected the alcoholism. The alcoholism didn’t become a bigger problem until later on in life. If you look at it through the lens of Freud, he would say that she was stuck on the oral stage, since alcohol is something you drink and oral stage is when you are stuck on something to do with the mouth. If you look at it from a biological perspective, she has the alcoholic gene from her father. In the behaviorism theory, she learned the actions of drinking from watching her father from such a young age. She also had environmental influences on the problem, because being in the stressful situation that she was in did nothing but make it worse for her. If you look at the cognitive perspective, she feels most at home and most comfortable when she is consuming alcohol. This is how she solves her problems- by masking them. If you look at it from a humanistic perspective, since she only feels confidence and ease when she is drunk shows she is truly insecure and doesn’t have support from anyone around her to help her get better. She doesn’t have the unconditional positive regard that one needs to thrive.
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Maria,
Your comment on her alcoholism due to wider society was great. I agree with you. I think that being basically a “single mother”, when Michael is gone, she feels an immense amount of pressure. Alice has her own job as well, making it still pretty difficult to manage the house, kids, her job, and marriage, all while trying to also maintain a good health. Her vice of alcohol depletes all her positive influences in her life. As saw in the movie, Alice displays disruptive behaviors, as evidenced by her throwing eggs at a beeping car early in the morning, and dangerous behaviors, by throwing herself off a boat and into the water. Like I mentioned in my comment on Kei’s post, we sure hope the girls do not display these behaviors in the coming future.
Sam
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What causes Alice’s behavior:
Genetics?
In the movie, we learn that Alice’s father was an alcoholic, therefore we can assume that Alice has the addictive gene. When she was younger, she watched her father drink quite often. She took her first drink of alcohol at age nine. She allowed herself to be open to receptive of the addictive gene at such a young age, and create a drinking problem for herself.
Early childhood experiences?
As mentioned earlier, Alice had her first drink at nine-years-old. Alice grew up in a household where her father drank frequently. Her mother recognizes that Alice has drinking problems, just as her father did/does, and she put Alice down a lot, making her upset. Alice would then drink just to make herself feel better about the family life.
Problems with feelings and thoughts?
Alice did not have an appropriate outlet for her feelings and thoughts. She kept to herself and tried to show that she was in a happy marriage, and was a happy mother. Alice did not talk to her mother or husband about her feelings either. Alice did not stand up to her mother even when she had expressed her disapproval of her actions. Alice’s husband, Michael, would try to resolve issues at home between Alice, and Jess and Casey, their daughters, Alice would instantly become upset with Michael. He could come off very condescending and rude to Alice.
Current circumstances?
Alice has a difficult time being aware from her husband while he is at work. She stresses how she feels lonely while taking care of the kids all alone, and can feels overwhelmed with responsibilities. Alice states that she starts drinking at 4am. The drinking can happen anywhere: at her job, in the closet, and in the kids’ room when they are not there. She feels as though she has to be high to do anything, which makes her feel scared. She drinks a quart of vodka a day.
Wider society?
Alice felt as if there was a societal expectation as to how she was supposed to raise her daughters, and what kind of mother she was supposed to be. She felt as though she could not live up to those standards, especially those of her mother’s and Michael’s.
What are the causes of alcoholism??
The causes of alcoholism can be examined by all the psychology perspectives. First off, from the psychodynamic perspective, Alice’s drinking issues were implemented in her early ages of childhood. She was around her father’s alcoholism. Alice did not establish great relationships with her husband and mother, which can also be attributed to her alcoholism. The pressure from society and sensation of being extremely overwhelmed created Alice to revert to drinking. Freud would propose that Alice is stuck in the oral stage, having the drinking problems. Looking at the causes of alcoholism from a biological perspective, Alice already has the alcoholic gene, as her father was an addict, and most likely more family members may have had this gene. Alice’s drinking behaviors were learned from an early age, when she would watch her father drink, and the family would pretend like there was no issue. From a humanistic perspective, Alice severely lacks self esteem, outside support (from her husband and mother), and self confident, which were many reasons as to why Alice would drink. This perspective also suggests that Alice did not receive any love and positive regard, which also led to her alcoholism. Lastly, from a social/group/cognitive perspective, Alice stated that she needs to be “high” in order to do anything, or “to function”. She is scared of the sober person she may be, so uses her drinking as her vise to solve her problems.
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Sam, you wrote, “She is scared of the sober person she may be” EXCELLENT,, YES,, This is the case for many people suffering from this disease.
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Genetics?
Alice’s father drank frequently when she was little – this made it look like it was acceptable to Alice
Early Childhood Experiences?
Alice had her first beer at 9 years old. As stated before, Alice’s father drank while she was little. Drinking was normalized when she was a child, so she grew up thinking it was ok.
Problems with Feelings and Thoughts
Even after Alice’s husband and mother would make her feel so small and bad, she kept to herself and made herself appear happy even though she was upset. She wouldn’t express her feelings and emotions towards her husband or her mother. Rather than vocalizing her thoughts, she repressed them.
Current Circumstances
Alice had a hard time being away from husband (Michael) who was a pilot while he was working. She felt overwhelmed and lonely at her job as a school counselor, and also felt alone and helpless while taking care of her two kids at home by herself. Alice loves her kids but couldn’t figure out how to care for them without drinking. Whenever Michael was home, he would belittle Alice by making her feel bad about her parenting as he tried to “fix” things with their family. He would continuously take responsibilities away from her when he was home to try to make things better. Alice disregards her responsibilities as a mother and wife, which ultimately endangers her two daughters Jess and Casey. Alice’s own mother is also unsupportive. Her mother puts her down because of her alcoholism, which made Alice want to keep drinking in order to feel better about her family situation.
Wider Society
Alice felt like she had to live up to everyone else’s expectations (especially Michael’s and her mother’s) of what kind of mother, daughter, and wife she had to be; she also didn’t receive any positive reinforcement or support from Michael as he was always trying to fix her mistakes.
Causes of Alcoholism
All factors tie in, but from the psychodynamic perspective, Alice was heavily influenced from an early age from her father. The difficult relationships with Michael and her mother contributed to the problem as well. Alice’s alcoholism wasn’t really a problem until later on in her life when she started to feel overwhelmed by her work and family situation. Alice’s behavior was learned from her father’s actions when Alice was little. As a behaviorist would say, “all bad behavior is learned behavior”. Her current family situation caused the problem to worsen as Michael and her mother were not supportive. Alice’s mother told her that she knew Alice would end up like her dad. The environment also influences behavior. Alice feels most confident and stable when she is under the influence. In order to solve her own problems, Alice drinks. A humanist would support the idea that Alice’s lack of self esteem, outside support, and confidence gave her plenty of reasons to drink her problems away.
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Talk about waterworks! I’ve watched this movie before (though must say I cried more this time around), I certainly watched it from a different perspective. While it was devastating to watch Alice destroy herself and her family (beautiful girls, loving and gorgeous husband), her behaviors can be attributed to many different things. Alice’s husband, a pilot, was not always around. That left her to take care of the home and their girls in his absence. Alice also worked as a school counselor with teenagers, which as we know can be a handful. Working in that environment to then come home and take care of the household can be stressful for anyone. To make matters worse, her husband, Michael, would try to take responsibilities from her when he was around. He seemed to try to always want to “fix” everything and be in control – the bickering between the girls, his wife’s unhappy mood, which made Alice feel worthless and small. And as if feelings of worthlessness were not enough from her husband, Alice’s mother also made her feel the same. Alice’s father was an alcoholic, which contributed to her taste of alcohol as early as nine years of age. Her mother always put Alice down saying she took after her father. Alice, however, rather than vocalizing and communicating how she felt, would internalize her feelings and drink to escape her reality.
From the psychodynamic perspective: Sigmund Freud might say Alice’s drinking stemmed from an oral fixation. Alice’s early exposure and experience with alcohol was probably a great contribution to her fixation. Alice probably engages in the defenses of suppression.
From the psychodynamic perspective: Neo-Freudians would look at Alice’s environments, focusing on her relationship with her mother and husband. Alice’s husband, Michael, was always trying to take from her responsibilities. This was perhaps him trying to make up for being away for work so often. But in doing so, he was also taking away her accountability. Alice’s mother was also very hard on her, always comparing her to her father. Their inability to make her accountable or understand her made them both – her husband and mother, enablers.
From the Behavioral perspective: A Behavioral therapist would say Alice learned to drink from watching her father They would probably also suggest that Alice drank to cope with the stress in her everyday life. Her mother’s criticism, husband’s frequent absence at home and controlling ways, work, and household responsibilities were stressors for which she used alcohol as an operant behavior to temporarily escape.
From the Humanistic perspective: A Humanistic theorist would suggest that Alice’s lack of self-esteem, confidence and external support might have caused her to find comfort in alcohol and served an escape from her reality.
From the Social/Group/Cognitive perspective: Alice seemed her happiest and most confident, only under the influence of alcohol. She had irrational thoughts that she wasn’t good enough. In the movie, Alice stated that she pushed all of the blame on her husband because she thought that if he saw her for who she truly was, then he wouldn’t love her.
From a NeuroScience/Biological perspective: From the biogenic perspective, genetics might explain why Alice was an alcoholic. Given that she is an only child and her father was an alcoholic, Alice may very well genetically take after her father. What would happen if she had a sibling? Would he or she be an alcoholic as well? Might things be different if her father wasn’t an alcoholic?
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Hi, I completely agree with you. It takes more than just one thing for someone to become as sick as Alice was. There are many factors involved and you can’t always pin point it to solely one thing. The way she was raised and having alcohol introduced as early as 9 definitely played a major role, but that was not the only thing that caused her future dependency on alcohol.
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Yajaira,
You really pinpointed all of the sections so well. But to answer some of your questions, in my opinion I think if she had a sibling she might have had someone to talk to about her troubles rather than turning to alcohol. Or if she did turn to alcohol the sibling might have noticed it and tried to help. I think her genetics definitely played a role to her alcoholism but I think the bigger factor was her environment. She was lonely, overworked and stressed like you mentioned. Her way of relaxing and forgetting about the stressors was quick and simple, just take a bottle of vodka. She clearly like alcohol because she claimed she enjoyed her first beer at nine years old. Maybe if she hadn’t tasted alcohol so young she wouldn’t have become an alcoholic?
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What causes Alice’s behavior:
A big take away from this movie it is never to judge anyone without knowing what they are going through. Sometimes it can be difficult to see those who we love going through a harsh time, but I do believe that the first thing to do is NOT to judge them for what they are doing. The movie “When A Man Loves a Women” it is a very powerful film because it shows how important it is to realize that addiction can not only impact an individual’s life but those who have surrounded the individual.
Problems with feelings and thoughts?: Alice at the beginning of the movie meets her husband Michael in a bar, where she is drinking and having fun. It show us to the introduction of her lifestyle which later in the movie shows us that she is addicted to alcohol. It shows how alcohol controlled a good portion of her life.
Current circumstances?: Alice has two daughters the oldest child has a different father, and the younger one is Michaels daughter who is Alice’s new husband. They all live together. When Alice and Michael would go out, he would take care of her, because she gets to a point where she was not able to control her actions. The process would repeat itself over and over. She tells Michael that she would stop, but she does not stop at any moment. Alice was drinking more and more until she was getting to the stage where she feels that she needed to feel drunk every day.
Genetics?: Alice mentions towards the end of the movie how her father was also an alcoholic which can lead to genetics. But another point which is something that we have learned in class was that behavior is learned by watching other people doing things. Alice might’ve seen her father getting home drunk every day, and she thought it was normal to be like her father.
Early childhood experiences?: Alice’s early childhood experience leads to when she says that when she first started to drink was at the age of 9 years old. Also, her mother telling her that she was just like her father could’ve been a trauma for her.
Wider society?: Going rehab, and connecting, talking and having common things with her and that she can relate to.
What are the causes of alcoholism??: The causes of alcoholism it is something that can be genetic or it can be something learned. By Alice hearing her mother telling her that she was worthless, or that she was bound to be the way she was could be some fundamentals for Alice to be an alcoholic.
Social/group perspective, psychologist might of thought that Alice needed more attention from her husband and by getting that attention she would drink and drink without stopping and until she knew she had his attention. Alice stated that she only felt important to Michael when he would take care of her when she was drunk.
Behavioral perspective, a psychologist would have thought that seeing a loved one and family figure who was her father was what cause Alice to become an alcoholic. Also, the negativity from her mother telling her that she was worth nothing, made her drink the way she was drinking.
Humanistic perspective, psychologist might it thought that her insecurities, sadness, feeling that she was worth nothing played a role in her addiction. I do think that humanistic perspective is what might’ve help Alice because at the end she realizes what she was capable doing.
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Looking at it genetically or from a biological perspective you can say that because her father was an alcoholic she had gene that predisposed her to become an alcoholic or looking at the environment in which she grew up and since she had her first drink when most kids are in 4th grade we can argue that it’s behavioral and she learned this from watching her father drink. From a humanistic approach you can say she made her own choices so now she has to deal with the consequences and while that was TRUE at first I feel as though once you are addicted it’s no longer a choice. Which ever way you look at it there was a time that she like the way it made her feel and no one held her responsible for her actions she didn’t even hold her self responsible in fact she didn’t feel that anything was wrong with what she was doing because it made her feel good as if she was better when she was drinking.
although Ive watched this movie more than once it gives you a clear view and new meaning each time on the effects that alcoholism or addiction in general plays on the family and how it can tear each person a part in different ways.
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Hello Zakia,
I agree with you. At first it was a choice but when Alice was already so deep into it that it didn’t become a choice anymore. We do see her trying to throw away her bottles but her body not only wants but needs alcohol so she fails to throw them away. She did like the way it made her feel. She thought of herself as fun and outgoing. The alcohol gave her self esteem.
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Hi Elizabeth
Yes I feel that is true with any addiction. None of us would voluntarily use any substance with the hopes of becoming addicted. It’s really sad when it does happen.
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In this movie, Alice struggles with alcoholism. Alcoholism often does not stem from only one cause, but rather many contributing causes. Genetics certainly does play a part in Alice’s alcoholism, since Alice’s father was an alcoholic. Alice tried her first beer at nine, and this fact, combined with her father’s alcoholism may have normalized her relationship with alcohol and perhaps made it seem like drinking (excessively) from a young age was no big deal. This is a combination of genetics and the environment playing a part in Alice’s alcoholism, since there is no doubt she was a witness to his drinking countless times. Of course, it is not necessary that Alice blame her father for her own alcoholism, but children of alcoholics are four times as likely to have problems with alcohol than the general population. Freud might say that Alice’s alcoholism stems from an oral fixation, but I believe there is more to it than that. Alice’s marriage life is also part of the environment that could drive her to drink. Alice’s husband, Michael, travels for work, leaving Alice at home with her daughters. Alice becomes lonely during these times without her husband, and this loneliness could also drive her to drink. Drinking causes you to forget, so it may serve as a distraction to Alice while her husband is gone. In the movie, Alice expresses that she does not know how her problem got so bad and how she got to where she was. This is a feeling of loss of control, which is a very common symptom of alcoholism, and only further shows to highlight how serious Alice’s problem was. Ultimately, Alice was in rehab and eventually was attending regular Alcoholics Anonymous meetings as well as marriage counseling. Her and Michael decide to separate, which was probably the best decision for everyone, including the children. In AA counseling, Alice now has to figure out how to live life soberly. That is much more difficult to do when you have a partner who does not really understand your alcoholism and occasionally gets frustrated with it. Alice needed the time to herself to rebuild her relationship with her children, but most importantly, with herself.
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I like how you mentioned that the combination of drinking at 9 years old and having an alcoholic parent made drinking seem like a normal behavior because it also supports the behavioral perspective that not only was it basically taught but it seemed normal. I completely agree that Michael’s absence from the family picture probably encouraged Alice’s drinking and you make a great connection that the loneliness could lead her to distract herself with alcohol. You also draw on how difficult it must have been to go through such a life-changing process that Alice is doing for herself and alone, which is an excellent point because it represents Alice’s strength to combat her disease by herself not only without support, but with developing unhappiness from Michael as he feels threatened by her newfound recovery.
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“When a Man Loves a Woman” reveals the stragglers that a family goes through because of alcohol addiction. The main character of the film, Alice, is an alcoholic mother and school counselor, who has a beautiful family; her husband is an airplane pilot and has two beautiful daughters. Alice repeatedly got herself into trouble because of her drinking problem. Her alcoholism made her forget her responsibility as a mother and wife, endangering their daughters Jess nine-year-old, from a previous marriage, and Casey four- years -old.
Alice confesses that she does not know how she got to that point, and from where she developed this disease. She mentions that her dad was an alcoholic, and she got her first beer at nine years old. She also expresses that her mother complained and criticized the dynamics of dealing with alcoholism. I wonder if she used defense mechanisms to banishes anxiety, feeling, and though from early psychological pain or trauma caused by her father alcoholism or her mother behavior. Looking at it from a psychoanalytic perspective, this might be a reason why she is an alcoholic. According to Freud, psychoanalytic perspective emphasis on childhood conflict, relationship with parents, sexual energy (I did not see it, but it may happen), and unconscious.
Alice grew up in an environment where alcohol was seen as a normal thing. She thinks that her father‘s previous alcohol problem might increase her experimentation with alcohol. Also, she credits her drinking problem to her husband’s constant trips, leaving her to be responsible for raising their family alone, and her job stress. All these factors contributed to her drinking increasing severely. Behavior perspective focuses on environmental approach, which seems Alice has a perfect set up for it. The environment influences behavior.
After drinking excessively and taking aspirins, she got seriously hurt, creating panic in her daughter Jess who found her in the bathroom unconscious. This episode made her recognize her serious problem of alcoholism, and she needed to get help. She wanted to improve and get well to have a better life for herself and her family. Humanistic perspective refers the way that the hierarchy of needs impacts what an individual does in life and what he wants for his own future as well. Alice made the right decision, but in the process, she got confused and full of doubts. She needs to put her life together, trying to assess their needs to achieve an optimum state of mind.
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Hi Cristina,
I really agree that her environment with her family does have an effect on her alcoholism. Due to her grand father being an alcoholic as well as her dad, it seems to run in her family backgrounds. As noticed Alcohol has a way of changing aersons thoughts and attitude. Just like you said After drinking excessively and taking aspirins, she got seriously hurt, creating panic in her daughter Jess who found her in the bathroom unconscious”. That was the excessive alcohol corrupting her train of thought.
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Hi Travis,
I definitely agree that alcoholism is partly genetic-children of alcoholics are four times as likely as the general population to have problems with alcohol. Alcohol definitely changes people’s personalities-there are people who when you compare them before and after their problems with alcohol, they seem like completely different people. I also think that excessive alcohol can cause a psychotic break, which can manifest itself in many ways, such as destructive behavior, violent outbursts, and delusions. Psychotic breaks can be caused by excessive stress, in addition to excessive alcohol. Alice was shown to have excessive stress in the movie, especially when Michael goes on business trips. Therefore, her psychotic break was not necessarily caused by her alcoholism, but definitely exacerbated by it.
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Hi Alessandra,
I agree that genetic factors are involved in alcoholism. Some social-economic, cultural, bio-behavioral factors, and ethnic/gender are strongest determinants of drinking patterns in society. Genetic vulnerability will be present on those individuals that already have a predisposition that can be triggered at any time. Cultural and familial environmental factors are most likely predictors as well.
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With an alcoholic father, Alice had a higher chance of becoming one since birth. However, genetics are not the only reason for Alice’s alcoholism. She had a rough childhood with an abusive mother (Verbally, at least), and whatever problems that arose with her dad’s alcoholism. When she was only 9, she had had her first beer. Her life continued to be stressful. Her husband, Michael, had to leave often due to his work, leaving her alone with their two kids and their caretaker for days at a time, and her job as a school counselor brought along its own stresses as she assists the students with their problems. In response to all of this stress, she drinks and drinks, and at some point during the film she admitted she could not function well without having at least a small alcoholic drink.
In addition to those stresses, Alice often kept her problems to herself. Though she likes helping others (as proven by her being a school counselor and lending people an ear when they were upset), she often kept her own problems to herself, because she did not wish to be a burden to Michael and worry or upset their children. Michael also has the tendency to be very controlling, often stepping in and undoing the decisions she makes or simply telling her what to do constantly. Though, biologically, Alice was more likely to become an alcoholic, her past and living situation greatly contributed to her becoming an alcoholic as she struggled to deal with all of the stress in her life with not many means to handle it well–Or, rather, she refused to, as she thought she would only be a burden to those she loved and kept her problems to herself.
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Hello Jenny!
I agree with your opinion about Alicia’s early experiences and a not happy life contribute on her becoming an alcoholic. But at least who doesn’t have problems, every woman with kids go through all the thinks she did but not all of them became alcoholics. The main reason why children coming from families with ensues is because they are labeled as their parents. This is the reason why I do not support that it is genetic, I do not like when people blame on others for their choices. If they know their weaknesses than is better to stay away from it. Is free choice. I know every one of us who are commenting here know at least one close person who is an alcoholic and they come from very good and educated families with no addictions. I think a behave starts from what we are introduced with more than having that gene.
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I really liked that part when you commented about Alice keeping her problems to herself being a factor on her addiction. No one wants to be a burden on anyone especially on their loved ones. It’s easy to ignore you problems and use something else to distract both you and the people around you from seeing the true. Believe me I’ve tried to occupy myself with other things(Not drinking of course)and used it to distract others from my worries. Eventually however you’ll hit a wall and realize “I need help”. Alice hits this wall when she passes out in the shower which shows her the dangers her addiction is doing to her and more importantly her daughters.
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I too liked how she commented on her major role in her own addiction. Being a burden on her family must make Alice feel worse about the situation, no one wants to feel as if they have to depend on anyone like a child. She just needed to learn some new coping mechanisms other than alcohol to make herself feel better.
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Jenny,
I certainly agree with you – her husband’s absence, mother’s emotional abuse, work, and household duties were not only stressful, but overwhelming. Her husband stepping in and undoing the decisions made her feel belittled. I think she understood her husband wasn’t doing it out of a bad place, but still, they made her feel a certain way. She not only not validate her feelings, but she also wasn’t vocal. So she suppressed her emotions and used alcohol as an outlet, because like you said, she probably felt she would be a burden.
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Watching the movie was definitely difficult at times for me because it brought up memories of my own home. My mother is an alcoholic and definitely had some horrible moments where she used force or blamed us for her drinking. The scenes of Alice hitting her daughter or falling in the shower hit home. But the movie showed the effects not only on Alice but also the family which lets the viewer get a full perspective.
At the start of the movie we don’t really get an understanding of why Alice started drinking, but as the movie plays out it reveals all the stressors that brought her to that place. She had an alcoholic father and even stated she had her first beer at nine years old. Her mother does not seem supportive or caring. She has two daughters and a husband who clearly loves her but is away from home for periods of time. All of these situations have caused Alice’s alcoholism. It wasn’t one scenario or just her genetics, it was years of build up and feeling insecure about herself. She used alcohol to escape reality, just like she wanted to disappear to Mexico with her husband.
There was a combination of things that lead up to her alcoholism, from growing up with an alcoholic father to not expressing her emotions and feelings to her husband. She also liked to go out with her friend and drink. Her childhood, genetics, environment and not being to express herself brought her to cope with alcohol.
I believe continued support from her husband and the meetings will help her stay clean. She was finally able to release her emotions and her husband actually listened to her this time. He never realized that she was under so much pressure especially since he was barely home. Alice is a strong person I believe she will stay clean because she wants to feel good and be herself around her family.
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Good Job
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Great points I feel the same way about how difficult it was for Alice growing and even having a family she definitely has a lot of stress factors that had built up and led her to drinking. It’s difficult to grow up in such an environment especially in a drinking one because drinking brings a lot of negative energy and emotion that can lead to great amount of stress because just in general from one another’s perspective I’ve actually been apart of drinking a lot myself and now that I look back at it was just all negative outcomes nothing good ever came out from it.
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Hi Amela, I agree with you 100% on everything you wrote. I wouldn’t blame Alices alcoholism on simply one thing, everything that happened around her and during her life has contributed to it. Like you, I also have an alcoholic parent and some of these scenes hit home for me too, not only the bad scenes but the recovery process too. It is crazy to see the similarities with things we saw in a movie to real events in our lives. I too agree that Alice will stick to her path of recovery. She seemed to be making all the right choices for herself, including spending some time away from her husband where she could think on her own and learn to take care of herself and her children without the sling of alcohol to make her happy. When you brought up the trip to Mexico in relation to her alcoholism my eyes were opened to a new perspective, I hadn’t thought of it that way. Once Alice had gone to her program and begun on her path to sobriety, she left behind the need to drink and also to runaway. When her husband asked to take her on a trip, Alice got upset and said no, she knew her focus was to adjust to real life before running off to fantasy land again. This was a great sign that Alice will continue with her sobriety.
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Hi Amela,
Very spot on, Alice’s alcoholism wasn’t caused by one thing but by many factors in her life. All of them play an important role as to why she started excessively drinking. Also the trip to Mexico was to escape reality. The sad part is that her husband would encourage these escapes. He would try so hard to make it seem like they were this normal happy family when they weren’t. Even when Alice comes back from rehab, he tries to take her to a trip and she declines it saying she doesn’t want to escape reality. I’m glad Alice finally got comfortable to speak to her husband about what was going on with her. This way her husband can give her the right type of support.
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When I finished the movie, I was expecting something completely different. I didn’t cry like I expected, but I did feel sorry for the characters in a few scenes. This movie does a good job in showing Alice’s addiction, but mostly how it affected her family. I wish we got to see more of her recovery and her healing process to get a better understanding of her feelings and struggles.
At first, I judged Alice a little because I couldn’t see what made her so upset that she felt the need to drink so much. It was very closed minded of me to do so, so I started to pay close attention to detail in order to understand her struggles a bit more. She had what seemed to be a loving husband, wonderful children, and even though she may have had a stressful job, life at home didn’t seem like it would add to those common stressors. When we found out that her father was an alcoholic as well, it was brought to my attention the Nature VS Nurture argument. Was her alcoholism due to genetics coming from her father, or was it seeing her father’s behavior subconsciously teach her that drinking was an acceptable form of coping. It seemed that Alice’s mother wasn’t of any help either, always judging and never really supportive. But being married to an alcoholic for all those years was not easy. Having a more detailed background on Alice’s life with her parents would probably help us identify a cause for her alcoholism, if not stressors that may have caused it.
Something that really bothered me about her husband was that he sort of let her be and ignored her alcoholism. Most people don’t really know how to deal with an addict, so ignoring the problem was probably the easiest thing he could have done. The husband, always traveling for work, also probably missed many signs of her addiction and chose to see it in a different light. From Alice’s point of view he was always belittling her in front of her children, while he thought he was just helping her by taking some of the responsibility. It’s really kind of hard to analyze their relationship because we don’t know if the way he is acting is because of her addiction and his own way of coping with it or if it’s his own personality. There is no doubt that he truly loves her, and in the end we see that he will do anything to make her better. Alice seemed to have found a great man, but it made me wonder what her relationship with her ex-husband was like and if that had any effect on her alcoholism. With her current husband, talking to him about her problems and how she felt would probably have solved their problems. But maybe she learned from her ex that talking never did anything and so she kept it in and acted in other ways in order to get her emotions through. It would have been beneficial to have a backstory on her previous relationship in order to see how that effected her, even though we get a quick glimpse on how he was due to him not calling or being a present father to Alice’s oldest daughter.
Alice is very lucky to have a great support system and love from her family. Even though her husband at first didn’t know how to deal with her addiction, he seems to understand and want to truly be there for her and help her. He daughters still love her very much, and even though her parents might not be the best support system she has, they are still very present in her life. Keeping up with treatment and attending meetings will most definitely help Alice not relapse.
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I love how you make it seem as though the husband character becomes the ex. In the movie it did seem like that actually, I see where you get it, during the separation it seemed like it, then when they got together at the end, seemed as though he was someone totally different. He seemed to have a big part of her drinking change after everything else. After rehab, he didn’t think she was capable of living without assistance, like she was disabled. Yet after being separated he realized that she hadn’t changed at all except for not being an alcoholic.
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I too was expecting something different in the movie. I thought I might of missed something and re-watched it one more time. Now I can see most of the points that you hit. Like Alice’s husband at first I didn’t see what he was specifically doing to enable her to drink, other than the times he belittling her. In the end the movie just jumps to him taking the AA meetings seriously without showing a little more on how his progression into accepting his influence on his wife’s alcoholism led to him quitting his job for her. She really is lucky to have a man that would face separation to help her in the darkest of times.
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Besides that this being a great movie to watch it was very informative and gives you a good view of whats happening from every perspective of each character… The movie was great for letting us know how it was affecting everyone in the “pond” alice was in…
What causes Alice‘s behavior:
Genetics? I feel that Alice definitely has the gene for alcoholism from her father but her taking her first drink is the feeling that triggered her to continue experimenting…
Early childhood experiences? Alice mentions watching her father drink so to her it was somewhat acceptable… and her mother putting her down is what would cause her to want to continue to drink so she can feel good and forget about her family situation…
Problems with feelings and thoughts? She kept things inside and made herself appear to be happy even though she had a demon inside controlling her more as time passed and getting worse…
Current circumstances? Alice had a really hard time being away from her husband when he was working… She felt overwhelmed and lonely while trying to care for her girls alone… She loves her girls but couldn’t figure out how to be alone with them without drinking…
Wider society? It seemed Alice felt she had to live up to everyone’s expectations of what kind of mother and wife she should be…
What are the causes of alcoholism? I really feel that everything ties in all together it did start early on in her life but didn’t seem it was much of a problem until later on in life where she really started feeling overwhelmed and since that is behavior she has already watched and learned she fell into following her fathers footsteps when things got rough… Her current family situation I think is what finally caused the drinking to heighten…
Treatment that I think Alice would benefit from would have to be Humanistic Therapies to help her become more aware of herself and why this happened and take responsibility for what she did and move forward… Group perspective because the family was affected as a whole and everyone needs to heal from this… Some psychoanalytical therapy may be helpful so she can come to terms with things she doesn’t know are affecting her unconsciously from her childhood.
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Thanks for your comment on my post. It’s one of those “I am not proud, but it’s been done and I’m better now” type of conversations.
I feel like Alice has the addictive personality, so once she tried alcohol she really like it and continue using. My brother once told me he tried coke and he didn’t like it and swears to never touch it. Some people don’t have the curiosity to try things that are extremely risky. I believe that Alice was so wrapped up with her alcoholism she began losing control of it and stop being able to hide it. Eventually, she felt like she couldn’t do many things without a sip. She kind of became selfish, forgetting about her daughters, her husband and other priorities. I think all your treatments are so perfect for her situations.
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Yes I agree with you…she became very selfish and forgot about her other responsibilities… I also agree with you about addictive personalities and being curious or not… I am one of those people that are definitely not curious!!! knowing what may happen or could possibly happen is reason enough for me to stay away from any sort of drugs… I have never changed in my opinion about that kind of stuff
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What causes Alice’s behavior:
Genetics?
Early childhood experiences?
Problems with feelings and thoughts?
Current circumstances?
Wider society?
What are the causes of alcoholism??
This movie really hit home for me. My father used to be an alcoholic and I think his low point was when me, my mom, and my siblings went shopping. No one was home an he had come home from a night of drinking and attempted to get into the house by smashing his hand through the window. We got home and saw blood in the steps and got scared. It wasn’t until one of the neighbors came and told us what happened, and we rushed to the hospital. Later on in life I dated this girl who had an addiction. I was naive and begun to enable her addiction, until I began to join her. I didn’t see it but everyone around me just told me she was bad news. Eventually my friends begun to worry about me and got concerned, I wouldn’t want to hang out, I was always going broke. My car payments begun to stack up and my mom began asking a million questions. I was with my ex for roughly 5 months, in those months I became an addict myself. We broke up, she went to rehab and I was left to fend for myself. The withdrawal was horrible, I had no idea about addiction until then. I regret not going to NA meetings or seeking help because I eventually fell off the wagon and was hiding my addiction from everyone, until my mom found me almost dead. Addiction is crazy, it really is. Sober over four years now and I can tell you that need to feel numb isn’t worth risking your life. I’m able to drink and smoke and be fine, and even when I take a pain pill I can’t handle the nausea feeling.
After watching the movie, there were similar situations where I knew exactly what Alice was feeling, even my girlfriend was asking me “Is that true, how did you manage?” Well, I think genetics and early childhood experiences have a lot to do with addiction. Alice’s father was an alcoholic, and she started drinking when she was 9. As a child, you want to imitate what you see because you want to feel the same way others do. Alice drank because she thought that was normal to do, you know, since dad drinks and all why can’t I? When she drank she was happy, at first, she was having fun with her husband and they used to act like newlyweds. She’s a high school counselor who deals with teenagers problems constantly. She has coworkers who encourage her drinking because they don’t see it as a problem also.
Alcoholism is caused by genetics, your environment, stress and not learning to cope with it. If you go out with friends and don’t know your limit, thats a problem. You should be able to say “I’ve had enough for tonight”.
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Hi Liceith,
Thank you for sharing your story, it goes to show that these situations happen all around us in our every day lives, that and alcoholic or addict is no alone in this world. I also agree with you, I believe both the environment we grow up in and also genetics can contribute to alcoholism. I remember when I was younger I had a friend whose mom smoke cigarettes and my friend used to say “when I grow up I’m going to smoke just like my mom”. I used always tell her not to think like that because cigarettes are bad for your health. She refused to listen replying “My mom does it, obviously its not bad for you”. This just goes to show how innocent little kid minds are, we think just because mommy or daddy do it, it must be okay to do.
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Thank you for your story… Its not an easy thing… I never thought I would have to deal with any kind of addiction… one of my biggest fears until my teen daughter got into the wrong crowd and started making bad decisions for her self… It just proved to me how easy and fast a situation can occur and escalate without the actual person realizing before sometimes being too late… and this is when I realized no matter how I raise my kids and what they are exposed to, at the end of the day when the time comes for them to make a decision you can only hope they make the right one.
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Wow thank you for your response Liceth, and I’m very sorry that happened to you and your father. It really gives me a great inside on what addiction can ultimately do to someone if it isn’t taken care of properly. I completely agree with you on your point about your father being worse when hes alone. Without the distractions of other people, an addict will spend every second of the day doing what they are addicted to. It is really difficult to break all habits, but it’s even more difficult when that person is alone all day and they have plenty of time to justify what there doing, even if they know its wrong.
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I liked the movie, it gave me a sense of looking at both Alice and her husband from different windows. I saw Micheal being a loving and caring husband and Alice being a loving and caring wife too but alcoholic. Many factors have affected for Alice to become alcoholic. It could be genetic because the grand father and father were alcoholic. It could be that she drank at a very early age (9 years) and the parents did not know. May be as she was growing, she discovered alcoholism helped her runaway from her problems. The other reason could be that her husband was very loving that he had hard time to stop her and instead he actually took care of the mess she made after she drank and yet loved her. This made her feel guilty and she drank more. Alice’s feelings that she was not a good mother because she left her daughter in a store and hit her older one, all these factors contributed for Alice to become excessive Alcoholic.
Looking at both Micheal and Alice, I feel they both needed consistent help in order to help them understand each other. I felt Alice needed to be reminded that loved ones’ are the one who say you are “perfect” but on the other hand Micheal need to be reminded to control himself and not over do it because it was effecting Alice’s emotions. I thing one session with the counselor/therapist is not enough. they could have frequent sessions may be once a week so they don’t have to be separated for long or it took them 4 to 6 months just to say their feelings. The couple needed someone to help them talk with each other. Although they spoke out but it took a long time. In some real life situations this time can break families that love each other forever and they might not get a chance to get back.
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I love what you pointed out. They had difficulty understanding and communicating their feelings after rehab. Separation was something they did, which had cured them in the long run. Not only was it the fact that they waited till the last minute but she expressed her feelings first at the ceremony that she invited him too. She learned more after she was sober and saw the world the way it should be instead of behind alcohol.
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Hi Tazeeya. I agree with your point on Michael and his reaction to Alice and her drinking. In my opinion, it almost felt like he was enabling her to drink because he would cover up for everything she didn’t do while drunk. When she went out with her coworker and got drunk, which resulted in Michael missing his trip, he didn’t really do much to correct her behavior. He basically said it was okay and covered it up. There wasn’t a consequence for her decision to go out drinking, instead, they sought of swept it under the rug. Maybe if they tried to get to the bottom of why she decided to go out and drink, they would have a better understanding of Alice’s alcoholism.
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It could go either way. Maybe Micheal knew that giving consequences was not the right thing to do and instead helped her get into rehab. It’s really hard to tell anything since each person is different and need different strategies that need to adopted based on an individual’s case.
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Alice’s behavior is I feel not connected to the behaviors that were observed by her parents. Even though I do not fully agree with Neo-Freudian thought; in my opinion in the movie I feel Alice went through a conflict that was resolved, specifically Intimacy vs. Isolation. Problems with feelings and thoughts caused her addiction. Genetically speaking we are all predisposed to anything, drinking coffee, liking long walks, etc..and in this case hold no merit to explain her addiction. It sure is more probable she would become an alcoholic because her father was, but that is dependent on her own development. Alice is a witty high spirited person, we see this in how she interacts with her co workers and the banter she has with her husband. Her current circumstances I would say are a factor here but merely harbor her addiction. While growing up Alice has had a considerable amount of trauma, but I feel she has still put herself in a place where she is comfortable and has developed fairly well until now, her alcoholism is fairly recent. She claims her first beer was at nine, but it wasn’t until a little over a year ago did her alcoholism set in. Her husband flies constantly and their well off life style affords a house keeper. Alice feels safe drinking all night or even throwing eggs on a car. While they were on vacation she fell into the water and claimed that was a wake up call. Alice realized she had a lot to loose, but did not realize her addiction has stunted her development. Alice is in household with two working parents. She intensely loves and cares for her daughters she still is having trouble building relationships with people other than her husband. The only other people we see around is her mother, which is not good for Alice. Not too mention having a job taking care of children and keeping the house clean are all challenges. And when the husband is home, he is overbearing and does not let her resolve issues with her children. She also only has superficial conversations with her husband. She is not connecting with him anymore on a complex level. The only tender feelings from her husband are in a sexual manner. I feel because she also does not seem to have many friends she felt as if she was stagnating. Not moving forward nor moving backward. She faced this crisis and went to alcohol to take away her anxiety..I do not believe it was operant conditioning. I don’t believe you can condition yourself to contract a disease which addiction is. Alice in her recovery was able to pinpoint her problems through group therapy and working her issues with her husband. She solved her crisis by the end of the movie. She may have saw her dad drink in the past and the demeaning nature of her mother did not push her do drink but rather gave Alice something to fall back on when she was down. This is why I feel addiction especially alcohol is caused by unresolved conflicts. Drinking at first takes the pain away but by the time alcoholism sets in the problem is much deeper. Physical and mental dependence are powerful forces and by this point a disease has taken over. The only cure is to resolve the conflict the afflicted his having.
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You stated “it sure is more probable she would become an alcoholic because her father was, but that is dependent on her own development.”
Do you believe this from a genetic or an environmental/behavioral perspective??
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From the genetic perspective she does have a predisposition to become addicted. I only pointed this out because I feel the genetic perspective does give insight to whom may succumb to addiction, but does not explain her addiction due to her seemingly normal development. Saying simply her father was an alcoholic so she must be is just too shortsighted for me in this instance.
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Very Good!
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I think you hit it spot on… this is exactly the way I feel about Alice… You just put it in much better wording… her current situation is what pushed her to get to drinking this badly… even though we find out what happened in her childhood as you said she still managed to live a fun healthy addiction free life up until this point!
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This was my first time watching this movie it was very touching romantic drama about the struggles of a family torn apart by addiction, where the mother is an alcoholic and how this affects her relationship with her husband and her children. Alice is an alcoholic in a comfortable though unhealthy marriage with Michael, who is an enabler and rescuer. Alice hits rock bottom and her problem becomes out-of-hand when it effects her work, family and friends. She forgets things, acts irresponsible, and abuses her children and herself. She in turn decides to go through rehab.
The family struggles while she is away, but still struggles when Alice gets back and fights to stay clean and sober. This is one of the greatest strengths of the movie. Becoming sober is not the hard part. Staying sober is. Learning to live life sober is incredibly challenging. Alice begins learning to live with the disease. She makes close friendships with other recovering alcoholics and attends a lot of AA meetings, and confides in friends she meets there.
The cause of her alcoholism is due to her father’s previous alcohol problem that increased her likelihood of her experimentation with alcohol. Besides that, Alice did credit her drinking problem to the work stress as well as her husband’s constant infrequent presence at home (Michael is an airplane pilot), leaving her to be responsible in raising their family alone. All this factors have caused her drinking even more and increased the severity.
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PLEASE ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS, THE INSTRUCTIONS ARE ON THE ACADEMIC PAGE:
What causes Alice’s behavior:
Genetics?
Early childhood experiences?
Problems with feelings and thoughts?
Current circumstances?
Wider society?
What are the causes of alcoholism??
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In just about two hours of screen time there were many possible factors for Alice’s alcoholism. In the movie we see learn that her father drank a lot and she drank her fist beer at a very young age. This is where her addiction starts, but later on in her life it actually starts to ruin her balance on life. Perhaps it’s the people around her that enables her to drink a lot. From a stressful job as a school counselor to raising to girls with a husband that is usually out at his job as a pilot. Her husband Michael might be the biggest enabler for her alcoholism due to his need of her drinking being a way to unknowingly keep her in her role and in his own. For instance when ever she gets drunk he usually goes along her actions and only acts when she goes to far. Later on in the movie after she is treated he can’t stand the fact that her role in the family is changing and live her for a time. It is only after realizing he truly was enabling her does he come back at the end.
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PLEASE ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS, THE INSTRUCTIONS ARE ON THE ACADEMIC PAGE:
What causes Alice’s behavior:
Genetics?
Early childhood experiences?
Problems with feelings and thoughts?
Current circumstances?
Wider society?
What are the causes of alcoholism??
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Her alcohol consumption began at 9 years old with her first beer. At the time she knew her father was an alcoholic so she was normalized to it. This was only the beginning for her as she drank more and more to the point where she lost control. . With pressure from work as a high school counsler and getting offered beer by her coworkers didn’t help her. With her husband off for a couple of days at work leaves her with the kids only added more fuel to the flame, as well as belittling her in front of the kids. No one thought it was a real issue until she passes out in the shower and her kid thinking she was dead does she get help. This was only half the battle as she tries to explain to her husband that was enabling her to the alcohol. This movie really shows how addiction can not only affect one pond, but spread to multiple ponds and how to deal with with the struggle to regain control over their lives.
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REMEMBER:
WE ARE TRYING TO ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:
What causes Alice’s behavior:
Genetics?
Early childhood experiences?
Problems with feelings and thoughts?
Current circumstances?
Wider society?
What are the causes of alcoholism??
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When a Man Loves a Woman, was a very powerful film because it showed just a small glance into how great of an impact addiction has on not only an individual, but also a family. While watching this film, and thinking about addiction, I tend to take on the perspective of George Engel with his biopsychosocial model. Addiction definitely has a biological factor, but it is also heavily influenced by the individual’s personality and frame of mind as well as their surroundings. The tricky part is that sometimes these causation are not all present in an individual struggling with addiction. Therefore, I believe the humanistic approach to healing is the most beneficial to treating addiction. The care plan should be tailored to the individual to be the most effective. All of this can be seen in the film. In terms of genetic influence, Alice’s father was an alcoholic which significantly increases her likelihood to become an alcoholic. Her psychological state also contributes to her addiction. She is insecure and unsure about her own abilities, and even admits she feels as if she cannot do anything well without drinking. She is unwilling and feels guilty unloading her feelings and fears to anyone, especially her husband. She feels helpless and fears that if Michael learns about all the things that go on in her head that he will not love her. She also admits that she was reluctant to get help because she feared that she would no longer be the woman Michael married if she got help. In addition to all of this, she was reluctant to admit how her thoughts and actions enabled her alcoholism, instead projecting the blame on her husband and pushing him away. These insecurities and fears accumulated in Alice’s mind and provoked her addiction. The other dimension that heavily influenced Alice’s alcoholism was her surroundings. She had a stressful job at a school and Michael was frequently away on trips because of his job as a pilot. Alice also felt a lot of stress and anger from Michael’s tendency to take over situations and his desire to fix her. Alcoholism is not something that can be immediately fixed, but Michael treated it like that, which put added stress on Alice as she was trying to get better. His intentions were good, but his actions added to Alice’s feeling of worthlessness that started developing at a young age with her overly critical mother. In Alice’s case, her alcoholism was strongly influenced by all three aspects of the biopsychosocial model. Alice had a genetic susceptibility to become an alcoholic, on top of her psychological state and stressful environment that all encouraged her addiction.
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Carina you have great points I agree with everything you said but when your ur saying her alcoholism is genetic also I was thinking it could just be from since she was young seeing her dad being an alcoholic to her mom basically putting her down all the way from her working at the school and trying to keep her husband happy so it also could just be from all the stress not so much a genetic feature.
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Hi Luis,
I absolutely agree that Alice’s alcoholism was primarily motivated by her environment and learned behavior from her father. I think these factors had a greater influence on her alcoholism, but with this being said, I still believe that genetics do have a small influence on addiction. I do not agree that a genetic susceptibility to addiction predetermines the path we take in life. An individual with addiction in the family is unfortunately more likely to develop an addiction themselves. This has a lot to do with learned and observed behavior, but it also has roots in genetics. Sometimes an addictive personality is predisposed in our genes and it takes a certain environment or set of circumstances to bring it out.
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Hey Carina,
I agree with you that Alice’s addiction was caused by multiple factors, not just genetics or environment. I like that you mentioned the humanistic approach as the best approach for Alice. Even if Alice has a predisposition to alcoholism genetically, what she really needs to recover is love, support, and understanding. She likely didn’t become an alcoholic just because of her genes- it was also triggered by her past experiences and current stress.
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I didn’t know what to think going into this movie at first as I’ve seen both Meg Ryan movies and movies on addiction/recovery and have been less than impressed with both. This movie, however, left me pleasantly surprised. The characters of Alice and Michael were acted superbly in my opinion. Although, I think they really shined through in the last half of the movie when all of their cards were on the table so to speak. I really felt for the Michael character as his life was suddenly flipped on its side as he scrambled to accommodate his newly sober wife in the only manner he knew how. This method, of course, didn’t work as one can’t fix a mental health issue using the same methods that originally caused it.
I was blown away by certain aspects of this movie but felt that they fell short in accurately depicting other parts. The recovery portion of the movie did a really good job of showing that getting clean and staying clean can be summed up in one word: messy. It affects everyone around the afflicted and this movie did an excellent job of showing that. I also thought it did a great job of showing how the fellowship of 12 step programs can be very effective in aiding in recovery as they are more than just a support group but more like a community set up to help those struggling members.
Conversely, I don’t think the movie lended enough time to exploring the true roots of Alice’s addiction which I feel were merely grazed over at certain points (i.e. alcoholic father, condescending, mentally abusive mother). I really wish the movie had shown her more often sharing at meetings/rehab rather than just Michael doing so in order to give the viewer more insight. Plus, a lot of Alice’s “healing” seemed to occur off screen, unbeknownst to the viewer.
Alice was a truly disturbed individual and her husband was an unknowing enabler. He often used sexual tension as a bridge over troubled waters, and eventually Alice called him out on this. It was only when they separated from each other that they discovered the real causes behind each other’s suffering and misguided approaches.
Alice’s story is, unfortunately, a common one in today’s society. Addiction can and will cause suffering in the lives of everyone it encounters. It stems from countless factors like having a genetic predisposition, a chemical imbalance, or perhaps suffering trauma as a child just to name a few. It would appear like a great number of Alice’s issues originated in her childhood. She never fully came to grips with her father’s problem drinking and may have also been predisposed to the disease of alcoholism as well. Perhaps some form of therapy during childhood or adolescence could’ve helped her cope with her issues rather than turning to the bottle, but in the end she found the help she needed.
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Hi Scott,
I had similar doubts about the movie- but like you I was pleasantly surprised. Addiction is a hard topic and is especially hard to cover well. I completely agree with you that the movie did a good job in some areas, but not so well in others. I thought that the movie did a good job at giving a glimpse into how strongly addiction affects a whole family in addition to the individual. I also agree with your point that the movie did a good job at showing how ‘messy’ addiction recovery can be and how effective getting help is. Although the movie did a good job at showing this, I also saw it as a downfall of the movie. The movie only provided a simplified case of addiction, because unfortunately for a good majority of addiction cases deciding to get help is a longer and difficult path. Sometimes addicts refuse to even admit they have an addiction and are reluctant to get help. In a lot of cases they resist any form of treatment and relapse before they make any real steps towards progress. Alice’s story was not as ‘messy’ as most addiction cases are, she came to the realization she had a problem, got help and began on the road to recovery. This being said, the movie did a good job at showing that recovery is a long process and that addiction – or any mental illness for that matter – can not be fixed on the spot. I absolutely agree with you that the movie would have benefited more if it showed Alice exploring the source and reason for her addiction. It is apparent that numerous factors influenced it – her childhood exposure to alcoholism, her emotionally abusive mother, feelings of insecurity and doubt, and her stressful environment – but it would have been interesting to hear what Alice cited as the primary reasoning.
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I agree with you to some extent, however I think we are all speculating on her parents. Possible more her mother than her dad. She gave us insight as to how her dad was an alcoholic and how that started her drinking from a young age. It didn’t tell a lot about her mom, we have to infer from that brief interaction she has with her mom when her mom came to take care of the children. I believe that we can assume she had a typical upbringing that you would have with an alcoholic father, a pattern of abuse and neglect. Even though her dad seemed to be a functional alcoholic. Now that I am thinking about it, her addiction is almost all behavioral to begin with, she learned it from her father. As she got older it turned into psychosocial and now it just covers all areas of her life.
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Hi Scott, very well written. I agree with most of the points you made, especially how the process of healing can be “messy”. A few close people in my family suffer from alcoholism and the process of getting clean can definitely be hard. But I don’t necessarily believe the process ever ends, I just believe it gets easier. If an alcoholic in recovery loses track of their AA meetings and recovery process, they can land right back in the same boat. I also believe the 12 step process is a very good thing for people suffering from alcoholism, we weren’t shown the steps in this movie but I have witnessed it being a life changing process for members of my family. The process seemed to free them. I think the 12 steps would be great for Alice to do, to let go all of her baggage. I wish we were shown more in depth of her struggles and strengths during recovery.
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Allison did not just affect her but she affected everyone in her family with her drinking. She let her daughters watch her fall over in the shower to the point that they though she has died. She got to the point that she could not function n her daily life. She couldn’t express herself to her husband about how she felt about how him being gone so much affected her. He say her slowly drink more and more he tired to brush it off has if it was nothing. When they went on vacation and she feel in the water because she was intoxicated he saw it wanted to do something but it look like he really didn’t know what to do. He wanted to believe her that she would stop drinking. Than she began to try and hide it from him while he slept or when he left for work. She finds herself lost she found that she was more alone every time and tired to mask that with drinking. Yet the problem didn’t seem to come from there exactly. Later on we get told her father had a drinking problem and she was blamed for him relapsing. Her mother blaming her and making her feel has if she was not worth anything triggered her in a big way. It cause her to feel less of herself for her to have very low self esteem and to think that her escape from everything was doing what she saw her father do which was drink to the point that just didn’t have to remember what was going on.
The movie did a good in showing the aspect of how now only does it affect her daughters and her husband. Her daughter began to fear her. They saw her behavior they took has something bad they didn’t get what exactly it was but they understood has there mom was sick. Once she began to get aggressive while she was drinking they feared her. When she would yell they would go to there room stay there or they would cry seeing how she was acting. She was in part doing exactly what her mother did to her with them to make it the endless cycle if it wasn’t to be broken. She was making them feel has less like her mother was because that what she was taught and she didn’t know how to end it she continued it because she couldn’t even deal with what had happened to her has a child.
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PLEASE ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS, THE INSTRUCTIONS ARE ON THE ACADEMIC PAGE:
What causes Alice’s behavior:
Genetics?
Early childhood experiences?
Problems with feelings and thoughts?
Current circumstances?
Wider society?
What are the causes of alcoholism??
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Alice seems to be effected by her husbands absence. Her desire to drink can be caused by this and maybe even the stresses of being a parent. Many people when abusing drugs and alcohol tend to dwell on past experience. When Alice’s mother appears she seems to be affected by the things she says. For example the first thing her mother says to Alice is something about her weight. She later says her mothers judgments and fathers drinking probably didn’t help. I assume this behavior the mother demonstrates was worst when Alice was a child and Alice’s father was probably abusive or manipulative. This probably made her never feel good enough and effected her childhood experience eventually sticking with her into adulthood. Later on after she gets out of rehab she goes to marriage counselor with Michael and there she begins to express frustration in her marriage and parenting with him. Their marriage began to become a little different. This was probably something that bothered Alice but unconsciously before rehab driving her to drink more. I don’t believe alcoholism is genetic. I believe it has everything to do with environment and feelings. Alice is a great women with good intentions but as human I can relate that feelings, memories and thoughts can push you to a bad habit like alcoholism. I believe a humanistic approach towards her behavior is beneficial. She has many good qualities which is why Michael loves her. Focusing on these things helped her be a better person.
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PLEASE ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS, THE INSTRUCTIONS ARE ON THE ACADEMIC PAGE:
What causes Alice’s behavior:
Genetics?
Early childhood experiences?
Problems with feelings and thoughts?
Current circumstances?
Wider society?
What are the causes of alcoholism??
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What causes Alice’s Behaviour
Genetics: She mentions her father being an alcoholic. But I personally do not agree that alcoholism is a genetic trait.
Early Childhood: Her mother has this way about her that seems she looks down on Alice. It seems her mothers behaviour has not changes since Alice was young because she seems to just take it and not stand up for herself. This could definitely be a cause to why she drinks. Since she does mention that her father was an alcoholic I am sure those memories are always in her conscious mind.
Problems with feelings and thought: She seemed very insecure and sad. This could definitely be a direct affect from her mentally abusive mother and alcoholic father. She had a problem with her husband being away on trips. It looked overwhelming to be looking after two young girls alone. A childs first foundation is their parents and when things are not healthy in the home this later can negatively affect the person. In Alice’s case she began to drink and be a replica of her father.
Current circumstances: Alice is almost always alone taking care of her two girls while her husband Michaels away. The stress could easily impact a relapse. Since Michael and Alice do go out often it seems she has created a habit of getting drunk and having Michael to look after her. This probably set the tone for her that getting wasted was appropriate because Micahel would always be there to support and help her after the fact.
Wider society: Drinking is legal and appropriate and society. So if Alice struggled with drinking before and had just a taste/smell of alcohol this could have triggered something for her. After realizing her drinking was a problem she went to rehab. Being around all those peopl with similar yet diffrent problems she felt understand and willing to get better. SHe finally did not feel alone and trapped. This wider society both could have trIggered a problem yet help her overcome just that.
WHat are the causes of alcoholism: I feel for diffrent people the causes are endless. In Alice’s case is was growing up in her home and then choosing to be like her father. She saw maybe drinking was the way her father handled stress or everything for that matter. Children will always follow what they see unless proven it is bad for them. Alice said she choose to drink her first beer at I believe 14. A behaviorst might see that this was just that a learned behaviour from her father.
A humanistic approach would point out that this was a choice she made due to how feelings and this was a way she handled it. But the make it a point to focus on her positive traits. WHich she has lots of. THey choose to focus on those and move forward and never look back.
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Alice’s behavior could have been caused by genetics which would explain Her speech issues. Allison didn’t have any siblings so it’s uncertain if the gene could have been passed down to her. Alison’s father was an alcoholic, which could genetically contribute to her speech delay. She could also have the addiction gene because once she went to rehab she began smoking a lot more. Allison was probably more subject to alcohol because she seen her father drinking on a daily basis, not because of genetics in my opinion. I do feel that genetics can possibly contribute to alcoholism or any addiction, but I don’t feel that it is 100% actually.Though smoking can be a cause of stress it’s also a sign of addiction, which may have been the gene Allison inherited. Allison and her mother didn’t have a good relationship , her mother would always tell Allison she’s just like her dad. This was difficult for Allison because her mother putting those thoughts in her head made Allison believe that about herself. Allisons mother even took out her emotional feelings about her husbands alcoholism on Allison by emotionally abusing her. with Now that Allison was raised being told she would be a drunk it lead to her having her first drink at the age of 9. Allisons mother constantly blamed her fathers lapse on Allison which created emotional conflict for Allison. Allisons mother used . Allisons seems like an insecure person who lacks self identity. Allisons life is so controlled by addiction that’s she met her husband Michael in a bar. She lacks logical processing of feelings saying her husband belittles her in front their children which isn’t true but, Allison uses this as an excuse to drink. Allisons drinking problems show she has issues facing feelings because even if her husband did belittle her in front of the children , she should not harm herself..Allison and her husband have a destructive relationship because not only does he influenced her to drink but he drinks with her. Allison’s husband also contributes to her alcoholism issues by taking care of her when she is drunk. Allison did not thinking clearly when becoming drunk, she has two children that need to be cared for.Allison has a problem with feelings for her children because she does not care for them as she should being that alcohol is her main concern.Allison and Michael have a destructive relationship and can only bring each other down, it’s not genetics.
. Allison became more healthy when she entered rehab in many different ways. I was in became more mentally healthy because she begin thinking more clearly and processing her emotions. She begin dealing with the issues that caused her to be in this predicament in the first place. Allison begin meeting new people but most importantly found herself.I believe Allison’s alcoholism was triggered at a young age because she was constantly told that she was the reason for her father relapsing. A child should never be exposed to drugs or addiction, but when they are it can be extremely detrimental to their development. Allison may have stopped developing in ways that caused her to want to drink. Living with, better yet being raised by a person who is facing addiction can definitely cause the child to become addictive. blame embarrassment curiosity , etc can cause alcoholism.Personally I have a cousin who is dealing with drug addiction right now and it has ruined my family. This is extremely personal, but my cousin just went into Rehab had today and I’m praying that this is the last time she goes there. It’s difficult because my aunt doesn’t realize the impact that she had on my cousins life. My aunt doesn’t understand the part she played in my sister becoming a drug addict. But I guess everyone can’t see being a drug addicted parent can lead your children on the same path….
Feel free to reply 🙂
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Hi Terri,
I am so sorry to hear about your cousin and how it has impacted your family. Addiction is something that greatly effects the individual and everyone around them. Unfortunately, as you mentioned it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, if someone is told over and over again that they will grow up to be an addict then sometimes it is just easier to become what everyone tells you. I absolutely agree with you that genes do not concretely determine a person’s life. Having a family member struggle with addiction does make an individual more susceptible to becoming an addict, however, it does not set their path in stone. Certain personalities can be described as more enabling for addiction, which also heavily influences addiction. When you were talking about this later in your response you said that Alice’s alcoholism was due to her surroundings and childhood upbringing more than her genes. I agree with you that her addiction was largely caused by her surroundings and mental state, however, this does not mean that her genes had no influence. Addiction can be viewed through the biopsychosocial model, meaning that several factors can attribute to her behavior, however not all of them have to be present for addiction to develop. In Alice’s case, I believe that factors from all three dimensions exist. She has the genetic susceptibility to addiction, but she also was plagued by fear and insecurity and was surrounded by a stressful environment. Her mother’s emotional abuse attributed to her feelings of worthlessness and can be easily cited as the source for a lot of her insecurities. Later in life she feared her husband not loving her anymore, or that she couldn’t do anything well without drinking. On top of this her husband enabled her, as you mentioned, he had the tendency to take over situations and took care of her when she got drunk. One point you made was that Alice cared more about drinking than she did about her kids. I respectfully disagree, I think that her love for her children is what drove her desire to get better. I saw her addiction as a response of her insecurities. I think that Alice was unsure about her abilities as a parent which provoked her to drink and when Michael expressed concern she did not take any real steps to get better. It was only until her addiction harmed her children that she decided to get help. I also do not think that she fully got better in rehab. It definitely put her on the right track, but I think she was the healthiest at the end of the movie. While she was in rehab she did not take responsibility for her own actions, instead she projected all of her problems on her husband and pushed him away. It was only until she took responsibility in the end of the movie that she truly became more healthy.
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Hi carina,
Thank you for your apologies, but honestly there’s no reason to be sorry. I having a family who influences, condones and also will do drugs with my cousin is what has her in the situation. It’s a sad thing but honestly she chose this path even though her parents influenced her.I actually agree with you, biopsychologic model sounds about correct, influences from everywhere got her to this point of…..Destruction. I agree with you, rehab was not the only reason she got better for sure but it was definitely An eye opener.
Thanks for replying! & happy thanksgiving !.
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Hi Terri,
First I want to start by saying that I hope everything works out for your cousin and that she finds solace in sobriety. The worst part about addiction is that the person afflicted needs to be fully willing and ready to change before it can truly happen. Alice’s experience in rehab was a bit candy coated and not as realistic as I think it could have been. Rehabs are notorious for having patients leave before the 28 day program is up, acting irritable and ungrateful throughout their stay, and fighting everyone tooth and nail despite the helpers’ best intentions for the addict. Addiction is such a sordid mess of a thing that unfortunately has no distinctive beginning or end. Addiction can only be truly understood by the addicted/formerly addicted, and the best support one can show for the struggling individual is patience and unconditional love. I wish you and your family better days up ahead.
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Thank you I appreciate your support. You can definitely say that because certain people in my family have been trying for years to get my cousin off of drugs in it just seemed that it doesn’t work no matter how hard we try. In the same sense of their family members enabled her to be on drugs and also did drugs with her so I get how that can be difficult…But she’s been sober now for two months so I’m feeling confident that hopefully this time she won’t relapse… But we’ll see I guess. I definitely had to learn the best way to support my cousin because at times I will feel angry with her and not wanting to deal with her anymore because of her addiction but now ever since being in social psychology 101 I definitely feel like I can deal with her better. I appreciate your wishes.
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I agree when you say that her mother keeps repeating that she will be like her father and that it could condition her mind. I also believe that biological influences could predispose individuals who have antecedents of addiction in the family. The environment is another influence that might trigger her behavior; in other words, Alice has a perfect set up to fall in alcoholism.
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I have never seen this movie before and really wasn’t sure what it was going to be about. The first couple scenes reveal a lot about this movie and explains the characters. At first when she had a couple melt downs I thought it was going to have to do with her having bipolar disorder or something to that matter. Finding out it was the alcohol was a game changer for me. She was a school counselor, has two super adorable kids and not to mention the best husband of all time. I think that Alice was acting this way because she didn’t know how good she had it and she was so wrapped up in alcohol she didn’t think she could live without it. Later the truth comes out, that she drinks from 4 in the morning to 10 at night when she goes to bed. Michael didn’t see this because she hid it so well from him. I have personally seen what alcoholism does to someone and watching Alice go through what she is going through really shows how much it can take a toll on someone’s life. I think the one thing that is most important in this movie is the support Alice gets from Michael. You see so many people now a days leaving you when you need them the most. In Alice’s case she needed Michael and he saw was alcohol was doing to his wife and he stuck by her side the entire time telling her that she could do it. It is so important to have that support system so they can pick you up when you are down. Alice and Michael were not the only one’s who this affected. Casey, Jeff and Amy were significant characters as well. The two girls had to watch their mother drink and drink and didn’t understand it enough to comprehend what Alice was doing. Jess is a smart little girl and knew something was not right with her mom and she tried to keep it away from her sister. Amy is just suppose to be the babysitter but she ends up being the cook, the nanny, the cook. She knew what was going on and she wanted to help but Alice wouldn’t let her. Michael put too much pressure on Amy. Alice i feel, really tried to get better in rehab. I think people found her so comforting because she is a school consoler and she is use to talking to people, talking about their problems. In the bringing of the movie she was talking to the girl in her office and went home and told Michael about it. I think Alice found it more comforting talking to people her own age going through the same thing she is. When Michael and Alice go to therapy she told the therapist that she feels unfair to Michael because is trying to be so sweet and nice to her as she works through her issues. Some alcoholics don’t even see other people around them trying to help. Sometimes they think everyone is out to get them. Alice knows that Michael is there for her and that’s what I think she is so focused on getting better. Also in therapy she talks about how Michael takes over the girls sometimes and they listen to him more than they listen to her. I personally agree with Alice here and I think that Michael does step in and make his own decision when it should be an agreement between him and Alice. I think Alice feels like she’s in the shadows and has no control over her children so she feels like less of herself and alcohol makes her full again. (If that makes sense) When Gary showed up at the house and Michael saw him I think Michael’s first initial thought was that Alice might slip being with him outside of Rehab.
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PLEASE ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS, THE INSTRUCTIONS ARE ON THE ACADEMIC PAGE:
What causes Alice’s behavior:
Genetics?
Early childhood experiences?
Problems with feelings and thoughts?
Current circumstances?
Wider society?
What are the causes of alcoholism??
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I watched the movie and I find it interesting because it has on focus not only one subject but it has love, family, society, and one of the biggest problem in society now and then Alcohol Addiction. Since in the begging of the movie Alice is at the bar having drinks, there she met her future husband. It introduce us with her life style which is going to make her addicted to alcohol. The years go by and she drinks more and more until she is compliantly addicted to alcohol. Alice had been introduced to alcohol early in her life, she have had her first drink at age of 9. She keeps drinking until she does not have any control on her life and family. realizing and admitting that she needs treatment and rehabilitation is the best decision she made for the new start. Whatever was the cause of making her an alcoholic does not matter that much as it matter to recover. Different theorist have different theories about the causes of behaviors.
From psycho-dynamic perspective, Freud would say this is cause of an oral fixation.
Biological perspective would focus on her gens.
Behavioral perspective would focus more on the people who modeled Alice how to drink and how they influenced on her behavior.
From Humanistic perspective Alica might have had lack self-esteem
From the social/ group perspective She probably thinks that she function when she is drunk.
In my opinion the last three has the most impact on ones behavior. Even though most of the time people do not want to admit they do follow models, can be a friend, or someone they like (actor, singer, dancer ect) but the people who are most close are the ones who effect more on them are their families. Sometimes people get lost, they might failed on something, do not fell to be where they want to be and they find themselves a company that makes them forget who they are. Alcohol seems to be the right “company” to them until they be addicted to alcohol. I think at people with addictions the biggest step to recovery is when they realize they have an addiction. Humanistic perceptive is what i think helped Alica, As soon as she starts to love herself and her family more than anything else. She was the one who decided to go in rehabilitation. She realized she needed help, The change started from her.
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Hi Silviana , I agree with everything you said. I like how you put it “Alcohol seems to be the perfect company” to help Alice ignore her problems. And she doesn’t know how she will live everyday without the only thing that numbs her pain that had been built up over the years with an alcoholic as a father and an abusive mother. It really goes to show how we can be affected by the environment we are raised in. Maybe Alice is suffering from PTSD from her childhood struggles in her household?
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Hollo josilyn! Thanks for replying and giving your opinion.
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This movie was absolutely heart wrenching. I felt for everyone in the family. Alice’s addiction didn’t just affect her, it affected all her family members, her husband and two beautiful young girls. Like professor Nuzzolo always talks about, our actions affect everybody in our “pond”. This story didn’t feel unfamiliar to me, Ive seen these things happen within my own family. Alice’s alcoholism was her easiest escape from the pain she dealt with inside her own mind. Alice was mentally and maybe even physically abused by her mother growing up and the only other thing she observed was an alcoholic father. She was introduced to alcohol at a very young age and started to see it as an escape, something to numb the pain. It made her confident loud and crazy when she drank. It “took away” her problems and shielded her from her pain for that moment. She didn’t have to face her internal issues and she didn’t think she could survive her issues without alcohol. Alice was afraid of how much worse the pain would be without the thing that numbed it. From a congnitive perspective, Alice believes that she cannot function without a drink. Alice has no confidence in her self. When she goes to treatment she breaks down, she can’t bare to think of how horrible life will be without a drink. Through all the pain and suffering she put on her children what she thought about most was how hard it would be not to have a drink. Once Alice started to see that she was not alone, she wasn’t crazy because of her addiction, other people were like her to it seemed to help a little. The next big issue for Alice was going back into her old environment (her home) and not acting the same, having to behave different, having to adjust. Alice in away was classically condition to drink whenever she was at home, to avoid the pain, to be and act a certain way. Alice didn’t know how she was to function without her security blanket to take away the pain. Alice ended up pushing her husband away. Alice husband in my opinion was enabling her without realizing. It took Alice breaking down and lashing out on him for the two of them to realize their roles in the situation. People seem to like to stick to what they know and this was shown all throughout the movie. Fear was the dominant emotion, fear of change. People don’t like to not know what will happen next. Adjusting to things like this takes time, patience and communication. Your not always going to get it right on the first try. Its kind of a trial and error type thing. Adjusting to the situation is very hard. Eventually everybody found their niche again, Alice was aware of her wrongs and could finally feel that love for her husband again. She was able to live her life without a drink. Her husband was able to let her have the space and time to recover and get well. But they did not give up on each other. Her husband realized he was trying to fix his wife so much that he was missing the most important part, listening. I believe if this story were to go on Alice and her husband would indulge into her recovery process together and find a steady, happy, loving, healthy balance in there life. The addiction affected the whole family, including the kids, so the recovery should do the same. Everybody in the situation needs time to recover and everybody does it in there own way. But having the support and listening ear of a family member can be the most important thing. Talking about your feelings, not keeping them bottled up, being open and honest and facing your fears will lead you to recovery . This movie is not something “normal” people are affected by addiction all around us and it really helps to get a better understanding of addiction and alcoholism in order to help.
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PLEASE ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS, THE INSTRUCTIONS ARE ON THE ACADEMIC PAGE:
What causes Alice’s behavior:
Genetics?
Early childhood experiences?
Problems with feelings and thoughts?
Current circumstances?
Wider society?
What are the causes of alcoholism??
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In my opinion Alices behavior is caused early childhood experiences. I would not blame her behavior on genetics because we did not see enough to prove that it runs in the family, we saw that Alices dad was an alcoholic but don’t know as far as others in her family. Her early childhood experiences were negative, causing her to have a negative mindset and low self esteem. The causes of alcoholism I believe are greatly influenced by how a child is brought up, they are shown by there parents or a need for them to numb some type of internal pain. Abusive home cause children to be negatively affected. Also when it comes to a wider society, I believe a lot of kids start drinking at a young age because they may think its “cool” or how to become “happy” from what they have seen around them on television. I believe each and every part of your life can contribute to alcoholism, including genetics.
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Hi Josilyn,
I agree that this really did affect everyone in the family. I definitely can see how she was scared to change and they both feared that change. Her husband wasn’t really ready for her to change either because he was the dominant one in the relationship. It is really hard for the family to adjust to her change.
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Hi Micheal, I agree 100% that Micheal was not ready for Alice to change perhaps because that is the only side of her he’d ever seen. I often find its hard for people to change when they are so comfortable and used to something, kind of like the expression “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. But once his behaviors caused negative consequences and almost made him lose his family (operant conditioning?) Micheal came to realization that he had to change along with Alice. He had to learn to love the new Alice. Thanks for the comment.
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movie was actually quite interesting seeing that alcohol could really do that to someone but Alice’s behavior is caused by her childhood memories since her dad was a drunk and her mom would make her feel terrible but saying it’s genetics I don’t really think that’s what it was she was living a really fast life basically had everything she wanted which was probably just to much pressure on her which drove her to drink just so she could function with her husband because like she said she’s boring without being high. Also having children can drive you crazy I mean it’s reality knowing you brought a child into this world but it can drive people crazy because that’s a huge responsibility at the end of the day and she couldn’t handle all the pressure of being a mother working at school and also trying to be young again with her husband traveling all over the world it’s a lot. It so much to where people can lose themselves in the moment and once it’s starts it doesn’t stop. When I found out that my sons mother was pregnant I too myself started drinking a lot because in reality I was terrified I had no idea what to imagine on what it was going to be like bringing another human being into this world so this movie opened my eyes a lot seeing what it really is to be an alcoholic and knowing what harm it does to you physically and mentally. Addiction is a serious condition and needs to be dealt with right away because at the end of the day every relationship deserves to be healthy that’s why you have one another to help each other out .
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PLEASE ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS, THE INSTRUCTIONS ARE ON THE ACADEMIC PAGE:
What causes Alice’s behavior:
Genetics?
Early childhood experiences?
Problems with feelings and thoughts?
Current circumstances?
Wider society?
What are the causes of alcoholism??
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I mean but the comment that I left I pretty much answered all those questions mam are you looking for a more in depth answer or??
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Yes,,, in addition to active participation
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Well Alice’s behavior to me is not genetics it’s early childhood experiences because she’s seen her dad be an alcoholic and also her mom use to bring her down at an early age so she’s always had so type of doubt in life also stress is a huge factor with her job her kids and also trying to keep a steady relationship with her husband so those are deff causes of alcoholism I mean it also could be genetics but in this movie I see it being a whole bunch of things all the way from how she’s feeling to certain circumstances she’s dealing with that have made her start and continue to drink heavy
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This movie was an eye-opener to those not exposed to those with addictions.Addiction can be a very traumatizing life style. As you can see it is hard to put the bottle down once you get used to the taste. Having siblings of my own go through the same struggles Alice went through I know people that can relate to this. As I was watching, the scene in which she sneaks out to have a drink, and the look that the husband gives is of off putting to me. One thing I noticed the scene where she disputes Amy is in result of the alcohol I her system as well as her neglect to her daughters. this film showcases addiction to alcohol and what impacts it can make on a person.
As many probably noticed in the movie addiction can make large impacts one persons behavior, family relationships and life style. I particularly didn’t like the responses made by the husband during the phone call scene in rehab. That sly comment of her being like 60 pounds was a little crucial. The looks he gives her makes her useless and weak. Though she seeks to get better for her husbands sake rather than her self. Personally the husband strikes me as man seeking a loving environment, shelter. I recall the scene at the rehab center when he is pondering by himself and notices the dynamic relations with other families. also he is of the jealous type when confronted seeing Alice with other which I found peculiar dealing with the situation Alice was in.What I took from the movie is you can only help those who don’t ask. particularly the scene when he walks in see her laughing with her friend Trevor. The whole deal with her socializing gets him set back. I admire the daughter due to her prospective to her mom. she never seems to skip a beat with her moms actions.
I found this movie to put life into perspective. life loves to repeat themselves as those probably saw in the film. Her grand father was supposedly and alcoholic as well as her dad , so some would say this addiction is genetic, I say differently. Genetics only control appearance not behavior. After returning from rehab, Alice discovers her sobriety is causing a new set of problems with her husband. In a family counseling session, Michael reveals he has relied on her addiction to bolster his own role as the controlling perfectionist in the family. Michael and Alice work through their issues in couple’s counseling to reconcile their differences and form a cohesive family unit that embraces Alice’s sobriety and new-found strength and independence. the speech she gives in the end was to me her final output on her struggle. her take on what her daughter witnessed this speech was her confession to those she loved . I personally felt this speech as a way of shutting down her walls that she faced during her trial of being an alcoholic. I found her speech to very moving and I hope others saw that way as well. I hope that those undergoing an addiction can see that your loved by those you will always seek it from and no matter what addiction where their is a will their is a way. Just look at Alice.
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After watching the movie and reading the “john” article, one can answer the question of what causes Alice’s behavior. Similar to the “john” case, multiple factors helped cause her behavior, and it is hard to pin point ONE exact reason. Was it genetics? Does Alice have the “drunk” or “addiction” gene? Possibly. We learn from Alice that her father was an alcoholic, so the “addiction” gene could have been passed down from her father. Furthermore, we aren’t made aware of any siblings that Alice might have. So, unlike John who had a sober brother, it would be impossible to rule this out for Alice because there isn’t anyone to compare her behavior to. Also, after she attends detox, she starts smoking heavily, which might be a sign of the “addiction ” gene. Is her behavior caused by early childhood experiences? Again, possibly. Alice mentions that her mother would cope with her husbands alcoholism by taking it out on Alice, and making her feel useless. Similar to Johns situation, Alice was tormented by her mother because of her fathers drinking, which left her with little self esteem and self identity. Is her behavior caused by problems with feelings and thoughts? Absolutely. Throughout the movie, I could sense a disturbance between Alice and Michael. In fact, Alice told her couples counselor that Michael belittles her in front of the children, which may have caused her to drink on a few occasions. Additionally, Alice tells Michael that he makes her skin crawl, than follows that with “ask me how badly i want a drink.” It seems like they have a lot of unsolved relationship issues that needed to be dealt with, but unfortunately, instead of dealing with them, Alice drank. I would include current circumstances in with problems with feelings and thoughts because these two seem to be related when it comes to Alice and Michael. There also seems to be a little social influence as well. Twenty minutes into the movie, Alice’s coworker invites her for a winery, which causes Alice to forget about getting home to the kids, causing a problem between her and Michael.
In the end, it don’t think that there is ONE underlying cause of alcohol addiction. Rather, I believe there are numerous factors that contribute to alcoholism. However, treatment options would be based on the individual, as everyone perceives things differently.
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Your statement is interesting and I totally agree with you when you say that there are numerous of factors that contribute to alcoholism. But I do not agree with the part that it can be genetic. No alcohol or other addictions I think can be genetic. Genes are in someone organism born with it. Alcohol is learned it is out of our bodies and we decide if we want to let it in and than say is genetic we have no choice or taking control of our life and take the best examples of people like sports and other different activities, not the easy one ruining life.
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Silvana,
When discussing the predisposed “genetics” aspect of addiction, I think it is reasonable to say that one has a choice in whether or not they pick up a substance in the beginning. If one never drinks, one may never know that she has a problem with alcohol, because in all reality and fairness, she doesn’t. Conversely, I believe, whether it be based on genetics or not, having alcoholism or drug addiction in one’s family greatly increases the odds of others being affected directly. Beyond the psychosocial aspect, I believe there is a chemical change that occurs with an addict’s mind that isn’t shared by non-addicts. True addicts experience a greater sense of relief than those who drink socially and don’t have an issue keeping their usage as moderate. Of course there is always the element of free will in any decision making but for the afflicted the decision isn’t always as simple as saying, “No,” and walking away.
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Hi Silvana, I was referring to the “addiction” gene, not necessarily the “drunk” gene. I believe that people are either born or not born with a gene that makes them prone to addiction, like alcohol or cigarettes. However, this could mean addiction to anything. Some people feel like they NEED a cup of coffee in the morning, just like some people feel like they NEED to be on there phone constantly. Others claim that their addicted to working out… Its possible that they have something in their DNA that makes them feel like they HAVE to do these things.
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I don’t think that there is a alcohol gene or predisposition to any substance addiction. I truly believe that these are learned behaviors. It’s a lot easier to drink or run to your phone when we are in stale/anxiety provoking situations. I don’t think that Alicia learned any other coping mechanisms in her life. She could have picked up running or excercise to help her clear her head but she went to what she saw and learned from her parents,drinking. I think that Alicia and Micheal would have been better if they had engaged in team activities to help them learn to rely on one another to achieve a goal. They could have gained skills to help with problem solving and be more proactive in their life challenges. Instead alcohol became the fuel for content and granded them the victim cards. Alicia instead of trying to engage in her issue, decided to become a victim in her life and blame her problem on others. Her brain became addicted ted to the dopamine from alcohol and that is what made her feel best in life. Substance abusing individuals face the same issues, the substance makes the normal life boring,so they feel more alive when they are under the substances dopamine releasing euphoric effects.
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I agree with Chris’s comments about having some sort of addiction gene. It is very apparent that Alice has a addiction for things to help her ease with her negative thoughts. As an example, as she was just starting rehab she felt horrible and wanted alcohol to help with her body almost sort of craving it. However she wasn’t allowed to drink alcohol and instead she turned to cigarettes. These helped immensely in her fight to stop drinking. But now that I think about it again she got addicted to another thing which helped her with her addiction. I’m not completely sure if I’m correct on that but it just seemed to me that Alice does have an” addiction” gene.
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After reading the “john” article and watching ‘when a man loves a woman’ i can now answer the few questions that were on the john article.
What causes Alice’s behavior?:
Genetics: In Alice’s speech, she mentions that her father was an alcoholic.
Early childhood experiences: Her mother would blamed his lapse on her, and was basically saying she is just like her father in a sense. She said her first drink was when she was 9 years old…
Problems with feelings and thoughts: She met her husband at a bar, which has to be telling as to how her addiction controled her life for a good portion of her life. She didn’t feel good enough and she felt like her life was spinning out of control. She must of grown up believing that she was no better than her father. She seemed very insecure and sad.
Current circumstances: She was married with two kids. The older child has a different father, and the younger daughter was with alice’s new husband, michael. They all lived together. Alice and Michael would go out a lot, and would drink. He would take care of her when she would pass out due to being drunk, and the whole process would just repeat itself over and over again.
Wider society: Once going to rehab she met people who connected with her and related to her.
What are the causes of alcoholism: Could be genetics, or it could be how you are mentally brought up. Alice’s mother would constantly tell her she is the reason for a relapse. If you are told that you are worthless or that you are bound to be this way, then you will soon agree.
From the behavior perspective, psychologist would of thought that Alice’s addiction was due to her seeing her father drink daily. Her mother telling her that she is the reason he is that way, made her also drink.
From the humanistic perspective, psychologists would of thought that her sadness, and insecurities played a huge role in her addiction.
From the social/group perspective, psychologists might of thought that alice drank so that she felt important to her husband. As she stated, she only felt like she was important to michael because he would take care of her of “try to fix her” when she was drunk or passed out.
Overall i think the end of the movie really showed how Alice’s husband, Michael, really went through all the stages he had to so that she could feel better. She got the help she needed and it worked out in the end. This was definitely a tear jerking movie. I hope people comment so that i can go in depth about which perspective i believe is more suitable for alice situation!
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EXCELLENT!! Please tell me what perspective you believe is suitable to describe and then treat Alice and her family??
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I personally believe that the humanistic perspective would suit alice the best. There are many other options i was considering such as genetics, but i overall saw the humanistic perspective as the best way to describe her addiction and how she got it. She was very insecure and sad, and growing up her mother didn’t really help her gain confidence. So over time she explained that she drank to forget everything!
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I also believe that the humanistic perspective represents Allison is well. Allison’s actions were very much so based off of her emotions.,As most humans. Though Allison was sad she did also show growth throughout the movie in rehab. She ultimately ended up accomplishing some of her goals though they shifted at different times.
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In responce to Terri,
Yes, I’m glad you agree as well! Her confidence was completly non existent, and she used drinking to hide from it all. Genetics could of been one, but the humanistic approach was the winner clearly for me. Thanks for commenting!
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I agree with you, Alice did believe people loved her more drunk than sober and it took a lot to actually learn that, that wasn’t true. She believed it so much that after work she went to drink with friends instead of heading home to care for her daughters. She was raised with an alcoholic and abusive parents. She caused her children traumatic memories and broke trust. Only to gain it back while in rehab. In rehab, she learned that she is much more better sober than drunk.
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Its almost as if the alcohol was her safety blanket. that made her forget all her troubles and insecurities. Everyone thought she had a perfect life but she was really suffering deep down. the movie really captures all emotions from all sides perfectly i feel like.
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In reply to Terry, I’m glad you see my perspective as well! Humanistic was ultimately what i was leaning towards because of the same reasons as you. her emotions seemed to control all of her outcome or actions she chose to do. Also i loved your point about how she changed in rehab. Thats so true and it shows that her emotions/ self esteem were helped and she got more confident in herself to over come it.. showing it may not at all be genetics or anything else.
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Addiction isn’t something to joke about and I’ve always known that but watching that movie made it so real. Becoming dependent on something so toxic not only changes the person you are but changes the people closets’ to you. It became normal for her daughters to hear their mom speak like she’s “sleepy” and to hear her sobbing in the bathroom because she knew what she was doing was wrong. It should never get to that point. It should never get to the point where you slap your own daughter either and then not too long after, she walks in on her mom, unconscious, with glass underneath and surrounding her body because she’s drank way too much and mixed it with some aspirin. I could only imagine how terrifying that is, thinking your mom is dead. She shouldn’t have gone through that at such a young age. Things shouldn’t have gotten that out of hand for Alice neither. Becoming that depressed and hurting that badly is something you’d never wish upon anybody. Rehab was the best choice she could have made honestly, it was one of the few ways she was ever going to become healthy again. Being away from her two daughters and her husband must’ve been extremely difficult but being dependent on something like that isn’t something you’d want to keep around your family because all it is, is constant pain.
What caused Alice’s behavior and was it genetics ? There could be a part of it that was genetics because her dad was an alcoholic but she had plenty of other reasons to turn to alcohol. Her turning to alcohol was had a higher chance than her turning to drugs because that’s what she grew up around and is familiar with but her childhood in my opinion, isn’t the main reason. Her husband was always working, on weekly trips while she was taking care of their two daughters and that isn’t as easy as it sounds. On top of that, she’s missing the man that should be there with her through it all. Of course there were little things that hurt her too and sooner or later, it all builds up and drinking was her way out of it, out of reality. It was that one thing that made all her feelings go away and turned her numb for a while.
Social/Cognitive- Alice believed that the drunk her was more loved than the sober her. She thought that she wasn’t fun and that she wasn’t good enough when she wasn’t under the influence. She would do things out of the norm when she was drunk that eventually became normal because drinking was a daily routine and so that her think she couldn’t be loved when she stopped doing all those “fun” things. When all along, her husband and daughters loved her unconditionally and nothing could change their that.
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Hello Isabelle!
You are so right saying that addiction is very serious that ruins ones life and others around them. I agree with you that the reasons that Alice became addicted to alcohol were different but I do not agree with the genes. I do not think being addicted to alcohol has anything to do with the genes. It is learned, she followed her fathers addiction not because was in their genes but because she learned from him how to behave. I am very against the genes rules when it comes to addictions. What happen when people quit alcohol or other substances, is that gene gone? People chose how to behave at first until it gets out of their hand and became an addiction. We have seen children who come of families with addictions and turn out hating alcohol or other substances and we have seen children from very good families who became alcoholic. I think is just easy to blame on others or genes for how someone behave Is the moment when Alica understood that she could be who she wanted to be that she decided to go to rehab.
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Hi Silvana, I really like your idea that Alice had to come to the realization that she could get better before she could start that process. She was being held back by her father’s past of alcoholism and her husband treating her like she was less capable of being a mother.
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I one hundred percent agree towards the part where you said it should never get that out of hand. Although unless your in that persons mind who’s getting to that point we’ll never really know if they’re full conscious of doing that to themselves or if they’re in some sort of mental daze. I personally believe anyone who gets to an extreme level of addiction in the beginning obviously knows what they’re doing but as they progress and get worse and worse they get in some sort of daze and just do whatever.
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thank you for your replays. I think even though she had a figure (her father) introduced to her as an alcoholic she could always chose to stay away from alcohol and not to be like him. Michael they might not know where is going out of their hands this should be a reason why they should not think they have control and ask help before it goes out of their hand and the consequences became biger
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This was a very powerful movie. I have never seen a movie show alcoholism at this perspective. It was powerful for Michael, Alice, and the children. It was interesting how observant that the oldest daughter was towards the mothers problem and her parent’s marriage. However, she was also very traumatized. The fact that she saw her own mother lying in a pile of glass naked, right after her mother hit her and screamed at her. I think what cause Alice’s alcoholism was her environment that she grew up in. Her child hood was also a factor of her behavior. Her dad was an alcoholic and as a child that influenced her. Especially when she said she had her first beer at 9. When your nine years old your brain is still developing, growing. And her drinking beer at that age, affected her brain development drastically and also it affected her cognitive thinking and life choices. At that age you’re looking for role models and people to look up to. So maybe her father was a model for her and that model was drinking. Alice’s home life was also stressful. Her husband didn’t really try to stop her from drinking again. It was a cycle. She would get very intoxicated, he would put her to bed, she would have a hangover, and it would all start again. Genetically, her behavior was affected by her father.
It’s really sad that it took something big for Alice to take action and recognize that she had a problem. However she wasn’t the only one traumatized. When she fel off the boat drunk, he had to jump in and rescue her. He had to attend meetings and his marriage fell apart. His maid quit on him while Alice was away, and he had to take care of two little ones which is stressful enough. I started tearing up when he told the oldest daughter that he was leaving. She already knew what was going on. For a wide spectrum the people at the home Alice was at affected her behavior also. They actually helped eachother get better. She was around people who all had an addiction. Also the nurse helped her get back on her feet again when she hit rock bottom. It surprised me that the nurse when through something similar as Alice. Alice’s feelings and thoughts were another factor of her behavior. She felt so guilty for laying a hand in her daughter and driving her husband away. She said he would make her feel small and unwanted and to just drink her tea with her little spoon. These negative words drove her to drink. However that was her decision. She was right when she said people can’t make you feel something, you do it yourself.
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Its interesting to see this perspective i agree because my father was an alcoholic, and I’ve only ever seen movies with the alcoholics perspective, but it never showed the other people in their “pond” that are affected. I was affected, my mom was, my sister, etc. This shows that one persons actions can create a chain reaction.
i also agree with you that her feelings towards herself may have caused her addiction to become worse and may have even caused it. She was very insecure and lonely… and wanted to be needed some how. This movie really showcased the struggled with addiction, and your reply was great! i agree with all of it
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Wow that’s really interesting. And yeah I agree with you too. Other movies haven’t really showed how other people around the protagonist have dealt with it. And thank you! I have never grown up with alcoholics in my family, however my friends mom is an alcoholic. And being around her, seeing how she acts in stores and public places was really shocking to me. But thank you for sharing that with me!
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I just wanted to let you know your not alone. My dad was a ragging alcoholic my entire life. It wasn’t till I was 16 and my boyfriend at the time threw him through a door for hitting me and my mom that he realized he had a problem. Unfortunately like Alice it always takes a crisis to make you realize you have a problem.
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In responce to your reply to me, thats not surprising to me that you also know someone who suffers from alcohol addiction. Its a sad addiction and it affects everyone. Im sorry to hear that, but in watching this video i think i am deffinetly a humanistic perspective for alice’s situation, how about you?
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It’s interesting your perspective! I didn’t really think of it this way. I only thought of it from the moms point of viee I would say, but now that you’ve said this it’s opened up my mind!. I also have family members who have been addicted to drugs for many years. But one thing I didn’t realize in till I was about 12 years old was that everyone who talks about these people condones what they do. Whether that means helping them cover up their drug issue, or even helping them get the drugs… It’s all the same isn’t it?. I honestly feel that your environment definitely affects you, these children and even children in my family has been affected by drug usage because of their parents. It’s horrifying because people always say it could be your sister , it could be your dad ,it could be your mom ,……but what do you do when is your mom ?!! it is your sister ?!! and it is your dad??? Where do you go who can you run to those of the real questions I guess right… Or are the real question is how can we prevent this?. I wonder what psychological issues our ancestors or even grandparents, parents or siblings are going through that would influence them to use drugs. Especially deadly ones well aren’t they all deadly I asked myself…I know that I don’t know any of you but reading your stories definitely make me open up my perspective towards the world.
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You totally hit it spot on. How you just described that is exactly how i think. Great description! and I’m sorry to hear that you also know someone who suffers from addiction in your family. I understand the feeling, and I’m open to talk if you ever need to vent!! I also wonder how we can stop this vicious cycle. Maybe deal with it at a young age instead of hiding it and hoping your kid is never exposed to it someday… when we all know they will learn about it one day most deffinetly.
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Quite a movie, indeed. In the beginning of the film, I didn’t see Alice as an alcoholic. She looked so professional and goal-driven. Once she started acting weird when the car alarm went off, I realized that I was wrong. It’s amazing how addiction can change your life and the lives of those around you. At first you see a happy family, a husband, a wife, and two daughters. By the middle of the movie, Alice is in rehabilitation, Michael is running around with so much responsibility on his own and the kids want their mother. By the end, however, Alice returns from rehabilitation and is upset at her husband for not letting her be responsible for the kids.
What caused Alice’s behavior in the first place? Was it genetics? Although her father was an alcoholic, I feel that she wasn’t drinking just because she’s her father’s daughter. She would want to drink for a reason, not just because her father had and now she had to as well. I’d have to say that her early childhood experiences may be a huge factor. She did say that when she was at the age of nine, she had her first drink. She may have become accustomed to it as she did it more often. Her mother was mostly condescending to her so she probably used alcohol to block her out. I also think that her surrounding environment could be another big factor. She’s gone through the stress at work and she stated at one point that she felt scared all the time. Having a wider society may also be another factor. She was probably not used to it and therefore, made her uncomfortable. Only drinking was her comfort zone.
I believe that Alcoholism has many factors. However, I don’t think genetics would be one of them (I may be wrong. It is a controversial topic). One factor could be early childhood experiences. Something could have happened to that person while they were a child and alcohol was the only thing that numbed the pain. For example, a parent could be abusive to the child and that may have lead them to start drinking. Or, it could have been due to current circumstances. Something in the change of environment could be the reason why someone would want to drink. For instance, someone got fired and now they cannot find a job. They may use that as a reason to drink alcohol. Another factor could be problems with feelings and emotions. Someone is feeling or thinking a certain way and society deems it not normal. This may also be an excuse to drink.
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Alexander,
Alice definitely had that “functional” alcoholic piece down pat. I think the director/screenwriter did an excellent job of showing how she could maintain a pretty hectic lifestyle with relative ease but of course something had to give at some point. I believe that if this story didn’t have such a Hollywood spin on it, there would’ve been a few more telltale signs beyond just the major ones that landed her in rehab.
Like you mentioned, she took her first drink at the age of 9. This is obviously before her brain had time to fully develop and was able to process matters in a constructive way. I think this experience laid the groundwork for how she coped with any and all matters that she found troubling throughout her life. This probably resulted in her emotional development being stunted. Also, as much as six months is a huge accomplishment in terms of sobriety, I feel the movie could’ve done a better job of showing how her work was just beginning.
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Scott,
I would have to agree with you. Yes, rehabilitation is the beginning and most crucial stage of becoming sober again; however, I think the director should have included the next couple of years of Alice’s life. When Alice goes to rehabilitation, it seems that the rest of the family (the husband and daughters) is falling apart and in need of repair. Moreover, when Alice returns from rehab, the family is getting itself back together. Things start going back to the way they were. What about her emotional development though? Surely she would need help for that as well.
Although things become normal again towards the end of the movie, I think by extending the timeline a little further, we would get more insight on how alcoholism really effected the family over time. Would the children be significantly changed if their mother wasn’t an alcoholic? How would they react to alcohol later on since they know how it negatively effected them? These are questions I can’t help but think of after watching the movie.
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I agree with the point that you made that Alice doesn’t look like the person to be affected with alcoholism. This opens my eyes and makes me realize that really anyone can be affected with the addiction. Also I agree with your statement of people are only really affected with alcoholism due to their environment.
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Hey Alex i one hundred percent agree with you about the whole genetics doesn’t play a part in being an alcoholic, i think that’s a load of crap. You become what you make of yourself, so if someone decides to sit down day after day and drink constantly they chose to do that to themselves. No “gene” made that person do that. And i do feel like her back round as a kid effected her in that way because anyone i know in real life who is or was an alcoholic i look at where their from and what their family was like and that seems as if that plays a huge influence.
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Michaela,
I’m glad you agree that genetics doesn’t play a part in alcoholism. I do not believe there is a “gene” that makes you an alcoholic. It just seems so improbable. I do not see Alice drinking just because her father did it; I see her drinking because of the environmental factors and her past. We know from the movie that she gets stressed from her job and many other things. Alice also states in one part of the movie that alcohol makes her comfortable. Let’s face it, no one likes to get outside of their comfort zone. However, I would also like to say that I may be wrong and that I am open to this kind of discussion. I believe in the evidence presented to me. With that said, if someone was to scientifically prove to me with hard evidence that genetics plays a part in Alice’s lifestyle, I would say that is valid.
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I agree that alcoholism has many factors and that it does not tie to genetics.. I think alcoholism is when ones chooses to drink in order to cope with something and that it is not passed on by a family member.
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This movie really opened my eyes to addiction and how it really can affect a family. Alice is nice woman who just couldn’t control her drinking. It got to a point where she was coming home early in the day drunk, and coming back very late at night. One day, she comes back home drunk and when her daughter Jess, asks to see if she was okay, Alice slapped her almost with all her force. Jess then went back to her room, crying, as Alice headed to go to the shower. Alice couldn’t even keep her balance in the shower and she fell onto the floor, smashing the door in the process. Jess hears this and quickly runs to the bathroom to see her mother’s body on the floor, unconscious. Jess calls Micheal, (Alice’s husband) saying that her mother died. Micheal flies back home as quickly as he can to see her. Alice luckily, is not dead, but because of this situation, her and Micheal decide that her drinking was getting out of hand. They agree that she needs to go into rehab. This leaves Micheal as head of the house which, really wasn’t an easy thing to do when he has a career as a pilot as well. During rehab Alice starts off really bad, but then as she progresses, she has no more desire to drink (even though she picked up the habit of smoking). Months later she returns to the house a different person, Instead of being her old crazy-self, she is more of an independent person. Michael has a tough time with her new personality, and they go to marriage counselling. The counselor gives them news that both of them didn’t expect. Micheal had a part in Alice’s alcohol problem. After this, the couple fight and Michael decides to move out. Michael isn’t really in the best of shapes and decides to go to a support group. Alice on the other hand is doing great by herself. After a while the two meet again and she proceeds to ask if he want to stay with them again and wants to 180-day clean speech. However, Michael breaks the news, and tells her that he got offered a position in Denver. She understands and he leaves for Denver. At the very end, Alice had her speech which covered all her struggles and feats. When she finishes she sees Michael made the trip for the speech. He now understands what he did wrong the entire time. He just didn’t listen. Instead of listening, he tried to fix her, and that was the real problem. The movie ends with them kissing passionately. All in all I enjoyed the movie, and the compelling problems. Micheal was my favorite character as I felt as though you can relate to him the most.
What causes Alice’s behavior:
Psycho-dynamic (Freud): This is an oral fixation. Freud would’ve believed that something in the oral stage was disturbed and that caused Alice to have crave for alcohol.
Psycho-dynamic (Neo-Freudians): They would have believed in the fact that Alice grew up in a very alcoholic environment. Which she did, her father was an alcoholic and she drank her first beer at 9 nine years old. She liked the feeling and the her environment didn’t stop her.
Behavioral: Her father was an alcoholic so from seeing this she must’ve thought that this was normal. As well, Micheal didn’t hate her when she was drunk, so she though that being drunk was good for their relationship.
Humanistic: Alice believes that she is the happiest version of herself when she is drunk.
Social/Cognitive: She thinks that she is better when she is drunk, or at least people gravitate toward her. Her own husband even doesn’t stop her from getting drunk, so to her she isn’t really doing anything wrong. As well as a teen her own friends even encouraged her drinking.
NeuroScience/Biological: Maybe alcoholism runs in her family as her grand father and father were alcoholics. However, this is seems to be unproven as it’s more your environment’s fault on how you are brought up.
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EXCELLENT!! Please explain the Humanistic perspective and how that theory of psychology could benefit Alice and her family.
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The humanistic theory is basically how you view yourself and how you think of your self worth. In this case this would help Alice and her family because in this theory it focuses on how you bring up your children as well. If only her father and mother were there to show her that she can turn to people to love and instead feel alienated from them, she would’ve have turned out to be such an alcoholic. As well, this would’ve helped her dealing with friend-ships when she was growing up as since she had didn’t know any better, and since her father and mother weren’t obviously helping, she resorted to drinking to get her friends. That is really in my mind how it would benefit Alice and her family.
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Hi Andy, I completely agree with your Psycho-dynamic (Freud) approach when it comes to Alice and her behavior. I would like to piggy back off of your comment and add that Alice also took up smoking while she was in detox. The fact that she went from one oral fixation (drinking alcohol), to another (smoking cigarettes), suggests that she might of had a disturbance in her oral stage of development. Towards the end of the movie, she was smoking in almost every scene, which is similar to the early part of the movie when she is drinking in almost every scene.
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I actually didn’t think of the smoking to be a part of her oral fixation. Now that you’ve said that however it just screams that she definitely had some disturbances in the oral stage. I did say that she started smoking as a way to help her addiction, but now she picked up almost just as deadly addiction which is smoking. However, I do believe her smoking is a better way to deal with stress because it benefits her family and everyone around her.
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Hello Andy and Chris,
I never even noticed her smoking in the beginning of the film, but now that I went back I can completely see where you are going with this. Her smoking during rehab is exchanging one addiction for another! Thank you for this now I can see what really happened there. Take care!
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I enjoyed reading your post. It is evident the way that you relate the differents theories of personality with the movie. Thank you!
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For Alice, drinking started when she was young. She stated how she had her first drink when she was 9. Her father was also an alcoholic, and that is probably one of the hard things that she had to see in her life, and her mother wasn’t much help to her when her mother found out she had a drinking problem too. All she said was “you get it from your father” or a similar statement and she didn’t help Alice, just hurt her more. Then Alice stated how her husband made her feel small, and worthless, but she also says how she felt that way about herself because “people don’t make you feel that way” even though people can make you feel bad about yourself in certain circumstances. He tried to help her, and not being able to control something in their relationship frightened him because he seemed, to me, to be the controlling one. The one who was independent and didn’t need to rely on his wife, and was scared when she didn’t rely on him. Alice had alcoholism throughout her family, and then she felt worthless about herself. She talks about one moment with her child being lost, and she was too drunk to remember where she was but that didn’t make her think “I need to stop drinking.” The moment she realized she had to stop was when she hit her daughter and then fell while in the shower, she then realized that she really needed to stop and had her husband (in that time) to help her.
Alcoholism is something that people don’t really admit they have a problem with. My friend’s mom drank all day, every day because she worked around alcohol so she was influenced to do it, then would bring it home and caused chaos within the family until she got sober. People would drink because they grew up with family/friends who would drink all the time. Or people who are depressed, have mental illnesses, or just feel down about themselves, would drink to make themselves feel better about themselves. Then there are others that do it just because they like it and then it turns into a problem. Alcohol makes people think and act differently and really affects families. In “When a Man Loves a Woman” it showed how much alcoholism and getting sober really affected the family. The daughters, who were probably traumatized seeing their mom the way they did, weren’t as close to her. Then the husband eventually left her when she became sober, though at the end their ties were fixed, the whole ordeal really affected the family relationship and it takes time to get that all back.
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I must say I agree with you as far as alcoholism. Your environment definitely influences your actions, needless to say your friends mom is kind of in the same predicament as Allison . I think as humans when we are self poisoning ourselves we fail to realize it until we are at the breaking point… if we ever even get there.
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Hi Terri,
Yes, I definitely feel like she will eventually get to that breaking point and that’s when she will realize she needs help, just like Alice did. It is something that is kind of bound to happen, and hopefully so she gets the help she needs.
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Hi Michael, I completely agree with your few on alcoholism. A lot of people drink because its a feel good drug. It makes them forget about their problems until they get sober. I would definitely say that those kids (especially the eldest one) would have been traumatized by their mothers actions, but it could be for the better. Seeing their mom as a complete mess might drive them away from alcohol.
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Chris, I agree with you too because while I was watching the movie I had the same feeling. I hope that looking at their parent’s life being messed up, children in these families will be far away from alcohol.
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Hey Chris i definitely would say those as for any kids who were surrounded and exposed to alcoholics would be. I do feel the oldest kids would be more effected by it because they have a more general understanding and can comprehend it more than say a younger child. As far as what you said about maybe its for the better what do you mean by that?
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In my opinion people that have been raped and molested also sometimes turn to drugs because it helps them forget about their experiences. Or even people just that have gone through difficult things in life they turned to drugs and alcohol to help them seal their emotions 🤔
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Hi Chris,
That is a very good point. Although children of alcoholics are more likely to become alcoholics themselves, it does not occur every time. You are right, sometimes children are simply so disgusted with their parent’s behavior as alcoholics, that they vow never to become like them. Even though it is possible of course for children of alcoholics to have healthy relationships with alcohol, sometimes observing their parent’s actions is enough for them to never even take the risk. It is also true that children sometimes become traumatized from their parent’s alcoholism. My brother’s father has been an alcoholic for many years, and it has completely destroyed the relationship between him and my brother. My brother does not trust his father, and to this day has never even tried alcohol because he is afraid of ending up like him.
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I agree with you and people who have this addiction normally do not realize the pain and suffering they cause their loved ones until it is too late
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Hi Tiffany,
I definitely agree. It harms everyone, and they kind of need to realize they are harming their loved ones so they can get the help they need.
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Yes! I agree, unfortunately people with addiction don’t realize how much damage they are causing to their loved ones and to themselves.
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I have seen this movie before but never looked at it as i did this time. I couldn’t help but notice that there was a trickle down effect from Alices behavior to her children’s. I also found it cute how the older daughter didn’t like grandma, she had a good judge of character. Alot of Alice’s behaviors are caused by her parents, her mom had a very condescending vibe towards her, and Alice spoke of her dads drinking in the home and her starting at a very young age.I don’t know if it was genetic as there is not a mention of another sibling to compare it to, I do see it as behavioral and it continued this way into adulthood. As she got older her reasons changed from drowning out her parents to her friends and social drinking. Even with her husband she though that the drinking made her the fun girl. She doesn’t like confrontation so dealing with her feelings about her marriage and how he is so over protective are taboo subjects. Her husband even exhibits signs of being Co Dependent, in that he needs her to fall apart so he can put her back together: for him to feel like he is important in the relationship.
Alices struggles to get sober were met with more than she thought. When she came out of rehab everything was still falling apart. As she was working on her she had to try to work on her family but her husband wouldn’t let her. He was still overprotective even more so than before. “you just take care of that cup of coffee”. He insinuated that she was not capable of making decisions regarding the children and that made her feel that she was not a worthy mother before rehab and it didn’t change after she came home.(he jumped in when she tried to solve a fight between the two girls). He also struggled with the new relationships she was making in AA. and the powerful nature of those relationships.
After he left for a while and started to learn about her and her addiction to alcohol through all anon. He came to realize he had flaws to. It was while she worked on herself and he worked on understanding her rather than trying to fix her that they could put there relationship back together.
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Hello Shelli,
I very much agree with you about her husband. He belittled her and made her feel like she couldn’t do anything, when it was as little as breaking up an argument between their daughters. Like you said he told her to just “drink that cup of coffee”. Also whenever she got drunk he didn’t really do anything about it, just put her back to bed. It’s sad that it took a traumatic event (falling onto glass) for him to see that she really needed the help and needed him to be home.
As for their daughters, I loved how observant they were to everything. Especially the oldest one. She knew that there was something wrong with the marriage and that there was something wrong with Alice.
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I think the kids are always more observant in these situations. They often have to sit on the outside of the glass and look in. Alice had a lot of demons and her husband was so busy picking her up and putting her back together after a “fun” night that he never saw why she drank so heavy. I loved how her nurse just looked at her the day she was discharged and told her “we all are scared to go home”. She showed Alice that she could move on and have a great life.
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I feel like in majority of relationships if something is wrong both partners are at fault to an extent. Obviously one partner may be worse than the other but in this case it wasn’t just all Alice’s fault. With someone with that much of a problem you need a support system of at least some kind to ease the process and help you get back to where you’re going.
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Hi Michaela, I totally agree with you. When there is a major struggle happening in a relationship, it is not on one of the people to fix the problem. Michael was totally enabling Alice’s drinking. He thought she was so fun when she was drunk and he did not make her lift a finger the next day when she was hung over, he’d take care of her and their girls. On another note, he belittled her once she was an alcoholic, telling her to, “just drink your coffee,” when she was breaking up a fight between their daughters. Michael is helping her get ito a situation that he is judging her for.
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I agree that she needed a support system however when someone is trying to help you and ends up doing everything for you, you kind of get knocked back a few steps and start to feel like maybe you can’t do the things you were working so to do. Support systems to me are suppose to let you do things on your own and when you really start to struggle you’re not there to deal with it by yourself.
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Alice’s husband, Michael, has been a very patient and lovely man, who love her unconditionally. He was by her side all the time, and when she most needs it. However, he was a typical problem fixer, which Alice did not want him to be the fixer. She wanted to feel useful, and capable of solving her problems. He could understand that Alice sometimes needed her space.
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Hi Cristina,
It is very true that men are normally the ones that feel the need to fix problems. Women want to be listened to and supported, while men are always looking for a solution, even when it is not always needed or wanted. Although Alice might have seen that her husband was trying to help, his going on so many business trips was a way of being unsupportive. She would have to be with the kids, alone, having to take care of her children on top of her alcoholism. Although Alice might not have always wanted an outright solution to her alcoholism from Michael, it might have helped a lot if Michael had simply been more present.
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Hello Shelli,
I agree 100% that her husband absolutely didn’t help in how childish he was acting with her trying to fix herself. Now that she is not dependent on him it makes him feel like less of a man and gives him more time to reflect on his issues with his family, that he has been suppressing inside while taking care of Alice. Now that she has her life on track he needs a reality check and to take a cold hard look at himself and take care of himself now. Thank you for your wonderful post!
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I watched it, it was definitely something. (Had fought off the ability to cry three..four times.) It had a sort of feel to it that, even at the beginning, she was something, she knew her issue of drinking, yet she hadn’t clue how to stop it. To put yourself into the man’s shoes, he was going through more throughout the movie, the more the movie continued, the more his responsibilities piled up and the more he didn’t know what to do. When the mother got put into rehab he got so misplaced, the house was a mess and he relied on the babysitter to do the work he didn’t have time for. Then, when he had to go away to work somewhere else for the company, he got stressed. He didn’t know what to do. I think that’s because he focused way too much and leaned on the wife to be there and care for the kids while he’s away that, when she isn’t around, he gets lost. At the beginning, he seemed more into keeping her happy than anything. That when he has to leave, he had to bribe her. Then, to add to it, she hit her daughter then passed out in the shower which, she says at the end of the movie, she will “never understand the pain that her daughter feels.” Not only is the daughter affected by it, the father has to rush home and care for the wife and the kids. The father has to take time off of work to care for the kids so the mother can get better.
The thing that interests me is that, she’s a third generation alcoholic. First her grandfather was one, then her father, then her. Not only was her father a drinker, her mother would let her drink just to beat them both up. Not only was she raised with an alcoholic father, as she grew up, her friends would allow her to drink, giving her the mind set that drinking is alright. When she married, he didn’t realize how bad it was, he had no clue, but he knew she was funny when she’s drunk, unfortunately, putting in her mind that he liked her when she is drunk. She lived everyday getting drunk just to function. She’d cover it up so that he would never know, she’d hide alcohol around the house so that no one found it. She knew how to drink and not get caught, but when put in rehab, she was faced with the aftermath of being an alcoholic.
She fixed herself, but the family just wasn’t fixed when she got home. They needed to take a break or as other people say, separate. When they did that, that put distance between them, for them to reestablish who they are and their everyday lives. Although they were separated, he wanted her permission to go to Delaware and keep going up in years within his work company. He, although they are separated, still feels that she is part of her life and wanted her opinion and permission rather than tell the girls are run off. She invited him to listen to his speech but he would be away in Delaware. At the end, it they (finally) made up. He came back from Delaware just to hear her speech and make up with her because he loved her for her, not for her drunk-self. And in my opinion, this movie shows hardship, hardship and the reuniting of a couple who was put to the test, a woman trying to find herself after rehab and a man trying to figure out how to keep their marriage together. In all things, this was a touching movie that made me fight to not cry.
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