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CHAPTER9
Addiction
as
a Menage aTrois
Days
of
Wine
and
Roses
W7hen
a
Man
Loves a W'oman
Imet the love
of
my life over
the summer after my junior year
of
high
school.
\%i« we had a blast. She made me
la,ugh,
made all my friends
la,ugh,
and had this great way
of
making everybody feel awesome when shewas around. She had this funny way
of
bringing out my good side, making
me feel
popula,r.
Things were
getting pretty serious between
us,
and she ended up coming tocollege
with me. I wanted
to
get great grades, so
we didn't
see
much
of
each
other during the week, but on the weekends we made up for lost time. I
eventually joined a fraternity and of
course all my frat brothers loved her
too.
As my career took off, we settled into a nice routine. She'd come with
me on my business trips on private jet, and be my date at all the la,vish
swc:mcrstr:>
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Hollywood
parties. I
had
an
expense account
and
spent a iot
of
it
on
her.
Sometimes
she
got
a little too clingy
and
I would break up with her for a
few
months
just
to get some
space.
I worried that I was too reliant on her
for
my
happiness,
fan,
and
success.
But
she was
so
captivating,
so
alluring,
so availa.ble, any_where
and
anytime, that eventually I would take her.
back
and
we'd
pick
up right where we
left
off.
She
was also a really great "wingman" when
it
came to meeting
·'
women,
and
she encouraged us to have an open rela.tionship.
We
had one
..threesome after another
and it
workedgreat most
of
the time. Occasionally •
the
other woman would get jealous or think we were spending
too
much
time
together
and
leave us. Like any rela.tionship, we had our share
of
breakups
and
recondliations,
and
as I got
older,
I started to realize the ·
rela.tionship was
in
trouble. So after a really big fight where I ended up
in
jail,
I
knew I'd had
enough.
Breaking up with her was probably the most difficult decision I'd ever
faced. I missed her
so
much. She
had
been such an important part
of
my
life
and
we'd
had
so
many great times together that I felt like I had lost a ·
key
part
of
my
identity. Nothing seemed as
fun
anymore. But over time, I
realized
that
wasn't true.
Im
having way more fun now without
her.
Sure,
every
now and
then I really want to get back together. After all I did love
her.
But it
wasn't real love.
It
was a selfish love, a love based on possession.
I
just
wanted
to own her,
but in the end, she owned me.
B Ou might have figured out that the "love
of
my life"y
now
y .·
. s alcohol The point I'm trying to underscore here
1s
in this story wa . .
1 like me maybe like
you-who
get addicted to drugs
that peop
e--
, . . . . h th .
I h 1 h ve an ongoing and important rela.ttonshzp wit eir
and
a co o a
f hoice. It's a love affair that can span decades. And
substance o c . . th
b • partner or spouse who also drmks or uses into e
when you rmg a . . . . .
. b mes a menage a tro1s with add1ct1on.
ation, it eco . .
equ there is plenty of evidence-both practical and
.·
Of course . .
that the majority of these three-way rclat1onsh1ps
clinical-that says
Ted Perkins
will eventually self-destruct. Addiction
is
clearly a key factor
behi
nd
many failed marriages, including
my
own. But when
it
comes
to
alcohol, this generalization may not be totally true across
the board.
There's a University
of
Michigan Study that found that couples
who
drink together report higher levels
of
marital satisfaction.
25
Said
the
study's author, "We think that the takeaway
is
that it appears couplesh
,,
with similar drinking habits are less irritated with one
anot
er.
But then again, take this with a grain
of
salt, because the report waspublished in Men's Journal and their whole revenue model revolves
around ads for liquor and erectile dysfunction.
However, upon further investigation I found an actual scientific
study26 underwritten by the National Institutes
of
Health
that
concluded that people tend to drink more when they're
with theirspouses, and when they do, they report higher levels
of
marital
satisfaction. An interesting caveat: Women who also drink with others
outside their marriage report higher levels
of
satisfaction,
but the same
is
not true
of
men. Maybe this explains why I was always happy whenmy wife went out with her wine-o-clock friends, but she wasn't
toohappy when I hung around with my beer buddies.
But again, these results only tell one side
of
the story because
the study only captures a small snapshot in time. Over the course
of
a whole marriage, alcohol and substance use becomes increasingly
problematic and destructive, especially when you throw kids into
the mix. And also keep in mind these results are 15 years old. The
pandemic changed everything. Married couples were forced to spend
more time together in isolated, stressful, unstructured environments.
Out-on-the-town fun and carefree drinking was replaced with at-
home-bored and burned-out drinking. Divorce rates went up 34%
during lockdown.
25 https://www.mcnsjournal.com/health-fitness/ the-key-to-a-happy-marriagc-
drinking-togcthcr-w430182/
26 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nlh.gov/pmdarticles/PMC6489547/
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.
And
this is
not
to
say that relationships
or
marriages soaked
tn
alcohol can't work at all. A former girlfriend
of
mine once took
me home
to meet her parents over Thanksgiving. I planned to be
on
my
best behavior,
but
I realized much to my delight that mom
and
dad
were living in a different booziverse. These were two very
well-established, successful medical professionals who could drink me
under
the
table.
Cocktails every weekday at
5pm
sharp. Promptly starting at
noon on
the
weekends. A wine cellar worth over a million dollars.
A
liquor
"closet." They were perfect
parents-happy
and healthy,
affectionate with one another, and still very much in love after 40
years
of
marriage.
I'm
sure they had their fair share
of
Who's
Afraid
of
Virginia Woolf? moments after the guests had all gone home for the
night. But
from what I could gather, their menage atrois with alcohol
was
an
unqualified success. They were having their cake and eating it
too.
A lot
of
it. Every day.
And
I wanted what they had. I considered
proposing
to their daughter that very night.
Were they outliers?
Not
at all. Many successful marriages, like
many
a peace treaty
or
business deal, have alcohol to _thank. Cynics
would
say you'd have to be drinking just to choose to get married
to begin with.
My own parents enjoyed a successful marriage where
alcohol wasn't just part
of
their social lives,
it
was a key component
of
my
father's career in the Foreign Service. He was paid to get foreign
dignitaries drunk so our government could forge useful alliances with
them-so-called
"soft power."
Alcohol is so pervasive and socially acceptable that it's largely
s nonymous with love itsel£ You can buy T-shirts that read "Some
;ople
wait their whole lives to meet their drinking buddy. I married
. ,, Alcohol can certainly help couples feel less inhibited, more
mme.
h mo re intimate, more "in love," but is this really the right kind
onest,
fl
;,
And is it actually love for the other person, or for the other
0 ove.
and their drinking habits?
person
Ted Perkins
h . t t films
that
To explore these questions, I c ose two 1mpor
an
.
d. d • · Released mtake
on
the subject
of
alcohol use 1sor
er m marriages.
1962, Days
of
Wine
and
Roses explores the complete
story
cycle
of
alcohol addiction from the
point
of
view
of
two people (played
by
Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick) who slowly go
down the rabbit
hole
together. When a Man Loves a W'oman
is
a
1994
film
starring
Meg
Ryan and Andy
Garda
about a marriage that's being
torn apart
by
only one spouse's drinking. Both
of
these films
not
only
offer
great
insights into love's relationship to alcohol (and vice-versa)
but
force
us
to consider the very nature
of
love itsel£
In the early' 40s, Alcoholics Anonymous had been gaining
traction
thanks to the publication
of
a game-changing Saturday Evening Post
article about
it in 1941. 27 In 1945, The
Lost Weekend cracked
the
window open on society's dirty, little secret
of
"alcoholism." Even
though it went on to win a Best Picture Oscar, Hollywood was
hesitantto roll the dice on another film about the controversial subject.
But with post-war prosperity and America
in
a generally festive
mood, alcohol continued to take its toll,
not just
on
individuals,
but
on family members too. AA founder Bill Wilson's wife set up Al-Anonin the early '50s to provide support for family members whose loved
ones were struggling with alcohol. By 1962 the market was ready for
(and probably needed) a film like Days
of
Wine
and
Roses. The pitchwas simple: Alcohol and love don't mix. The producers went so far as
to advertise that fact in their own marketing. Some versions
of
themovie posters read: "This, in its own terrifying way, is a love story."
Days
of
Wine and Roses was directed by Blake Edwards, whose
body of work and influence in Hollywood can't be overstated. Edwards
is remembered as a comedy film director, but when he made Days ofWine and Roses his hilarious Pink Panther films were still many years
off. After Breakfast at Tiffany's, Edwards had the box-office clout to
27 https:/ /www.saturdaycveningpost. com/2015/ 12/aa/
Addicted
in
Film
.,·
rnake
filrns
ab b'
h
out
su
Jects e cared about,
and
one
of
those subjec.
trs
·
=alcohol
abuse. I
had dinner with Edwards and his wife,
Ju!l
'ic '
.
drews,
in the
late '90s at some really expensive Italian restauraritr /
in
Brentwood
CA I d , .
. • •
on
t remember what project we were there
todiscuss; I
just
remember
telling
him
how much he had influenced my :
career
as a
comedy
writer.
He
seemed indifferent to the praise
and
toldl ·
me he
would
rather
I
be
inspired by his more serious films. I asked '
him
which
ones
he
recommended.
He
told me a few I hadn't seen and, ·
ended
with
Days
of
Wine
and
Roses. l distinctly remember the waiter ;
coming by at
that
precise
moment
and asking us
if
we wanted to see_a
wine
list. There was a brief pause, Edwards sighed, and then Andrews
abruptly
said
"no."
A
story about
alcohol probably came naturally to Edwards because .
he
already
had
a long-time pre-existing relationship with it. Joining
the Coast
Guard
after
high
school, he got drunk
and dove into a
shallow swimming
pool. 28
He
narrowly avoided paralysis and spent
five
months in
traction.
He and
Jack Lemmon drank heavily before
and
after the production
of
Days
of
Wine
and
Roses, and both ended
up
checking
themselves
into
rehab about a year after it came out. Even
after quitting,
Blake maintained a nostalgic working relationship with
alcohol, no
more evident than in his film 10, where Dudley Moore's
character
stays plastered for most
of
the film. 29
But it
went a bit deeper
than
that.
Blake
had bouts with depression (then again anybody
working in
Hollywood probably does), and almost committed suicide
on
a beach in Malibu after a string
of
box-office failures. I wonder
if
his past relationship with alcohol or perhaps other palliatives had
something to do with that.
28
I also did chis once when I was in high school, and almost broke my neck. But I
. p:ng on acid, not drunk.was tnp ...
, " dorable drunk" persona brought him tremendous box-office success
29 Moore~te: when he scarred in Arthur. I sac next to him in British
AiC-:Vays
First
cwo years H ch w to L.A. once. He went through three bottles of wme all by
Class from ea ro
himself.
Ted Perkins
d
cir
.
ki PR
Casting Jack Lemmon to play
the part
of
har
- m
ng
executive Joe Clay must have been a difficult pill for
Warner Bros
to swallow at the time. Remember
that Lemmon
was a
comedy
juggernaut coming
off
two huge Billy Wilder hits, Some Like
it
Hoe
and 1heApartment. It would be like having
Jim
Carrey
do
Schindler~
List right after Ace Ventura:
Pet
Detective. The Studio
brass
fearedthat such a heavy drama might tarnish Lemmon's image,
so
they
had
him film a sit-down in-person
pitch to
audiences as
part
of
the
filmstrailer.30
Lemmon, looking very earnest
as
he
puffs
on
a cigarette,
states
that the film is very important to him,
but
stops well
short
of
saying
why--or
ever once saying "alcohol."
Lemmon was probably attracted
to the
project because
he too
had
a pre-existing relationship with alcohol. His struggles were a
well-keptindustry secret for years.
Perhaps this role was a way to process his issues,
or to
justify hiscontinued behavior. 31 Either way,
he
delivered a searing
performancefor which he was nominated for
an Academy Award for Best Actor.
He later said it was one
of
his favorite roles
in
his career.Lee
Remick was also nominated in the Best Actress category forthis film.
Her
performance as a level-headed secretary
who
crosses over
to the dark side to find love is considered her absolute finest.
To "act
drunk" convincingly is harder than it seems.
And Remick absolutely
kills it. The authenticity
of
her performance may be due to the fact
that Remick also had a pre-existing relationship with alcohol.32
30 The trailer can be found on the Apple iTunes score.
31 In interviews years later Lemmon spoke about his drinking issues and how they
hie a head a few years after production of the film. Lemmon's challenges continued,
however, and he was arrested for drunk driving in 1976.
32 There is a bizarre confluence of how both actors, the subject of alcohol, and me
writing this book serendipitously intersect. Once, 20 years ago, when I went jogging
in Beverly Hills, I came across Jack Lemmon, walking in the middle of the street,
disoriented. I stopped to help him. He told me he couldn't remember the way home.
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Addicted in Film
In
another
example
of
art imitating life imitating art, she also
sought
help
for
her
drinking after the
film-just
like Lemmon and
Blake did. Both
Remick and Lemmon visited detox wards at state
mental
hospitals to prepare for their roles.
Who
knows, perhaps these
experiences,
and
even acting in the film itself, were informing their
own
real-life recovery journeys
as well? ,
lhe
film starts with Joe Clay (Lemmon) living the life
as
a top
executive for a public relations agency. At the time it was one
of
those
new-fangled
"communications" jobs that seemed
sexy,
cool, and
mysterious-like
being
an
advertising executive. And
as
Mad
Men
showed
us
in
lovingly rendered detail, day drinking held an outsized
profile
in
these industries. Back then pretty much every white-collar
job
carried
with it
the promise
of
the "three martini lunch."
Unlike blue collar types who had to stay sober to save their arms
from
getting chopped off in assembly lines, white collar
typ~
at most
only
risked getting their fingers caught in a pencil sharpener. A well-
stocked bar use~ to be a given in every C-Suite. Now, it's cause for
termination.
The
film starts with Joe procuring beautiful single women for. a
rich
client's yacht party. Basically, he's a glorified pimp in a toxic 1960s
work
culture drenched in male chauvinism and alcohol. Kirsten
Arneson
(Remick) joins the party, and Joe mista~nly assumes s~e's
_a
b f h d -hoc harem he's assembled. But It turns out shes his
mem er
o t e a . , .
,
He
offers her a drink. She tells him she doesn t dnnk.
boss secretary.
ak • hallenge an affront to his view
of
how reality should
J
oe
t es 1t as a c '
And from that moment on he's on a mission to have Kirsten
operate. · · h al h 1
h l 'ty and
J"oin
his menage a tro1s wit co O •
bend to
t at rea i
. • no pushover: at least for now. Back at the office,
But I(irstens ' .
al Joe tries to cajole her into a dinner date with a
over as usu ,
hung
. d one-liners. When that doesn't work, he tries to cut
•ft d some tireg1 an c. hes: "I'll tell you what special qualifications you
d wn a rew note
her
O
'd" I
ak Y medications or drunk alcohol. He sai No, never
- · ·f he had t en an b dd Le O • k' .
1 asked ham 1 • high school, my first drinking u y was e "'em1c s niece.
. k ,, Separately, an
drin ·
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Ted Perkins
have," Joe
says
to her
as
they ride down an elevator, "You're pretty-
[And your boss] loves to have you around to look
at and
lean
on when
he gets drunk, like he did last night, and who knows what
else."
Wow,how's that for mansplaining, 1960s style? Any girl who doesn't
go
out
with him must be a prostitute, right? Kirsten lets
him off
easy
with
a bitch-slap to the face, the standard mid-century response
to
a guy
getting "fresh." Today, a comment like that could get
you
jail time. 33
For reasons that don't make sense until shortly afterwards,
Kirstenactually takes Joe up on the dinner invitation and they go
to
a
nicerestaurant. But eating
is
the last thing on his mind. He's
befuddledby the fact that she doesn't order a drink. Angered by it,
in
fact.
So
when he discovers that she actually has a vice, chocolate, he orders
her
a Brandy Alexander. She likes it
but
doesn't know it contains alcohol.
It's basically the 1960s version
of
spiking a girl's drink or slipping
her a roofie. Perhaps it's not entirely fair to paint Joe as a predator
on
the prowl for the perfect drinking buddy.
He
probably finds Kirsten
to be intelligent, personable, and witty. But it's her unconditional
acceptance
of
his drinking that makes him truly fall in love
with
her.
Fortunately for Joe (not so fortunate for Kirsten), his scheme
works. Kirsten gets tipsy, loves the feeling booze gives her, and stays
out
late with Joe instead
of
going back to her roach-infested apartment.
And it's then that we learn the reason why she'd go
out to dinnerwith the same man she slapped in the elevator a few scenes earlier:
simple loneliness. She grew up without a mother's love, her widowed
father comes from emotionally constipated Scandinavian stock,
andshe's struggling to get by in the big city. But thanks to the magic
of
a
few Brandy Alexanders, for once she doesn't
feel
isolated, physically
objectified, or judged. .
She finally feels heard as a woman, not spoken down to by a man.
Alcohol does this. Why else would humans like to drink it so much?
33 When I watch these scenes today, I see how so much of the #MeToo Movement
was probably fueled by decades of pent-up resentment resulting from millions ofthese kinds of mlcroaggressions over time. ·
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Addicted in Film
The
feelings
it
enhances
or
disinhibits are all neurochemical precursors
to
falling
in
love. It's biology's favorite feedback loop. But
is
Kirsten
actually
f:
11·
• l "tha
mg
1n
ove
w1
Joe the person, or the Joe who makes her
feel
_less
lonely
and
unloved when they drink together? Conversely,
is
Joe
Just falling
in
love with the Kirsten who'll never stand in the way
of
his
drinking?
Regardless
of
what kind
of
love
it
is, they both fall into it. But
for
their
relationship to really succeed, Kirsten's consumption has to
catch
up to
Joe's. She needs to be groomed, slowly and purposefully;
so
that
she can go from
no
drinking, to occasional drinking, to always
drinking, to
always drinking a lot. Feelings
of
"love" and intimacy
are eventually only made possible by how much and how often they
drink
together. Alcohol has become their love tonic, aphrodisiac,
and
antidepressant.
When
they announce their marriage to Kirsten's
father, Ellis (played by the grim-faced Charles Bickford), he rebuffs
them. To
overcome the pain, it's no surprise Kirsten wants to go drink.
Cut
to
a year later
and
they've had a baby. Kirsten
is
off the booze
because she's lactating. Joe comes home drunk from a party and has
a
sloppy temper tantrum because she won't party with him. It seems
the
"fun" is
out of
their marriage. So he becomes her pusher again,
just
like
on
their first date. His message is clear:
If
you don't drink with
me, you don't love me.
Or
is
it
I don't love you unless you drink with
me? Lonely, financially dependent, and scared, Kirsten pours herself
a
drink and hops right back on the hamster wheel. And this is how it
goes for many people who forfeit common sense for love. You finally
. · the pusher The pusher becomes your dealer. The dealer now
give
mto
·
owns you. Checkmate.
Predictable consequences follow. Joe's work performance suffers.
d O ted to a crappy account and spends all his time traveling.
Hegets em. gl cts her daughter, Debbie; drinks all day; falls asleep with
I(irsten ne e
. . and burns the apartment down. None of this is her
a lit cigarette, .
. d It's Joe's fault for being away on business all the time.
fault, nun you.
Ted Perkins
She's lonely. There's nobody to drink with. All the "love" has gone
out
of
their relationship. Which means they'll just have to
drink togetheragain to rekindle it. And so
on
and so
on ...With Joe eventually losing his job and Kirsten a danger
to
herself and her daughter, they finally arrive at a point
of
reckoning.
I'm sure most couples with drinking problems
end up in the sameplace eventually. I can tell you from experience, it's
not
a pretty place.
Both spouses know they have to quit. They make solemn promises
to themselves and each other. But now two people in the habit
of
enabling and excusing each other's addiction suddenly have to
do the
opposite. And let's not forget that they're in a menage a trois
with
alcohol. This vertex point
of
the threesome will do everything
in
its
power to split the defense and get everybody back together again. So
actually quitting devolves into a childish game. I'll
quit
if
you quit.
Will you quit
if
I quit?
You
stop drinkingjirst. No, you stop drinkingfirst.
If they make it past this level in the game, the next level
up
is a
tap dance around the truth with the help
of
confirmation
bias-the
tendency to only consider facts that agree with one's preexisting beliefs
about reality. Adverse consequences
of
alcohol abuse are assigned
different levels
of
"factiness," or discounted entirely. I just burned our
apartment down. But
it
doem't mean I have a problem. These kinds
of
accidents happen all the time.
Remarkably, Kirsten and Joe do manage to quit. They move in
with Kirsten's father to work in his landscaping business and regroup
financially. After two months sober, they seem to inhabit the same
pink cloud, chase each other around like children, and make out on
a
haystack in the barn. It's their little sober wonderland, with a side
ofbucolic. Alcohol seems to be the farthest thing from their minds. Joe
kisses Kirsten tenderly, and for the first time in the movie he appears
to feel love, genuine non-artificially-induced love.
"I can't remember us ever feding this way before," he says,
brimming with hope.
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Addicted in Film
"Except after a
couple
of
drinks ... " she answers.
.
And
just
like that, it happens. By equating love and alcohol, ·
Kir st
en
opens that door juuuuuuuust a crack. Feelings
of
emotional
love
get
replaced by that visceral hungering, the all-too-familiar
craving for something you love instead
of
someone you love. Their
sober wonderland facade begins to disintegrate, revealing a prison
ofabstinence behind it.
And
what's the point
of
prison if not to serve
your
time
or
escape from it?
34
So the little games start all over again.
Will she drink
if
I drink? Will I drink
if
she
drinks?
Will
he
relapse
first?
Or
should I? Weve
been
so
goodfor
two months.
Don't we deserve it?Yes,
of
course you both
deserve it, alcohol kindly reminds them. And so
the
threesome is up and running again just like old times, and it's got
a
lot
of
catching up to
do.
Needless to say, Joe
and
Kirsten get loaded and do stupid shit. Joe
destroys his father-in-law's plant nursery in a frantic quest to find a
bottle
of
whiskey he hid
for later. Kirsten tries to make out with her
own
father
and then slaps her daughter around. All terrible things, but
amateur-hour stuff when compared to what happens every day in real
life. Domestic spousal and child
abuse-where
alcohol plays a starring
role-was
another one
of
society's dirty, little secrets that wouldn't
surface
in
the public discourse until the early '70s. 35 Hollywood finally
tackled the
subject in 1984's 'lhe Burning Bed with Farrah Fawcett.
For Days
of
'Wine
and
Roses to be truly authentic, we should have
seen Joe drunkenly assault Kirsten, verbally or physically (or vice-
versa). But hey, baby steps. .
Joe ends up in a straitjacket in a detox ward. Lemmon channel~
Ray Milland's 'lhe Lost Weekend delirium tremens terror, but turns
d Ki rsten 1
•oke around that they are "inmates" and Kirsten's father is the
34 Joe an
warden.
The World Health Organization (WHO) esti_mates that roughly 55% of
.35 . b rpecrators were drinking alcohol prior to the assault. Women who
domestic a use pe al h l
cd 15 times more likely to abuse co o .
are abus are
Ted Perkins
the volume up to
11 as
he bites the orderlies and snarls like a vicious
animal. It's all a bit over the top and veers into Reefer Madness
hyper-alarmist territory when you consider that only
2%
of
people
with
severe alcohol use disorder ever experience the terrifying "little
greenmen" hallucinations that Joe has. 36 Still,
if
one
of
the aims
of
the
movie was to sound the general alarm about the dangers
of
alcohol
addiction, this scene certainly does the trick.
Enter Jim Hungerford, played by America's favorite
TV
sports-writing slob and medical examiner Jack Klugman.
He
visits Joe
in
the rubber room, passes him a cigarette through the porthole, 37
and
somberly announces he's from Alcoholics Anonymous.
Who
knew
AA made house
calls?
But back in the day they did. Whereas
todaypeople from drug and DUI courts are funneled to AA meetings
by
default, 38 in the first decades after its founding the organization
had
not yet scaled, so it needed to actively recruit converts in detox wards,
shelters, and hospitals. And good thing they did because before
themental health industries caught up with the problem, AA was really
the only game in town besides the funny farm
or
prison. Klugman
does a wonderful job
as
their brand ambassador: he introduces
thedisease concept, takes Joe to his first meeting (where he admits to
being an alcoholic), and becomes his sponsor. The film is credited
with greatly helping Alcoholics Anonymous to grow its worldwide
reach and impact in the ensuing years.
Joe encourages Kirsten to follow down the 12-Step path that has
allowed him to stay sober and begin to heal, but she refuses. Her reasons
are reflective of the common objections people sometimes have to
12-Step programs: The label "alcoholic" doesn't sit well with her; she
36 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6286444
37 I'm convinced that this scene became the inspiration for an identical scene in
Apocalypse Now between Dennis Hopper and Martin Sheen.
38 Several court rulings now mandate ·chat evidence-based alternatives to AA be
offered in drug and DUI sentencing.
Addicted in Film
believes she hi b . .
l can ac eve so nety with her willpower alone (producers
e~ve
out
any
mention
of
a "Higher Power"), and she's simply too
prideful
t "d d
,,
h• 0 egra e erself in front
of
a bunch
of
strangers. JP
Miller,
the
screenwriter
of
the film,
is
said to have consulted carefully
with AA representatives to make sure the film conveyed these (valid)
objections; otherwise
it
could have come off
as
one big puff piece.
But
the
biggest reason Kirsten doesn't want to try the program
is
that
she
simply doesn't want to quit drinking. Like Nic's relationship
with meth
in
Beautiful Boy, she thinks reality
is
broken and will
always stay that
way unless she drinks. "The world looks so dirty to
me
when I'm not
drinking," she tells Joe
as
he tries to rescue her from
a
cheap hotel room, her hair a mess, dress dirtied, and drool on her
face. It's Kirsten who's broken,
not
her reality.
Like
many
spouses
of
people with alcohol use disorders, Joe thinks
his love can save her
. But he forgets that the anchor
of
their three-way
relationship was,
and
still is, alcohol. "We always knew that we were
in
love,"
he
tells Jim, "we just knew it; there was no doubt about it."
Well, apparently there is, because Kirsten has replaced Joe with other
more
dependable drinking buddies. "She [only] loves the drunk you,"
Jim
reminds him
. And in typical deluded "alcoholic thinking," Joe
completely forgets the fact that he pushed Kirsten to join his alcohol-
centered
reality from the get-go: "I just can't believe this is happening
to
me."
He
may as well have said, " I'm so pissed I got exactly what I
wanted
."
Days
of
Wine and
Roses ends on both a high note and a low one.
Joe chooses a life
of
total abstinence and a loving relations~p with
his daughter Debbie. His chances of a happy, healthy, sober hfc arc as
d any one's in recovery.. But as much as he wants love, real love,
goo as ,
..
d . ·macy from Kirsten, both know she cant give him that unless
an 1nt1
1_ drinking. So Joe issues the ultimatum: "Just room for you
she ~eeps
d N threesome." And sadly, Kirs~en walks. She'll have to seek a
an me. o . . . .
.i. a trois with someone else, and likely die trymg. And this
new menage
-
i.-~
..
.. -·
.,
__,,_
Ted Perkinsis
how it goes for many marriages where alcohol is a key
component.
In the end, love can't conque~ all unless it's the right
kind oflove
from
the very start.