The Daily Gamecock

Issue date: 4/8/08 Section: Viewpoints

Darren Price, Second-year print journalism student [Click to enlarge]

Drug addiction is something that is hard to sympathize with. It's hard to understand why people can't control themselves. It's much easier to just shun addicts, to assume they have poor morals or that they simply are unwilling to fix their lives. It's easier to call them "junkies" than to look at them as people like you.

A TV program on A&E, called "Intervention," challenges all these notions. It shows that addicts are people and questions why we aren't all trying to find help for those who suffer from addictions.

The show provides an inside look at the lives of drug addicts and attempts to raise awareness of the fact that there is help for addicts and their families.

There are similarities in each of the addicts' stories, specifically, that their addictions are not purely the products of irresponsibility or excess. Oftentimes, the addicts' problems begin in adolescence, amidst highly dysfunctional families. The drugs they consume as teens serve as escapes from unloving families or abuse. What starts as an escape becomes a habit and ultimately leads to an addiction that dominates every aspect of their lives. What they had used to escape pain had become pain. It's not uncommon to hear one of the addicts refer to their addiction as "a marriage."

"Intervention" humanizes those who suffer from addiction and attempts to take away the stigma of asking for help.

Typically, the addicts know that they have a problem. The fact that they allow themselves to be interviewed is an admission of this. Why they don't quit is the entire basis for the show and should force us to ask ourselves some questions about how we feel about addiction and those who suffer from it.

Drug addiction is something we all need to think about. It affects families everywhere and is largely ignored and marginalized. I will admit, before becoming a viewer ,I was often judgmental of people who suffered from addictions. It's so much easier to say that they should just get themselves together and deal with their problems. The thing is, you don't know their problems, and you don't know how painful it is to confront those problems. People who are addicts need acceptance, not judgment.

Addiction isn't pretty - it's hard to deal with not only for the people who have the problem, but for those who love the addicts as well. Addiction can tear families apart and destroy lives, and it shouldn't be ignored. It's too easy just to say "I don't want to deal with that problem" or to claim that the addicts just don't know how to control themselves.

Help and accept those with problems, because if you don't, they might not be there tomorrow.

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