sex addicts anonymous meetings are messed up

Sex addicts anonymous meetings are messed up how to#
Sex addicts anonymous meetings are messed up tv#

Written by Mark Chappell (of the David Cross sitcom “The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret”) along with Arnett, who quit drinking 15 years ago, the characters also sound like actual recovery people instead of creepy 12-step robots. Here we get a sexier portrait of AA, which isn’t too far from reality in urban centers like Los Angeles and New York, where the vibe is cool and chummy, and the line between “recovery program” and “hook-up scene” can be a little thin. For decades, the stereotype of 12-step programs has been either a) old white dudes smoking or b) a cult. The eight-series Netflix show, created by Will Arnett and his “Arrested Development” producer Mitch Hurwitz, centers on a group of recovering addicts in Venice Beach, a groovy little slice of bohemia where sun goddesses mix with aging hipsters outside the meetings, and coffee is supplied by a tattooed barista. “Flaked” gives an answer to the last question.

Sex addicts anonymous meetings are messed up tv#

But what if your drinking problem isn't so blindingly obvious? Or what if you quit drinking - and you’re still a mess? A batch of TV shows, all of them streaming or online, are showing more nuanced portraits of recovery than we’ve ever seen on television, and they’re asking the same questions problem drinkers ask themselves: What is addiction, exactly? What is the larger purpose of sobriety? And what the hell would a life without alcohol or drugs even look like? In Hollywood, however, it’s like addicts fall into two distinct categories: the drunken disaster who crashes a car into someone’s house and the Good Samaritan who gives instead of takes. A person’s relationship to sobriety can be one slippery eel. Or they find a home in the rooms, only to second-guess if they belong. They twist on the hook, knowing they should stop but unable to let go of old comforts. So you just … got sober? That was it? In the real world, people can spend years stuck between those two worlds. As a rabid consumer of these tales, I find them enjoyable, but at times too simplistic. Stories about addicts follow a familiar arc: the exhilaration of alcohol or drugs, followed by the train wreck, and then - tah-dah! - a shiny new life in recovery. She can lie in the rooms, but some part of her still wants to stay accountable, even if it’s to a smart phone. Then she returns to her car, takes out her phone, and sets the sobriety day counter to zero again. “It’s so nice not to be seeking all these outside things, like drinks, or guys,” she says with a strained smile.

Sex addicts anonymous meetings are messed up how to#

“I might have had a sip last night” means “I got wasted.” And “I think I might start again” means “I already did, and I’m trying to figure out how to tell you.”Īfter the meeting, Mickey speaks to a woman outside. Drunks are such masters of the downshift. But I recognized this quarter-confession from my own years of trying and failing to quit. Right before the meeting, in fact, she hunkered down in the back seat of her car to take a fortifying hit from a joint. In the previous episode, we watched as a drunken Mickey stomped through the house like someone looking for a glass to smash. But it was the first time in a long time that I felt like getting fucked up, so I thought I should get myself to a meeting.”Īctually, she’s lying. “My friend had this party and let’s just say I let things get out of hand,” she says. In the fifth episode of “Love,” a crooked little romantic comedy on Netflix, the heroine Mickey (Gillian Jacobs) sits in an AA meeting.