'Getting sober at 23 and life is looking bleak.' What should I watch?
'Getting sober at 23 and life is looking bleak.' What should I watch?
Representations of sobriety vary across television—here are some recommendations.
What Should I Watch? is an opportunity for me to provide personalized TV recommendations to newsletter subscribers. You can submit your entry by filling out this form for future newsletters. These will always be free to read, but consider becoming a paying subscriber to support my work.
Dear TV Scholar,
I broke up with someone while I was in rehab in August and I’m still a bit traumatized and resentful over it. I have no idea how to navigate life. I’ve been in and out of addiction recovery the last few months. On TV, I love dark humour and complex and extremely messy characters. Please make me laugh or cry or ideally both. I adore anything threading the line between dark and hopeful. Besides, I’m 23 years old, and I’m struggling to come to terms with either resigning to a life of misery and isolation in addiction, or getting sober at an age where everyone else can just have normal fun without destroying themselves and everyone/everything around them.
-Dark and Hopeful
Dear Dark and Hopeful,
In the summer of 2019, I took six months off from all mood and mind altering substances. At the time, I was horribly depressed, struggling to find my place in the world, and trudging through the every day. I wasn’t sure if I was going to stay off the sauce forever or if I was just taking a well-needed break. What I do remember is thinking: gosh, I’m only 25 years old, everyone else around me is partying until the early morning and I’m over here, meditating and taking my vitamins. I learned to stop comparing myself to others, to embrace where I am in the moment, and to redevelop my relationship to alcohol and weed—which, trust me, is on the minds of many people our age as they wake up with a hangover worse than the last one. I learned to be more mindful of self-destruction and its allure.
But I’m not here to therapize you or compare our experiences, you’re probably getting enough of that already. What I can say is during those six months, I searched hungrily for sober characters on television for their moral support. I stumbled on Mom, Chuck Lorre’s CBS sitcom starring Anna Faris and Allison Janney. It ran for eight healthy 22-episode seasons and racked up a handful of Emmy nods throughout for the cast’s raucous performances and surprisingly touching, compelling episodes about an alcoholic mother and daughter trying to live one day at a time.
The show eventually became like a warm cup of soup that I’d cuddle up with at night, hearty and comforting. It was the first sitcom with a laugh track I was ever able to watch without cringing. Janney, Faris, and the supporting cast are phenomenal and resonate as on-screen chosen family—you could tell they really cared about representing alcoholism and addiction in truthful but comedic ways.
I would also recommend dipping in to Euphoria’s pandemic special in-between the first and second season, “Trouble Don't Last Always,” which consists of a long conversation about addiction and life between Rue (Zendaya) and her sponsor Ali (Colman Domingo) at a diner. Rue asks Ali questions you’re probably asking yourself—what’s the fucking point in sobriety when the world is so ugly? For all of his faults as a filmmaker, Euphoria’s creator Sam Levinson has always been spot on with exploring addiction’s insidiousness, pulled from his own experience as someone in recovery. He adds a layer of authenticity that pulls Euphoria out of the spectacle, particularly in the show’s second season (as opposed to the more aspirationally-framed, drug-fuelled parties on Skins, the British series Euphoria is often compared to).
You could also check out Single Drunk Female (Freeform), a more light-hearted take on recovering from alcoholism in your 20s, or The Dry (Sundance/AMC+), a show more reminiscent of Fleabag in its depiction of a 30-something returning to her hometown six months into sobriety, or Feel Good (Netflix), about a Canadian stand-up comic who in some ways, substitutes her addiction to drugs with a relationship. These are all legitimately well-crafted shows that might make you feel seen and straddle the comedic and dark sides of this kind of storytelling.
All that being said, you don’t necessarily need to watch television about addiction and sobriety to help process your experiences. My most poignant recommendation of all would be to watch Better Things from beginning to end—a show that continually reminds me how much joy there is to harness in the world, especially from the small things. Its early seasons (before Louis C.K. got ousted and it became the Pamela Adlon show) mature into a beautiful constellation of tender moments, from preparing a meal for your friends to California misadventures. Sam (Adlon) approaches her life with sincerity and refreshing honesty. Her character is sort of perpetually single, on the verge of asexuality, and by the end of the series she finds herself content with her life and the community she built around her. She stops seeking and settles into gratitude. We all need more of that.
And finally, I will leave you with this recommendation: commit to watching a long-running, juicy series you can dig your teeth into. So much of your life now is uncertainty (Will I stay sober? Will I ever have fun again? Am I single forever?). Dig your heels into fifteen seasons of ER, or watch Alicia (Julianna Margulies) take control her life on The Good Wife for seven seasons, or hell, get lulled into a procedural like Star Trek: Voyager or The X-Files. Pick up Fear the Walking Dead, an ever-changing zombie show. Cry along to Halt and Catch Fire, or melt into the delicious slow-burn of The Americans. These shows have what the newest short-lived Netflix series will never have—longevity and time to develop a character’s fulsome arc. Relax into the certainty that you have ample time in these worlds, that getting up in the morning for another episode makes it all worth it, that television won't fix all your problems—but it has your back.
Quick Recs
“I need help escaping the awful capitalism-induced feeling of uselessness when procrastinating university stuff. I like short running series, fun and unnerving imagery, sarcastic societal analysis, indie stuff that makes me feel intelligent.”
→ Try The Chair (Netflix) for the academic ennui, This Close (Sundance TV) & Anne+ (Topic) for excellent indie shows that might broaden your understanding of Deaf and queer identities, The Baby (HBO) or Servant (Apple TV+) for fun and unnerving energy, and Life & Beth (Hulu) for a quick one that will surprise you.
“I just lost my dad. Hoping for a drama or show to help grieve a loss, drama. LOVED The White Lotus btw.”
→ I’m very sorry for your loss. And on that note, try Sorry For Your Loss on Facebook (free to watch), it is essentially WandaVision stripped down to the non-superhero basics of grief, and still my favourite Elizabeth Olsen performance. Other poignant meditations on grief include The Leftovers (HBO), Six Feet Under (HBO), Station Eleven (HBO Max), and more recently, The Last of Us (HBO).
“In the trenches of university trying to learn how to live, laugh, and love while being bombarded with five page essays to write every other week. Stuck in a pit of self doubt (I feel like whatever I write is not good and I don’t feel like I’m improving). Something I can watch after school or before bed to de-stress. I like comedy, lots of hi-jinks but also heartfelt.”
→ You need a brain massage! Try Search Party (HBO Max), Broad City (Comedy Central), Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens (Comedy Central), and Harlem (Prime Video). I’m no stranger to self-doubt and writing, and for that you might want to try The Bold Type (at times corny but strangely effective, on Hulu), I May Destroy You (HBO Max), and perhaps even Sex and the City (HBO).
Bonus reading:
I wrote about bisexual men on television, or the lack thereof, for DAME magazine.