What have in common Emily in Paris, The lady’s game and breaking Bad ? To be very popular series and to tackle addictions without necessarily making it a central subject… and desperate.
Drawing on a multitude of examples in pop culture, Jean-Victor Blanc makes the multiple addictions (cocaine, MDMA, tobacco, screens, sex, etc.) accessible and understandable in his essay Addicts, understand new addictions to better free themselves from them, which appears this Thursday. This psychiatrist at the
Saint-Antoine hospital (AP-HP), culture well, answered our questions.
Who is your essay for?
Everyone, because addictions are very common! Whether you are affected, whether you are close to an addict or have a moderate consumption of alcohol, cannabis or others, it is good to ask yourself questions. That’s why I integrated a questionnaire at the end of each chapter. The idea is to give definitions, keys to understanding, and everyone to adjust things, to decide whether or not to consume… and to consult.
You sweep away all types of addiction: screens, alcohol, antidepressants… What is a real addiction?
When there is repetitive behavior and loss of control. Addiction is a chronic disease that sets in over time. We see a lot of examples of misuse: for example, you love chocolate, but in reality you will not have the feeling of lacking if you do not eat it one evening.
The idea of the book is to refocus attention on what is pathological and to stop abusing this term. Most of the time, addictions fill in or mask something. The purpose of substances is to allow the person to face something: mourning, sadness, performance anxiety …
If there was only one cliché to shoot about addictions, what would it be?
That it is not a question of will! There are a lot of factors that come into play. Especially family: if there are addictions in the family, we have this vulnerability, as with heart disease. There is also a social aspect: the environment in which we operate means that we are more or less at risk of encountering certain behaviors. The age at which we are exposed to addiction matters a lot. This is true for alcohol, for cannabis: smoking a lot at 15 and 40 does not have the same consequences. Especially since the brain has finished its development between 25 and 30 years.
You criticize the difference that is often made between hard and soft drugs. Why ?
Because it doesn’t make much clinical sense. A “soft” drug can cause a lot of deaths, for example tobacco. The risk is to trivialize a substance because it would not be prohibited: drinking alcohol every day is in fact as dangerous as consuming a narcotic.
You mention an addiction that worries many parents: screens. And you warn against an approach that is too caricature …
It is an addiction not to screens but to the uses of certain screens. For example: pathological gambling or gambling online. We now know that it will be more harmful than the people who play at the casino. On the use of social networks, you have to keep in mind that it is a recent means of communication, of information. Officially, social media addiction does not exist. And yet, this can have deleterious consequences, especially for the youngest. Third major aspect: the disorder of video games.
How can parents help their children without pointing them out?
The important criterion is: does this use reflect psychological suffering? A teenager who spends his whole life on his screens and who no longer has contact with his family, that’s a sign. Hence the idea of knowing all these definitions of addiction and misuse so as not to have a caricatured approach. The risk is to have a speech that misses the point. This is true for screens as well as for cannabis.
Can pop culture help us better understand addictions?
I am convinced of it. The series 13 reasons why and
Euphoria show very well the hold, different forms of addictions and their consequences. The other useful aspect of pop culture is that you hear a lot of celebrities speaking away from “Sex, drugs and rock and roll”. For example,
Miley Cyrus who decides to abstain from alcohol and cannabis for six months because she was fed up with waking up in the fog, and who quipped: “but if I’m not cool, who is? This gives new means of identification to abstainers.
Do you see an evolution in the representations of addicts in fictions?
Fiction rings more and more true about addictions from a medical point of view. And offers less dramatic performances. The most famous film with which I opened the cine-club *, Requiem for a dream (2000), shows suffering very well, but it is very dark. In Euphoria, the heroine has a mental disorder, uses alcohol, cannabis and opioids. But she has lots of other things in her life, she is creative, there is no contempt. This new look at addictions is liberating.
A lot of series have addicts as their heroes… Do you have the impression that young people are better informed about addictions today than yesterday?
Addiction is no longer a taboo. We are less in the glorification of the high than before. But in fact, there is more consumption of certain products. Opposite, we have lobbies that push for consumption.
What is positive, and which concerns all mental health, is the fact that today, thanks to these fictional materials, it is less difficult to get help. Before, the person who consulted was considered weak, mad, desperate …
Young people drink and smoke less than their elders … Are new addictions (screens, bigorexia, sex under the influence) replacing these products?
It is difficult to compare things, because the system of care has evolved a lot. It is true that there are more and more new addictive uses. It is a malaise that is moving towards new forms of consumption. Hence the interest in remaining fairly humble. Today there is no consensus on screen addiction. Perhaps, as with tobacco, in thirty years, we will have proof that it is a pathology.
Which movie would you recommend to understand each addiction?
For gambling addiction, Bay of angels by Jacques Demy. To understand what the person faces after withdrawal: Oslo August 31by Joachim Trier. For the heroine: we can hardly miss Requiem for a dream, by Daren Aronofsky. For alcohol: For the love of a woman, by Luis Mandoki. For cocaine: The wolf of Wall Street, by Martin Scorsese. It’s funny, but we can clearly see the doping side to work. And that the fall can be quite hard. For cannabis: Smiley face, a comedy by Gregg Araki. And for sex, of course, Shame, by Steve McQueen.
* Jean-Victor Blanc holds conferences on Pop Culture and Psychiatry at MK2 Beaubourg one Saturday per month. Next meeting on November 20.