When A Man Loves a Woman-Addiction Theory Meets Drug Culture: Applying the BPS+ Approach

When A Man Loves a Woman-Addiction Theory Meets Drug Culture: Applying the BPS+ Approach

To understand and tackle the addictive behaviors of an individual suffering from addiction, Skinner and Marilyn (2010), came up with the Bio-Psycho-Social plus model to make the whole process easier. According to Skinner (2016), this model emphasizes the five main dimensions that are required to be employed when dealing with a substance use disorder. Therefore, in this essay, the BPS+ approach will be useful in examining the addictive behaviors of Alice Green in “When a Man Loves a Woman” film.

The movie “When a Man Loves a Woman” begins with the passionate, smart, and sexy initial encounter of Alice Green, a high school guidance counselor and Michael, who was a pilot. Soon after they get married, they chose to live in San Francisco to take care of their two kids. Being the woman, Alice tries all means possible to keep things together in her marriage by looking good and doing everything a good woman is expected to do. While they were on vacation in Mexico, Michael shares his concern about Alice’s alcoholism. Alice accepts her fault and purposes to stop taking alcohol. However, when they go back to San Francisco, she goes back to her previous drinking. While in a drunken state of unconsciousness, she slaps her daughter and then falling through a glass door in the shower, she regains her consciousness and decides to go into a rehab clinic for a detox program. Michael wilts under the pressure of taking care of the children with the help of a nanny. When Alice finally comes from the Alcoholics Anonymous, she becomes so uneasy with his husband’s lack of trust for her parenting skills and his controlling nature. This results in separation.

The five dimensions of the Bio-Psycho-Social Plus model that are essential for the substance use intervention are discussed in the essay below.

Biological Dimension

The purpose of this approach is to study the effects of substances and the addictive behaviors on a person’s brain and the working of their body parts as well as their biological functioning. Alcohol is considered a psychoactive drug which, when consumed, increases the release of dopamine in the brain (Skinner, 2016). The dopamine chemical is responsible for the energy and motivation that people acquire after drinking alcohol. This chemical initiates a feel-good feeling in the person hence yearning to take more and more alcohol. However, Nut (2012) argues that too much alcohol in the brain results in the reduction of the dopamine receptors. Nut’s sentiments are echoed by Mate, who studies the vicious cycle of alcoholics. From the cycle, Mate illustrates what happens to the person taking alcohol: he develops few dopamine receptors, and to recover the lost ones, they stumble for more and more alcohol hence falling into addiction (2008).

In the film, “When a Man Love a Woman,” it is evident that Alice has reached the dependency stage by the time she accepts to join a rehab clinic for a detox program. This is shown when she slaps her daughter, who was concerned about her behavior and her falling through a glass shower door. It is evident that alcohol had engulfed her mind, and she could not think that she was hurting her daughter. Falling through a glass window shower shows her legs failed to support her body due to too much shivering. This characteristic is especially prevalent among substance use addicts. Stopping this trait means falling into a withdrawal state, which many addicts avoid.

It was not a comfortable stay in the rehab clinic for Alice as she developed extreme cravings and fell into depression once she was stopped from drinking. She narrates, “…it was a horrible experience when I began the program…” (Mandoki, 1994). Therefore, from the biological perspective on the BPS+ model, when an individual consumes alcohol, the brain chemistry is disorientated to the point that they become dependent on it and cannot do anything else without it.

Social Dimension

To fully understand the addictive behaviors of an individual, the social dimension is very crucial. It tries to examine the immediate social environment of the individual suffering from substance use disorder. Skinner believes that a person’s direct social field directly influences the susceptibility of the person’s addictive behaviors (2016).

Michael, in the “When a Man Loves a Woman,” plays a crucial role in Alice’s immediate social context when he shows concern about her drinking. After Alice falls through a glass shower door, she is taken to hospital. “You need to seek professional help to this alcoholism,” (Mandoki, 1994). Alice agrees, and she joins the rehabilitation clinic. Therefore, this contributed to her to stop taking alcohol and seek help. However, Michael’s job, to some extent, contributed to her addiction since he was rarely at home, and if he could be available fulltime, maybe his wife’s addiction could not have elevated to that point. Her daughter, Jess, is also concerned about her welfare even though she gets slapped when she confronts Alice, and when her mother falls in the shower, she calls Michael, who comes almost immediately.

Close to Alice’s story, Woodrow’s addictive behavior was directly influenced by her father. She directly associates her addictive behavior to her father when she says, “I hate him [her father] for his bad example; I feel he has driven me to the same awful place” (Crozier & Lane, 2016). Parents can, therefore, have a direct influence on their children’s addictive behaviors. In this case, Woodrow blames his father for the awful situation she was in.

Therefore, from Alice’s story, it is evident that having a supportive team of family members, friends, and everyone significantly contributes to the recovery of an addict. Social support can single-handedly result in the improvement of an addicted person. As in “When a Man Loves a Woman,” Michael plays a significant role in convincing Alice to go to the rehab clinic. Alice, therefore, joins the detox program for the sake of her family. Alice acknowledges that drinking is a pervasive problem which she needed to deal with in order to end her habitual drinking.

Cultural Dimension

According to Skinner, the extent to which an individual feels linked to the social surrounding to which they identify themselves has significant influences on the susceptibility to substance use dependency. Therefore, dislocation from a given culture can contribute to addiction. This is linked to the narrative of the Aboriginals who experienced some imposed deeds which served as a tearing apart for their families or instead moving the whole community from one place to another. In case, substance use becomes a coping method for such problems (Herie & Skinner, 2010). That said, a given culture that one identifies with can either encourage or discourage heavy consumption of alcohol.

Alice identifies herself with a culture that a woman is supposed to be a good mother to her children and a good wife to the husband. That why she tries so hard to make her marriage work, and when her addictive behaviors became a threat to her family, she accepts to go to rehab. Also, their culture expects people to have fun to reduce pressures but in a controlled manner. Michael says, “I know we have pressures, and we need to have fun…but wringing you out at the end of every evening is less fun as it used to be,” (Mandoki, 1994). Therefore, a culture that expected a woman to behave in a particular manner led to her to think over her family.

The cultural approach of the BPS+ model proposes that a person should identify themselves with a peer culture, which gives beneficial choices to addictive behaviors on an individual’s healing (Saad, De Medeiros, & Mosini, 2017). Alice was able to identify different alternatives of parenting while in the rehab, and when she adopts these choices, they become a stumbling block in her marriage.

Psychological Dimension

According to Skinner (2016), this approach is instrumental in the recovery process of an addict as it examines the urges and drives responsible for a person’s given behavior and how change is initiated as a result of these behaviors. Through understanding this, one can be helped to manage their addictive behaviors.

Strong emotions such as fear, remorsefulness, sadness, and jealousy, to some extent, can serve as a strong drive that can lead to someone to initiate change. Remorsefulness is what initiates change in Alice. She feels sorry for her husband and children, and that is why her mind is tuned to join a rehabilitation clinic to seek professional assistance in her journey of sobriety. She realizes that she had become a threat to her own family.

Also, in the story of Woodrow, her emotions drive her extent of substance use. “To comfort myself, I am sucking down on a triple scotch…Night after night, I drink in the room where I keep my father’s ashes… [I become] a pathetic creature whose survival depends on cans and bottles” (Crozier, Lorna & Lane 2016). In this, alcohol was the only means to relieve her sadness after her father’s death. However, with time, it ceases from a sadness reliever to a dependency substance, and she cannot do without.

Therefore, from carefully scrutinizing Alice’s and Woodrow’s stories, it is clear that one’s emotions can either drive one to either stop or continue taking alcohol. Therefore, when dealing with one’s recovery process, it is vital to examine their feelings that would have been the root cause of their addictive behaviors.

Spiritual Dimension

In this approach, Skinner argues that the addictive behaviors of an individual depend on their religious affiliations on which they ascribe to. In the case where a person is already addicted to alcohol, they can opt to take part in the recovery exercises by connecting to a bigger frame of sense (Skinner, 2010).

Although Alice does not display any religious affiliations in the movies, she associates herself with the happiness of her family. To her, her family was the most critical thing and did not want to hurt them. She, therefore, understood that her recovery dependent on her connection to a larger frame of meaning.

Alcoholics Anonymous is the best movement that assists the addicts to recover. This movement believes that for an everlasting recovery, alcoholics should collectively be helped. According to Skinner and Herie (2010), the people with addictive behaviors need the support of a fellowship and the belief in a supernatural being to which they ascribe and which defines them. Since her family, especially her [Alice] kids, was the only one who made sense, she found it disturbing when her husband could not trust her parenting skills and his too much-controlling nature.

Conclusion

Finally, as noticed in the above analysis, the recovery from a substance use addiction requires a holistic approach, as stated in the Bio-Psycho-Social plus model. These dimensions work concurrently, and one cannot work without the other. Therefore, for effective results, the intervention should follow all the aspects.