In The Movies

For an "In The Movies" assignment we were asked to choose a movie that portrayed addiction.  I decided to watch a movie called "Walk The Line" portraying the struggles in life of Johnny Cash, a country singer.  Overall, I feel as though the movie did a great job at showing his addiction and the struggles he faced going through withdrawal and recovery.  In the movie when Cash first began using drugs it was due to peer pressure, a common theme learned about in class.  Throughout his career Cash saw nothing wrong with his drug use and used it as a coping mechanism for his emotions.  After one time of overdosing, after being rejected by June Carter, his future wife, his friends and family became aware of his addiction and tried to keep him away from the drugs.

The movie did a very good job at showing the stages of withdrawal that Cash was going through.  After this incident he began to use again and was even arrested for his use.  His drug use eventually caused him to lose his first wife and children.  All of these events in his life caused him to continue his use and go through the cycle of quitting and starting to use.  After a low point in his life, with the help of June Carter, he finally turns his life around and stops using prescription drugs.  Throughout the movie I had different feelings towards Cash for his using.  At the times where he used for an emotional coping device I did feel bad for him because he felt his life was so bad that that was what he had to resort to.  But also the times where he was just using because all the other musicians around him were using or when he close to having his life back together, I felt angry at him for doing it.  From what I have learned in class about the addiction cycle, you could definitely see how Cash went through that cycle and why he continued to use drugs.  The movie, in my opinion, was very accurate at portraying addiction and the cycle that people go through.  I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone wanting to see a movie portrayal of what addictions look like.

Journal Article: Substance Abuse and Psychological Disorders

         For this article summary I used an article called Bipolar Spectrum-Substance Use Co-occurence: Behavioral Approach System (BAS) Sensitivity and Impulsiveness as Shared Personality Vulnerabilities.  It is known that bipolar disorder and substance use are related to one another and that the impulsivity seen in those using drugs can be easily seen in those affected by bipolar disorder.  Because of the noted similarities between the symptoms and characteristics between these disorders researchers decided to do an experiment to find the correlation between the two.  According to the article this study was the first to try to find the correlation between the BAS sensitivity scores and the impulsivity scores found when people suffering from bipolar disorder and substance use were tested.  The main points of this study were to test the hypotheses "that both high self reported BAS sensitivity scores and high self-reported impulsiveness would be associated with lifetime bipolar spectrum and substance use disorder diagnosis, would predict substance use problems prospectively and would mediate the co-occurence of bipolar disorder and substance use.  With a sample size of 132 participants with bipolar spectrum disorders, from two large universities, and 153 control participants, the hypotheses were tested with the use of nine different assessment tools.  Tools like the GBI, BDI, and HMI were used to test the symptoms of bipolar and depression, while the DAST, MAST, Exp-SADS-L were used to test for substance use disorders.  Along with tests for bipolar symptoms and substance use there were two test used for looking at BAS and impulsivity scores.  At the end of the testing, there was a four month follow up that consisted of the use of the Exp-SADS-C test to assess the changes that had occurred since the original testing.  From the testing it was found that those individuals on the bipolar spectrum had higher rates of substance use problems.  Overall the test showed that "bipolar spectrum status is associated with prospective substance use, that BAS sensitivity and impulsiveness both are associated with bipolar spectrum status and that BAS sensitivity and impulsiveness both are associated with prospective substance use."
          After reading this article I could easily see how the article related to the facts talked about in the book.  In Chapter 8: Substance Misuse With A Co-Occuring Mental Disorder or Disability, there was a lot of talk about how bipolar disorders relate to substance use.  Many of the facts that I read in the book were very apparent within the article.  In the chapter it was discussed how for professionals it is hard to tell if the characteristics of how a person was acting came from either the psychological problem or the substance use.  Although not directly stated in the article, the part about the impulsivity between the two disorders made this fact very apparent.  Specific tests were done to show that there is a high amount of impulsivity in both substance use and bipolar spectrum disorders, which could cause professionals to be at a lost as to which disorder the impulsivity is stemming from.  In the past people would rarely be treated for both of their disorders which in turn could cause more problems in the future due to neglecting one disorder.  And so the correlation between substance use and psychological disorders is a area that definitely needs more attention due to the seriousness of the manner.


References

Alloy, L. B., Bender, R. E., Wagner, C. A., Whitehouse, W. G., Abramson, L.Y., Hogan, M. E., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2009).  Bipolar Spectrum -- Substance Use Co-Occurance: Behavioral Approach System (BAS) Sensitivity and Impulsiveness as Shared Personality Vulnerabilities.  Journal Of Personality & Social Psychology, 97(3), 549 -565.