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.