ABSTRACT

In this chapter, a number of alternative fi lms that challenge conventional addiction and treatment stories are discussed, as well as methadone maintenance, harm reduction, and drug-treatment-industry narratives. Except for the fi lm My Name is Joe (1998), which is nuanced, British fi lms have not been as wedded to twelve-step and AA narratives as U.S. fi lms. Yet addiction and withdrawal scenes are quite similar to representations in U.S. fi lms. The British fi lm Trainspotting (1996) ignited a lot of controversy in the United States when it was released over whether or not the fi lm glamorized illegal-drug use. Many reviewers saw the fi lm as realistically and humourously capturing the lives of white working-class heroin users in Scotland during Margaret Thatcher’s regime of privatization and freemarket ideology. It is a fast-paced fi lm based on the novel of the same title by Irvine Walsh and accompanied by a great sound track. Although the fi lm is heralded as rupturing representations of illegal-drug users, it can be equally noted that it conforms to familiar addiction-and heroin-withdrawal narratives.