Adult Humour?

Drinking problem? LOL! Lets do some weed too! ROFL!




Bored out of my mind on Sunday night, I ventured into the world of American sitcoms and far from being amused I was shocked: substance abuse is alive and well in the world of the “average” family!

The show I am referring to is Rules of Engagement, a show premised on the hilarity from observing a married couple, an engaged couple and a single man interacting. While the premise alone has potential for laughs, the performances are forgettable and even David Spade cannot rescue the comedy (*NB: I gathered it was a comedy from the presence of a laugh track NOT the dialogue or poor Godfather impersonations).

However, my concern was the blatant ignorance of alcoholism and the condoning of recreational drug taking. Both substance abuse issues revolved around the engaged woman who we first meet carrying a box of about a dozen empty wine bottles:

You guys must have had a party?
No.
So you guys like wine.
Yeah, we like wine.
Okay.
Actually, I just like wine.
Okay…
Do you want to have a wine?

So the responsible married woman notices that her neighbour and friend seem has a drinking problem and her only response is to shrug it off. This is further reinforced by the engaged woman choosing to smoke marijuana because there is no wine in the house!

Now, I may seem like a wowser and reading too much into a sitcom whose job is to purely entertain but I think not. Sitcoms reflect social attitudes and if this is the attitude towards substance abuse then we have a serious problem. Alcoholism impacts not only the abuser but family and friends as well as job prospects. For her friend to blatantly ignore this problem is to neglect her friend and as good as putting another bottle in her hand and saying “bottoms up!”

Furthermore, the portrayal of smoking marijuana was stupidly clichéd and condoned the practice. If the woman is suffering from alcoholism then smoking recreational drugs will further compound her problems and may lead to harder substance abuse problems.