May 04, 2024

Addicted In Film with Ted Perkins

56 minutes

Today’s guest is going to give us a peek into Hollywood and the fascinating world of movies about recovery

Ted Perkins worked in the film industry for 30 years and has a book out called:-

"Addicted in Film, Movies We Love About the Habits We Hate"

I’ve just finished reading it and it’s fascinating – I had no idea there were so many films about recovery!

The book forms the basis of his Recovery Movie Meetup program

In this episode:-

Ted grew up in a diplomatic family, where cocktail parties were the norm..

Worked as a movie producer for Universal Studios for 30 years, then pursued independent screenwriting

The Movie industry (like so many other industries) is “awash in alcohol” as Ted put it

His drinking was mainly recreational until he began to work independently as a scriptwriter when it became more about managing his anxiety

His scriptwriting career involved a lot of waiting around for responses regarding scripts he had submitted

Ted shared his personal struggle with moderation and his attempts to control his drinking

He talks us through his unique approach to sobriety – rather than 90 meetings in 90 days he watched 100 recovery movies in 100 days!

In fact I’ve recently interviewed a guy for the podcast who listened to 100 Tribe Sober podcasts in 100 days… and it worked! He’s sober now and I ‘ll be releasing that interview soon

I’m even thinking of creating a 100 episode playlist to go with it!

Apart from his movie watching Ted also worked with Smart Recovery

His recovery led to him writing his book and developing Recovery Movie Meetups

His book is called: "Addicted in Film, Movies We Love About the Habits We Hate" – available on Amazon – and on kindle – do check it out, its brilliant

Recovery Movie Meetups enables communities to host support meetings using addiction-themed movies… and Tribe Sober will be hosting their first Recovery Movie Meetup with Ted on 11th May

We’ll be watching an addiction themed movie and following it with a discussion – using guided questions

I asked him for his Favorite Recovery Movie: which is the "Lost Weekend" which came out way back in (1945)

I asked him to Recommended a Movie: He suggested "Thanks for Sharing" for its portrayal of various addictions and recovery aspects

We discussed Society's stigma towards alcoholism: that misconception of alcoholics as homeless, contrasting with the majority of people affected who are in fact functional alcoholics

Of course the danger of seeing the alcoholic as a homeless man in the park is that we look at him and think – I’m not that bad so I can carry on drinking!

This suits the alcohol industry very well of course.

AA's branding of the "alcoholic" can be likened to the religious branding of sinners – it’s a way to keep the flock together – to keep them coming to church… or meetings.

We agreed that we had to take the Initiative in our recovery: we can’t just sit around waiting for life to become perfect – we have to rebuild our life, embrace opportunities and create an alcohol free life that we love

Recovery is about reclaiming life’s possibilities

We talked about the Hollywood celebrities who are modelling sobriety and making it cool: Ben Affleck, Bradley Cooper, Anthony Hopkins, Demi Lovato, and plenty of others

I really loved Teds feedback loop – I’m going to read a quote from the transcript of the interview

Over time it'll work itself out and you'll see, …. all of the things that you thought were not going to be possible will become possible and you'll do things that you never thought possible Then your life in sobriety will then start an automatic feedback loop. Showing you how great life is and will continue to get as you pursue sobriety.

I love that idea of an automatic feedback loop – as the benefits of sobriety start to come in we realise we want to hold on to them….

More Info

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