January 16, 2016

Maureen Palmer

42 minutes

Maureen talks about her new film Wasted, alcoholism, compassionate evidence based care, why she might have too much empathy and how the world of medicine is changing when it comes to treating addiction.

Film Trailer

Film Synopsis

Filmmaker Maureen Palmer set out to make a documentary following her partner Mike Pond - a psychotherapist and an alcoholic 5 years sober - as he searched for the best new evidence-based addiction treatments. The intent was to help others battling substance use disorders. But to the couple’s shock and dismay, shortly after filming began, Mike drank again. In Wasted Mike and Maureen’s attitudes and assumptions about addiction are tested in real time as the couple search for a treatment that will work for Mike. A theoretical journey becomes very real and deeply personal.

There is urgency to their quest. Mike had already suffered one life-threatening trip to rock bottom; he likely wouldn’t survive another. In his past life, Mike spent two decades as a successful therapist in Penticton, BC, helping others battle addiction. Then he succumbed to one himself. Mike lost his practice, his home and his family to alcoholism, ending up homeless on Vancouver’s notorious downtown eastside. For two years before he got clean, Pond bounced between the streets and rundown recovery homes. The only treatment offered him: Alcoholics Anonymous. Oh my God. I can’t believe this has happened after almost 5 and a-half years. This is going to give me a dose of humility because I’ve been smug about your progress and now I’m really going to truly find out what it was like to walk in your family’s shoes.”

A one-hour documentary from Bountiful Films 2 But Mike was never successful at working the program. And he’s not alone. In fact, AA does not work for the majority who try it, leaving many to feel like failures. Remarkably, most medical doctors still believe it’s the only effective treatment for addiction, insisting their patients attend meetings while doctors ignore - or remain ignorant of - therapies proven to help addicts and their families. In their documentary Wasted Mike and Maureen discover a revolution in addiction research & treatment. They reveal tantalizing clues to what causes addiction and focus on compassionate evidence-based treatments that pick up where AA leaves off.

But as filming progressed, Maureen became aware that getting the message out to the public could come at a terrible price: “I have never felt more conflicted in my career. As we came to understand how the brain’s reward circuitry gets hijacked by even things associated with booze, like a flashing neon liquor store sign, I realized that the more we filmed, the more we risked Mike’s well-being. Filming had the potential to make his disorder worse.” As the cameras roll, Mike begins one of the new evidence-based treatments, not yet available in Canada. It doesn’t work for everyone. Will it work for Mike? Wasted makes a powerful case for an expanded tool kit to treat our number one public health care problem – a tool kit based on science and presented by some of the world’s most renowned addiction researchers.

Biography

After two award-winning decades at the CBC, where she held senior producer positions in both radio and television, Palmer left in 2000 to series produce for American broadcasters TLC and the Discovery Channel. Shortly after, she and partner Helen Slinger formed Bountiful Films.

The duo has produced a string of powerful and critically acclaimed hit documentaries. Maureen’s most recent writing and directing credits include How to Divorce & Not Wreck the Kids, Cat Crazed, Sext Up Kids (forDream Street Pictures), and Angry Kids & Stressed Out Parents – all for CBC’s Doc Zone.

Maureen is also an accomplished Lifestyle and Factual producer/writer/director. Sample credits include the pilot for The Food Network’s Glutton for Punishment, The Week the Women Went for CBC Television, and Border Security, for National Geographic and Global TV.

Read about or purchase the book Wasted here.