Shreya Singh
Alcohol addiction and
substance abuse is as issue dealt with and made the central theme in various movies
and television shows. The accuracy of the depiction, however, may vary. This
blog post looks to present an argument in support of the accuracy of the
portrayal of Alcohol use disorder (AUD), the causes for it, and the
repercussions it has in the Television show Mom.
The paper “Neurotransmitters
in alcoholism” (Genet, 2014) discusses the role of neurotransmitters in alcohol
addiction because of their imbalance in the brain. Alcohol addiction either
involves a positive reinforcement in which the environment has a rewarding
stimulus that encourages the behaviour. Or it may be due to a negative
reinforcement, in which case alcohol ingestion is being encouraged as it allows
the person to avoid aversive stimulus. This causes widespread neuroadaptations
in the brain. The paper goes on to talk about the dopamine pathway. Dopamine is
a neurotransmitter involved in the mesolimbic system. The consumption or even
the anticipation of alcohol causes a release of dopamine in the brain which is
involved in the reward system pathway.
This blog post is going
to elaborate on the three main features of AUD and their accurate depiction in
the show Mom. It will first discuss the heritability aspect of
addiction. Then it will move on to discuss the role the environment,
epigenetics plays and how it is related to the hereditary factor. Finally it
will talk about reward deprivation and how it factors into the larger picture
of alcohol addiction.
Mom
is a show about 2 generations of woman in a family, the mother and the
daughter, who are in an Alcoholics Anonymous program. The show focuses on the
recovery of these women while giving us glimpses into their past and telling us
how their addiction affected them and their relationships with their children
and grandchildren.
A research paper, “Epigenetics
of drug abuse”, (Nielson, 2012) discusses the vulnerability of addiction and
how it is influenced by convergent biological,
social, environmental and genetic factors. It mentions twin studies according
to which there are common heritable genetic components that predispose an
individual to drug addiction and these contribute 20-50% to the variance of
developing an addiction where the other half is impacted by the environment and
social factors. It also elucidates the importance of the interaction between
biological factors and the biosocial influences. In Mom, the oldest
woman Bonnie becomes an addict at an early age as she bounced around in foster
homes after having been abandoned by her mother at the age of 4. She conceived
her daughter Christie in a concert and did not know who the father was the next
day. Due to her addiction, she was an absent mother where she disappeared for
days and Christie had to grow up being the adult herself. This caused her to
fall into drinking and drugs and drop out of high school. She then ended up
becoming a stripper and an alcoholic herself. Christie also has a daughter,
Violet, in her teen years and Violet also grows up in a parentless household
where she has to mother her younger half-brother from Christie’s failed
marriage. This storyline clearly shows the role the hereditary aspect of
addiction plays, where 3 generations of women from the family suffer because of
it.
The hereditary nature of the disease is linked with epigenetics and the
environment. “Addiction” in Psychology Today mentioned the role environmental
factors play. The lack of parental supervision along with a parent or sibling/s
with an addictive disorder increases the risk. Early exposure to adversity and
trauma can also increase the likelihood of addictive disorders. Also mental
health problems like Attention deficit Disorder and PTSD play a big role. In Mom,
Bonnie is diagnosed with ADD in the latter seasons and if considered along
with her life story explain her fall into drinking and drugs at an early age. This
also illustrates how the genetic and the epigenetic factors played a part for
Christie. Growing up in a home with a mostly absent and reckless mother added
epigenetic factors to an already present predisposition for addiction.
Finally the role reward deprivation plays in addiction is described in “Neuroscience
of Alcohol” (Preedy, 2019) which elaborates on how there is sub optimal reward
processing in alcoholism. It discusses how limited access to natural rewards
can be a maintaining factor for AUD. In Mom this is demonstrated again
through the parental neglect cycle which is seen. There is no support or
encouragement of any form that Christie or Violet got from their parents which
caused them to seek the acceptance and feeling of achievement elsewhere.
Considering these factors, it can be said that Mom portrays
accurately the different aspects of AUD and the causes and affect that it can
have. It takes into consideration that a predisposition for addiction is
hereditary and the ways in which it is involved with epigenetic factors and
reward deprivation.
Works Cited:
Banerjee, N. (2014, January). Neurotransmitters in alcoholism: A review
of neurobiological and genetic studies. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4065474/
Nielsen, D. A., Utrankar, A., Reyes, J. A., Simons, D. D., & Kosten,
T. R. (2012, July). Epigenetics of drug abuse: predisposition or response.
Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3463407/
Neuroscience of Alcohol. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780128131251/neuroscience-of-alcohol
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