TW: addiction, suicide
[I apologise in advance that this post will be deep in nature, well deeper than usual. Like I said, it’s a therapy session for all of us.]
Set the sparkling chaos, the glitter, the electric colour palette, the vertigo inducing shots and the heavy soundtrack to one side. Forget about the deep and intertwining subplots and the harrowing backstories. For one hour, HBO’s directors went against the show’s grain of eccentricity and gave us a raw and disillusioned conversation between two of the, possibly, best actors/actresses in the entire show.
Rue and Ali’s conversation, (played by Zendaya and Colman Domingo) taking place on the evening of Christmas eve while the two eat pancakes in a diner, fills the majority of the episode - the first out of two bonus episodes before season 2. It took me by surprise that a show which many deem alien from reality touches on such heavy topics with honesty and transparency.
Usually, Euphoria transcends us from the mundane lives of high-schoolers to a world filled with hardcore drugs, toxic relationships, parental abuse and sex - a lot of it. So, the topics of drugs and suicide are already sewed into the show’s narrative. We’re used to seeing the characters, particularly Rue’s, lives in such extremes. In this Special, though, Euphoria’s writers strip back the layers to reveal a sobering reality; Rue is not ok.
In Season One’s finale, we saw what many of us believe to be Rue’s relapse, and perhaps her second overdose. With Jules making the decision to take the train the two lover’s promised to ride together, into their ‘happily ever after’, alone, Rue is distraught. So, she relapses. This, she explains to Ali, is because she put all her “emotional wellbeing into her (Jules’) hands”. Ali is quick to call “bullshit” and there, this conversation between two drug addicts on Christmas eve in an almost deserted diner gets deep.
Switching between the topics of sobriety, the myth of a ‘functioning drug addict’, God and a ‘greater power’ and Rue’s fundamental purpose, this scene unpacks Rue character; her tragic flaws, as well as Ali’s who doesn’t fail to shy away from his own vices. Overall, the entire conversation humanises both Rue and Ali, something that society neglects when it comes to discussing drug addicts and substance abuse.
The bottom line is, Rue doesn’t want to get clean. For her, it’s easier to remain in the familiar state that drugs place her in. A state that perpetually gives her freedom from all the things she wants to forget... but can’t. Quite bluntly, drugs are an escapism from her
past trauma and although they perpetually destroy her, physically and mentally. this euphoric feeling that drugs provide is too hard to detach from. I get it. We all have ‘tools’ which provide us with escapism. It may be writing, a less extreme but equally satisfying pass-time to drugs. It might be toxic relationships which we’re too comfortable in to remove ourselves from, as evidenced by Maddy and Nate’s poisonous attachment to each other. But with drugs, there are so many added stigmas that we’ve ingrained in society making it almost impossible for addicts to see themselves as good people worthy of support, value and forgiveness.
If you’ve ever talked to an addict in NA (Narcotics Anonymous) or attended a NA meeting, you would know most recovering addicts view their addiction as a disease. In fact, it’s a degenerative disease that changes the addict’s personality fundamentally, as Ali emphasises to Rue. It’s true, like any physical degenerative disease, without help, treatment and support, it destroys you entirely, changing the person at your core, damaging you physically and eventually it can kill you.
But what many recovering addicts will tell you is that this isn’t how society views their disease. To many, it’s not a disease at all, but a lifestyle choice. Yes, it’s true of course no one forces drugs into anyone’s system, but based purely on the cards some of us have been dealt, it’s almost inevitable that those who turn to drugs do so. Reasoning for taking drugs aside it’s a disease that needs to be treated with compassion, sensitivity and understanding.
The only thing Rue craves is forgiveness, from herself and from those around her. The only thing Ali holds onto in his sobriety is the knowledge that he is a good person, at his core. Although his own children may not think so, as we implicitly learn from the scene in the conversations interval. (This scene was accompanied by Me in 20 Years by Moses Sumney, which is enough to have me, for a lack of better terms, emotionally fucked as it is without Colman Domingo’s phenomenal performance)
What do you imagine when you think of a drug addict? Think of the archetypal ‘crackhead’ under a bridge or the stoner on the curb. The general consensus is that addicts are destructive, cruel and selfish. A lost-cause. A damage to society and themselves, so society cuts them loose. It’s easier to forget these people are people than to treat them as such. Especially when all we see in the media is this archetypal image of a sluggish, idle and lazy 'crackhead', Euphoria itself is guilty of this with it’s portrayal of Rue in season one. And even more especially when we never hear from these people first hand.
The YouTube channel Soft White Underbelly has posted countless interviews with different people from different walks of life, some drug addicts, homeless, prostitutes and ex-cons.
If you haven’t watched an interview yet, I recommend watching the interview with Ronnie who shares many similarities with Rue’s character… but in fact Ronnie is not a character and her experiences are not made theatrical and dramatized for the sake of a TV show. She's a person who's story is so complex and intense that it's hard to ignore the reality of drug addiction.
Whether the cards a person is dealt does not lead them to a state anywhere near the one that ‘caused’ them to take drugs, drink alcohol, get into a toxic relationship or whatever the form of addiction they are experiencing is. Whether their life was stereotypically ‘perfect’, as Ronnie and Rue’s were (being from a loving two parent household and not especially affected by poverty). To a certain extent, and this might just be a hot take, I feel we are subliminally searching for reasons to not give people respect. Depriving others of the respect and humanity they deserve, simply by being human, makes us feel better. It’s an unconscious superiority complex that many of us feel we have simply because we ‘chose’ to not take drugs, we ‘chose’ to not get addicted, we ‘chose’ to live a ‘good’ life. The problem currently is we find scapegoats to blame this on, be it our religion, our classism or our political views. Anyone in the underclass who does not fit the narrative of what a ‘good person’ is because they are drug addicts, for whatever reasoning we say, is deprived of respect. Like I said before, a key in beginning sobriety is the belief that you are a good person and worthy of respect. If we’re depriving a whole group of people of respect and treating them with cruelty, ignoring them, disregarding them etc. how are we fundamentally good people ourselves.
Like I said, this is a hot take. A tough pill to swallow but one that took me a long time to grasp, perhaps too late.
The bottom line is those in society who are not addicts do not get the authority to deprive addicts of their worth and value. No one has that authority or control.
What we do have control of in our society is compassion, understanding and respect. What we have been trying; the bias, the shame, the stigmas... it’s not working. So, like Rue referenced in the episode, instead I’m gonna try a little tenderness.
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Ted Talk on drug addiction: (4) Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong | Johann Hari - YouTube
Soft White Underbelly: (4) Soft White Underbelly - YouTube
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