To anyone going through addiction and attempting recovery, the most impactful thing anyone ever told me was "A lapse isn't the same as a relapse." if you backslide once, accept it and move back to recovery, don't throw your hands up and go "Well now I've failed time to get fucked uuuuup!" :)
@DrDark06 ай бұрын
I can really appreciate that message. It's a good one for addiction, depression, really any condition that encourages a toxic positive feedback loop. Not always an easy aphorism to follow, but I can really appreciate the message.
@jimballard11866 ай бұрын
Exactly. Falling off the wagon doesn't mean you can never get back on it again.
@fromthedumpstertothegrave36896 ай бұрын
@@DrDark0 'toxic positive feedback loop' is a good way of putting it and given how much depression and substance abuse can go hand in hand particularly relevant. I was fortunate enough to be allocated a therapist who suggest Compassion Focused Therapy, its just cognitive behavioural therapy in terms of the 'mechanics' of it but its HYPER focussed on self acceptance and self forgiveness. Had tried CBT 3 times and found it utterly useless, did CFT and it was like I was cured overnight, which after about 20 years of depression to varying degrees getting a handle on it over 6 weeks is effectively overnight. Best way to describe it is CBT is like getting therapy from Data. CFT is like talking to Guinan... Okay best way to put it to someone who watched Star Trek Next Gen anyway.
@Lurdiak6 ай бұрын
That's why people thought the Todd section of the Bojack Horseman finale was so great.
I was an iv heroin addict for almost ten years. I've relapsed many MANY times trying to get clean. After all tjat, I've now been clean for almost 5 years now. Most everyone relapses when they try to quit. Just don't get discouraged my beautiful comrades ❤
@ecmelton86336 ай бұрын
Carrie-Anne Moss has such a striking appearance, even with this early '90s, shot on video image quality. She really does stand out.
@sethzard6 ай бұрын
In some ways, vampirism would work better as an analogy for some kind of eating disorder. Both are things you need to do so you survive, but you have to moderate. It falls apart a bit because one hurts yourself, and one kills people, but it is at least closer.
@Craxin016 ай бұрын
There does seem to be a combination in this vampiric lore that blood is both nourishment and drug to the vampire. One might say the same to an overeater, that they get some endorphin fix by overeating, but I'm not sure where the science is on that, so I can't say for sure.
@shraka6 ай бұрын
I was gonna say, food addiction (I know that's not what it's called), but you got there first.
@baiwatch16 ай бұрын
It’s cute how this (and many other shows from the era) features a new theme, or self-contained morality lesson each week. It’s like children’s program for adults.
@nightmare_eyes_6 ай бұрын
I love that of all the characters, Schanke is the one with arguably the most depth of them all
@ClockFink6 ай бұрын
That *was* a real W for Schanke! Which… honestly he REALLY needed one, the show hasn’t done a great job of offering virtues to counterbalance his vices
@Craxin016 ай бұрын
I think they kind of used Schanke to be everything wrong with humanity, but not in any great excess. He's a bit of a creep but seems to have the good sense to back off when he realizes he oversteps.
@Aogami206 ай бұрын
You could liken Nick's blood addiction to people who have a food addiction. We have to indulge occasionally or we'll die, it is good for us makes us stronger and healthier, but it also makes it incredibly difficult to manage.
@Craxin016 ай бұрын
It's kind of worse for vampires. A food addict often has specific addictions, like excessive sweets or overly rich foods. One can easily survive without sweets or overly rich foods by going to a leaner diet or severely limiting their intake. Vampires need one kind of nourishment. They can abstain from drinking human blood, perhaps, but with this episode showing blood to be both nourishment and drug simultaneously, that makes it especially difficult to manage.
@Aogami206 ай бұрын
@@Craxin01 sugar is more addictive than cocaine my friend.
@Craxin016 ай бұрын
@@Aogami20 That's because it's in everything. If cocaine were as ubiquitous and had a massive lobby arm, it'd have far more addict.
@Aogami206 ай бұрын
@@Craxin01 it's in everything BECAUSE IT'S ADDICTIVE. Why do you think McDonalds puts sugar in their hamburger meat?
@Craxin016 ай бұрын
@@Aogami20 We forget we're primates and we still have caveman brain. Our brains burn a third of all calories we consume, so it's less that it's addictive and more that our brains are programmed to crave sugar. If we were still hunter gatherers, it'd be far less of a problem, because there's only so much sugar in the fruits and vegetables we'd be searching for. If you ate as many apples to get the same calories as a single can of soda, you'd have an unbearable belly ache from stuffing yourself so much. In order to stop people doing normal human things, you kind of have to program them to do so, to ignore nature's programming. Finally, it's profit, greed, that compels so many companies to seek out cheap sugar, especially the sugar industry and their lobbyists. They funded a campaign to push the blame for our expanding waistlines into the consumption of fat, so a lot of corporations seeing their "research" started cutting fat out of everything. Fat tastes good, another calorie rich substance our brains crave, and cutting it out really made foods bland. So, they added salt and sugar to replace the lost flavor. It doesn't help processing food already strips a lot of flavor out of it. A can of corn would be absolutely flavorless because of the canning process if they didn't add salt and sugar to it.
@dkecskes21996 ай бұрын
12 step "anonymous" programs started in North American Christian churches, and used to be way more generalized, focusing more on the recovery, rather than the thing being recovered from. That's probably why the meeting isn't specific to one concern, and looks so packed, instead of being more of a "circle of chairs" kinda format. The prevailing thought being that many addictions are reinforced through the often open third spaces where socializing dedicated to their use could happen, so there needs to be a frequently available third space where socializing for recovery could happen too. Churches hosted these meetings, since they already had the space and facilities for them. To be clear, this isn't me saying these programs were or are all great and perfect. Their all or nothing abstinence only hyperfocus hurts those in recovery. And being hosted at church buildings sometimes means they are not the most accessible for disabled folks, or in need of public transit, or ya know, people the Church has a history of persecuting.
@Nassifeh6 ай бұрын
I don't think this is really true? The generalized version of it pre-AA wasn't an "anonymous" recovery program but really more of an evangelism thing; pretty sure the "anonymous" stuff started with Alcoholics Anonymous and that was in fact a very specific goal-oriented group with one specific vice in mind. There are some more general 12-step "recovery" things now in churches but they're much newer and much less effective, and like the biggest version of that that I know of had barely been founded when this aired. Which is what makes this kinda weird, to me, because it did *become* a thing more in the late 90s and into the 2000s? But at the time this aired I think the closest generalized alternatives weren't 12-step programs but things like Narconon and Synanon, which were still at least broadly substance-focused. Some churches might have run their own AA knockoffs, but it wasn't super common so far as I know. This if anything has a lot more vibes of "we made a generic version of this because we needed Nick and a sex addict to be going to the same meeting".
@dkecskes21996 ай бұрын
@@Nassifeh I think I wrongly generalized there, especially in my first couple sentences, I'm sorry. I will leave my comment above unedited so people can read and learn from my fail. My experience with this is far outweighed on the North American Christian church history side, and not that strong on the history of the general group recovery format. I do remember the running of such programs in the types of churches I grew up in. Not all of those churches would advertise the meetings on their church events calendars, but I would see them happening as a kid and teenager while at church for unrelated events. I do know of the "recovery" one you refer to, which started I think sometime in the 2000s? The church I and my family attended at the time held some of their more populous meetings for the city, and if I recall correctly from a presentation about it over a decade ago, it was started out of one of the models I mentioned in my first sentence of the comment above. I've more recently gone through a lengthy "midlife crisis" of faith many have termed "Deconstruction." For me this has brought about a lot of rethinking the practices of Christianity as I know it, and even leaving and repenting from them where applicable. But even well before then, I privately thought that attending such a program at the church oneself attends would be unwise for so many reasons, and that the Church itself might try to take too much influence over the program. I celebrate churches that actually do use their facilities to make their communities better places to live all of the days of the week, though. It's...complex.
@johntaylor68516 ай бұрын
every time I see Nick ask Carrie Anne Moss what her addiction is, I can't help but shout "the blue pill" at the screen...
@ellaminnope12226 ай бұрын
3:37 There are times when I fully endorse Team Nick & Natalie (Nickalie, if you will) but this is not one of them. NICK SHE’S BEEN STANDING TEN TOES DOWN FOR YOU THIS WHOLE TIME.
@Dessikka6 ай бұрын
Reminds me of OA, which is a 12 step for food addiction. Better analogy than most!
@fromthedumpstertothegrave36896 ай бұрын
Honestly ANY eating disorder I'd think. I'm gunna Shapiro this statistic and say 99% of addicts find abstinence easier than moderation and pretty much any addict can choose that easier of the two options, abstiance. If your addiction is to food, or is an eating disorder in which your attitude to food is so close to that of an addiction (IE an addiction to control in terms of annorexia/bullemia) thefuck do you do? Abstain from food for the rest of your life? Having no choice but to moderate when you have the mind and habits of an addict... yeah, that must be fuckin tough.
@ScottyBeast6 ай бұрын
It is.@@fromthedumpstertothegrave3689
@ryanbenson46105 ай бұрын
Good point. People are addicted to food but can’t go cold turkey or they will die. It also makes people “stronger” as malnutrition is a mother ucka.
@Lurdiak6 ай бұрын
I think overall this is good vampire lore and bad metaphor. Although I'm not toooo bothered by the fact that the blood makes him stronger because that just goes hand in hand with making him more of a vampire, which also means he's losing his humanity. And even though addiction definitely doesn't make you healthier, some addictions can give you a sense of power that being a kickass vampire guy can be an ok metaphor for. The fact that the premise means he'll never truly quit and that it's unclear if he can even live without the blood is really what wrecks it as metaphor.
@Nanook1286 ай бұрын
From my time knowing people going through recovery, it actually does make a good amount of metaphorical sense from a certain perspective. People going through recovery will always be addicts at their core. That addiction is hardwired into them. The people who are able to navigate recovery well often find ways of taking the addictive part of their personality and replacing their harmful addictions with less harmful addictions. A vampire who uses animal blood or ethically sourced human blood to manage their dependency on blood kind of fits in this framework.
@adrianmckinney19086 ай бұрын
The exception to what Mildred talks about at the end , about Nick's addiction making him stronger, always needing some blood etc. and how that doesn't work for addiction is food addiction. Actually perfect for food addiction and BED. Those with food addiction will always need to eat food, will never be able to quit food, and food makes them stronger and healthier. But binging (like Nick's blood binge) causes you to lose control and lapse into habits that are unhealthy for you.
@claytonandres11946 ай бұрын
Love when Forever Knight turns into an episode of Degrassi
@claytonandres11946 ай бұрын
Crap now I want Drake to show up in this, which is technically entirely possible as a 90s show filmed in Toronto, so now I’m gonna be wanting that even more than I want LaCroix to still be alive, both of which are NOT gonna happen
@NimhLabs6 ай бұрын
Forever Knight, it is like Degrassi with less vampires, less crime and less deaths!
@ryanbenson46105 ай бұрын
Great video. 1. Carrie Anne Moss is awesome. 2. Just noticed that we watch a lot of the footage of the show on an old tv. Love those knobs.
@GooeyGremlin6 ай бұрын
I'm suddenly reminded of the Natural Habitat Shorts where Batrick "quits" blood.
@TheKeyser946 ай бұрын
The TV Show Angel also use Vampirism as an analogy for alcoholism, but with more nuances, because drinking blood had nothing to do with Angel actions, he can don't drink human blood but still do very dark things, even with a soul, but the only way that he can keep being in the way straight and narrow is being miserable the rest of his immortal life.
@meander1126 ай бұрын
Engagement for the engagement god!
@JanetStarChild6 ай бұрын
To me, the blood "addiction" has a strong analogy to food addiction, in that, they can't completely kick it because they need enough for sustenance.
@Nassifeh6 ай бұрын
I think this is why it's a bad idea to talk about food like an addiction, though. It's not the same thing. We can have unhealthy behaviors around food and eating, but they aren't best treated by treating them like they're somehow equivalent to substance abuse. Not all unhealthy behavior has to be "basically an addiction", and 12-step isn't the best program for everything or even most things.
@mxpants48846 ай бұрын
@@Nassifeh I'd argue that it's not even the best option for addiction. The whole thing is based on the idea that a bunch of white guys in the first half of the 1900s had about how addiction happens because of selfishness and it's cure is selflessness. Never mind that if anything women getting sober tend to have a pattern of almost the opposite of that and telling them otherwise only makes them more vulnerable to being exploited...
@mxpants48846 ай бұрын
I have a theory that explains addiction, and I'm curious if it makes sense to the other addicts likely to be reading the comments: A question that comes up a lot is "why would my brain do something so clearly detrimental to me, my survival and passing these genes to offspring"? I was listening to a podcast about how our brains respond to scarcity. Most people have experienced some version of this, but they were giving examples like starvation diets studied in the US during WWII. Apparently it was common for people to become intensely preoccupied with food, and interested in little else. The theory is that we have a generic response to scarcity where our brain makes addressing the scarcity EXTREMELY compelling, and shuts down the value of delayed rewards. And I've been in that kind of state around hunger and money a few times, and I immediately recognized the compulsive focus as being a fundamental part of addiction. As is the lack of planning. Because the thing about drugs is that you can easily get to a point where you can't have "enough". And the brain trick that made sure your ancestors got off their asses to look for food? Well, the flexibility of making it a general response to scarcity has the downside of leading to really self destructive behavior around drugs. Anyway, this model gave me a way to understand why I could easily predict other addicts behavior in situations where I would be blindsided by my failure to stretch the dope I had out for long enough to keep me from getting sick on a weekend trip (and why I would spend so much of that time obsessively thinking about it).
@howmanyrobot6 ай бұрын
Whoops, Episode 19 went public before this one.
@YumLemmingKebabs6 ай бұрын
I've been wondering if Jeanette from Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines is a reference to Jeanette from this show.
@h8uall666 ай бұрын
WTF, Carrie-Anne Moss was on Forever Knight?!?!
@dylanehooverlibrarian70266 ай бұрын
The fantasy metaphor could work better if vampires get a special rush from murdered blood - killing someone with a soul gives a rush like cocaine met heroin only some other schmuck dies from the overdose. From a 90s TV actor angle it makes a lot of sense - the animal blood thing fit as a substitute, it helps separate 'good' addicts vs 'bad' addicts (not applicable to IRL addiction, but to a 90s TV writer that wants to make their fantasy show not breach a topic that would NOT have gone over well in the 90s, it works better and allows an easy and inoffensive 'clean' morality to the addiction-as-metaphor allegory), makes Nick's friendship with the club owner Janette a little less murky (she uses ETHICAL blood - mostly - she doesn't want to draw heat to her establishment. Though she does have some sources if someone requests the GOOD stuff...) The metaphor doens't hold up, but I can see why a writer might think it'd be an episode-of-the-week which might work... even if ti falls apart when viewed in continuity
@searchingfororion6 ай бұрын
Ahh, like how True Blood did this with "Fangtasia" for all of two seconds.
@dkecskes21996 ай бұрын
This show kinda does cover that concept. I don't want to spoil too much (for you, anyone else in the comments, and especially the host of these epic videos here.) But the vamps of this series do recieve some memories from the red stuff, a "dinner and a show" all at once. Which is, according to longtime fans, why the other vamps consider animal sources so very subpar. It's an okay apocalypse food to pretty much all of them, but 1990s Toronto is just about as far from that need as they've ever experienced.
@Crylar446 ай бұрын
Was that Trinity?
@jamesrule13386 ай бұрын
Wasn't the blood drinking as addiction a plot of Being Human? It's quite unfortunate that this keeps being a thing.
@DrDark06 ай бұрын
A lot of vamp media seems to want to make that analogy. It never really works, but bless them, they keep trying.
@jimballard11866 ай бұрын
The American one, or the British one?
@paulv87736 ай бұрын
"Do not get addicted to water, for you will resent its absence"
@theawesome9256 ай бұрын
I always felt like Being Human is the only show that actually made that plot compelling because it was shown that Vampires *could* go without blood, and that all drinking blood did was get them high off killing people and destroying lives, but the desire to do it will naively always be there, even if they've beat it for years and years.
@searchingfororion6 ай бұрын
@@theawesome925Well it also (in the U.K version) helped them suppress their conscience and guilt over things they'd done.
@TheGuindo4 ай бұрын
i feel like the addiction analogy could've worked here if they'd compared it, specifically, to food addiction. but then they couldn't have used the generic 12-step program framework because food addiction, similar to Nick's blood addiction, requires you to continue to engage with the thing you're addicted to, or you die.
@d.m.collins15016 ай бұрын
I think vampiric blood addiction would be similar to many types of addiction: food addiction and sex addiction being pretty good analogues. All of us need food, and most of us kind of need sex (or at least human connection and physical intimacy, or at the very least, personal sexual release), and it is the unhealthy RELATIONSHIP to those things rather than the sheer usage of them that causes the problem. I still agree that the analogy kind of falls flat in the episode, though.
@assiqtaq6 ай бұрын
People can be addicted to food, and it is a real dilemma for them. Because they need to eat, they just have to be careful what they eat and how much.
@skepticdank11214 ай бұрын
There are addictions that you can’t reasonably quit entirely, like food or sex.
@hartthorn6 ай бұрын
Your ending point isn't wrong, and there's definitely some awkwardness to this as an analogy. But speaking as some who went through addiction, there is a very real element of "I have to get a LITTLE fucked up to function at a level to do my job" that can be part of it. How much of this is self delusion I can't entirely attest, but there's at least some circumstantial evidence that I was less capable completely sober due to detox elements than using a little during my deepest addiction period. And that can be an incredibly huge driver in not shaking the addiction, as you TELL yourself "i'm just gonna get a little bit so I can do work, and ween down. I can't just quit, because I'll lose my job/house/healthcare/etc, but I can TOTALLY regulate my use and try to tone it down."
@Craxin016 ай бұрын
Blood drinking as a vampire being described as an addiction is a bit like saying eating food is an addiction to humans. While there are humans who overindulge in eating, are there the same in the vampire world? Okay, after seeing the rest of the video, I guess there are, and they become more predatory. But still, blood is more nourishment than drug for vampires, it seems.
@roderick81676 ай бұрын
Yeah even though I don't love the analogy of using blood as a addiction that Nick and maybe vampires can overcome it was really cool seeing Nick evil ( well dark in personality) in this episode he was kind of scary NGL and Natalie was incredibly brave to bring Nick back from the brink because for all she knew Nick could have been too far gone and could have hurt or killed her, also sidenote im surprised Jenette helped Nick turn good again i thought she wanted evil Nick again but i guess not 😂 🤷
@StephenLeaSheppard6 ай бұрын
I think Jeanette wants Nick to be his best self, and while she really wishes that his best self were cool evil Nick, she recognizes on some level that it isn't.
@roderick81676 ай бұрын
@@StephenLeaSheppard good point, I'm sure Jeanette would selfishly love for Nick to be evil again but she knows being evil isn't what Nick really wants even if it's what she and Lacroix wants , she cares more for Nick's feelings than her own
@ScaredyCatsTV6 ай бұрын
Janette just wants Nick close, it's LaCroix that wants him evil.
@roderick81676 ай бұрын
@@ScaredyCatsTV yeah that makes more sense
@kabobawsome6 ай бұрын
@@ScaredyCatsTV I think Jeanette also has an aspect of being Nick's personal friend. She knows this isn't what Nick wants for himself, and she respects what Nick wants for himself.
@masta1826 ай бұрын
it works for food addiction I guess
@charleshockenbury3536 ай бұрын
I wonder if instead of vampirism itself being an addiction, Nick specifically has an addiction to blood. Kinda like alcoholism, where some people are fine while others are predisposed to the disease. I don’t know if that makes it better because it’s still addiction giving you super powers, but then it’s more about a situation specific to Nick. He gets superpowers but he has side effects other vampires don’t experience. And as I say this I realize that’s from The Vampire Diaries. So maybe this is a bad idea, idk 🤷♂️
@justsignmeup9116 ай бұрын
So this is what Carrie-Anne Moss did before Matrix
@etevenatkowicz97456 ай бұрын
She's in an episode of Due South in the early nineties, which honestly due south he's a similar Toronto gritty fantasy thing going on
@speakatron56345 ай бұрын
@@etevenatkowicz9745 I loved Due South as a kid.
@Sandreline6 ай бұрын
Carrie-Anne Moss???
@CT_Phipps6 ай бұрын
Presumably Nick being exposed as a cop investigating the group destroyed any chance of his working with the group further. So he can't continue recovery. Also, the show seems to have the lore that if you could go long enough without blood then you become human again. Which gets dropped quickly but it is Natalie's theory in the pilot.
@lupus-daemonis76 ай бұрын
was today days old when i found out carrie anne moss is canadian
@YttriumRapier6 ай бұрын
I'm sorry, are you telling me that the episode about addiction was written by Alison BINGEman?
@searchingfororion6 ай бұрын
Hey now, some of our best LGBTQ+ media is written by a guy whose name is pronounced "Kneel, GayMan" and his cishet self is beloved in our community. *Beloved.* (Probably also because he openly admits "hey that thing I did over 40 years ago was *not* the best look, so I'll rectify it in this adaptation.")
@harbaged6 ай бұрын
Was this episode written by Immortan Joe? Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence! Nick neeeeeeds the blood to continue… living? Unliving?
@Punmaster90016 ай бұрын
Yay Triniity!
@trishasaoirse15112 ай бұрын
i'd say blood could be a decent stand in for food addiction or another eating disorder, but also the show also seems to at least kind of run on the premise that nick could just quit blood entirely and that'd somehow make him human again? (at least according to Natalie) though by that same token Natalie being wrong about that would also go back to the food addiction, where she's giving him the well meaning but terrible advice of "just eat less"? it's a little sloppy but not completely without merit i think.
@dl-zf9dj6 ай бұрын
😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
@joearnold68816 ай бұрын
I know my decades on opiates were just like Nick’s blood addiction 🤦 Honestly, not as bad a depiction as I expected from a show of the time 😆
@ecmelton86336 ай бұрын
I think if you made the vampire element too close to real world drug addiction, then you would just have a much more dry and serious show about addiction and not a fun, cool vampire action show. The allegory needs to be loose, which is fine. Nick's Vampirism and other people's addictions are both destructive cycles that they struggle to break free from, and Nick is able to empathize and relate to their struggle and find hope in their successes. That's enough for me. It is interesting that they used sex addiction here. I think that's honestly the best comparison to being a vampire you could make since that also requires you to use people to satiate the addiction. That comparison is muddied a little since they treat Nick like he has a substance abuse problem, but he is drinking blood out of wine bottles soooo.... whatever.
@Rocketboy13136 ай бұрын
I mean, people with eating disorders have to eat to live. Maybe that works better with the metaphor?
@WrenMcNally6 ай бұрын
Nick didnt take up the ladies offer? Oft. I get it for the episode theme but Carrie Anne Moss? Ouch man just ouch. Also the blood "addiction" because its comparable to food. Nick has an eating disorder....and it feels so wrong to say that but its closer then drugs or drinking.
@devildukitzu6 ай бұрын
Wouldn’t the blood as metaphor for addiction be more comparable to say, a food addiction? You have to eat to survive, and in essence does make you stronger but too much can kill you. Idk it does seem to be a poorly written metaphor
@user-ld6th3vw8e6 ай бұрын
is this one unlisted on purpose?
@BATCHARRO6 ай бұрын
I uh...is that how sex addiction works? That having a sex is like no you can't you're back on the wagon? I think if I looked it up how sex addiction is or works I would read that you're allowed to have some sex? Genuinely asking because I don't think being a sex addict is like linear to being addicted to alcohol and drugs that way from what I can gleam from far away.