Documentaries - Addiction & Mental Health Resources

April 23, 2025

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Understanding Joy: The Devastation of a Gambling Addiction

Understanding Joy enters the mind of Joy, a 57-year-old woman whose gambling addiction has overcome her sense of morality and driven her to embezzle $700,000 from two employers. As she awaits sentencing for her crime, Joy struggles to explain her disease to her children, to the world, and to herself.

April 23, 2025

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Afghanistan: The Billion Dollar Drug War

Drug use in Afghanistan is at an all-time high. With NATO forces withdrawing and local law enforcement authorities having little to no funding, the poppy fields are thriving. In this documentary, 101 East investigates how Afghan authorities are fighting to regulate the return of poppy farming, the ramifications of the global war on drugs, and what the future holds for this vulnerable nation. Fortunately, there is one woman in Kabul who works endlessly to help addicts.

April 23, 2025

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Ketamine: Realms and Realities (Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia)

Hamilton Morris meets with Timothy Wyllie, an artist, writer and architect best known for his role in founding a controversial religion called The Process Church, and whose life has been a continuous quest to understand the mysteries of his own consciousness. He then heads to India to see industrial ketamine synthesis, and speak with therapists and luminaries in an attempt to understand the role of dissociative anesthetics in society.

April 23, 2025

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Alcohol: Adrian Chiles – Drinkers Like Me

In this revealingly intimate documentary for BBC2, Adrian Chiles takes a long, hard look at his own love of boozing. He wants to find out why he and many others don’t think they are addicted to alcohol despite finding it almost impossible to enjoy life without it. Adrian, who drinks almost every day, decides to start a drinking diary and soon finds out his intake is way over the recommended limit. He decides to visit his parents to find out what it was that motivated him to start drinking as a teenager and reveals that sneaking into pubs underage was all about friendship and being part of something, and that the allure of the social side of drinking has never really left him since his teens.

April 23, 2025

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Alcohol & The Brits – Drinking for England

This BBC2 documentary depicts the drinking culture in Britain in the 90s and the bond that Brits have with booze. It follows people who drink heavily and use poetry and song to describe their tragic, yet sometimes amusing, relationship with alcohol. They include a man who drinks a minimum of ten pints of beer a night, a fashion model who drinks until she collapses, and a woman receiving detoxification treatment in a private hospital.

April 23, 2025

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Beating Alcohol Addiction Through Evidence-Based Treatment

This documentary follows Mike Pond, a therapist managing his alcohol addiction. He was only ever offered one treatment after losing his practice, his house, his family, and becoming homeless: Alcoholics Anonymous. This abstinence-based treatment approach did not work for him, so he started looking for other ways to heal himself and others. Mike is an advocate for “compassionate, evidence-based treatments” and feels that “harm reduction, or any positive change, offers clients the best chance of beating addictions.”

April 23, 2025

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UK Drinking Culture: A Royal Hangover

This documentary provides insight into the United Kingdom’s reliance on alcohol and the history of their binge drinking culture. In comparison to other countries, binge drinking is more socially acceptable in the UK. Unfortunately, they spend about 21 billion pounds every year because of this problem, with about 1.6 million people being dependent on alcohol. Russell Brand used to be one of them and you’ll hear his speech on this topic, including his own experiences with substance abuse.

April 23, 2025

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Vodka: Friend & Foe of the Russians

This documentary delves into the drinking culture of Russia, with a focus on the country’s deep-seated dependence on vodka. The film takes viewers on a tour of both legal and illegal alcohol distilleries, highlighting the differences in manufacturing and distribution requirements between the two sectors. By showcasing the production of counterfeit alcohol and the stores that sell it, the documentary sheds light on the dangers of this illicit market.

April 21, 2025

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The New Zealand War on Drugs – WASTED with Guyon Epsiner

Guyon Epsiner unpacks the “war on drugs” through the substance many in New Zealand consider most harmful – methamphetamine. He talks with police, Australian politicians, treatment providers and the Drug Foundation, but most importantly he speaks to people who’ve had personal experience with the drug and takes time to dig into their individual circumstances.